[themdonuts]

I'm far from retiring, but I always take a break between jobs. It used to be only 2 months, then last time it was 6 months. I'm very happy to be in tech because it allows us for that. I don't decide beforehand how much time I'm taking, instead I just reassess myself "am I still productive? Am I still enjoying doing nothing?" When the answer is no that's when I get back to work.

I love DIY so I've used that time to refurbish two apartments and catch up on gold rush. This time it's been 8 months and I'm just working on a side project.

By now I'm not enjoying that much anymore. It's been too long and I start to miss making part of the bunch. I'm also not fully using my time anymore, partially because in the end my wife is still working as well as my friends. I believe there's a limit to happiness when you do things on your own and don't share. At least I'm realizing that. I guess it's time to go back!

Also I wonder if I'll still be able to do this when I'm in my 40s or 50s. My parents always taught me it gets tougher to find a job as you get older. Obviously someone that's good will always find, but I wonder in general how aging will apply to tech.

Edit: As a follow up thought and this is what I've realized, the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement. If we are lazy on weekends, we'll be lazy afterwards. If we keep ourselves busy in the weekends with non work stuff, we'll probably be the same after retirement.

[haswell]

> the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement.

I think this depends on how one’s current job is affecting them.

If you’re near burnout or just work in a very stressful environment, the weekends are more about recovery from the week and might not be a good predictor of future choices when not stressed/burnt out.

Basing this comment mostly on personal experience since I’ve had both productive weekends and lazy/lost weekends and it generally depends on how the current job is going.

[munchbunny]

> Basing this comment mostly on personal experience since I’ve had both productive weekends and lazy/lost weekends and it generally depends on how the current job is going.

This resonates a lot. My partner is a startup founder, and fairly often their weekend is life maintenance and recovery because their work week allows nothing else. I spend much more time on side projects, but on some weeks I can tell on Friday that it’s not going to be a productive weekend by any standard except self care.

[mrfusion]

To be fair if you’re burned out for a long time at work retirement will still look like your burned out weekends since recovery can take a long time.

[haswell]

I do think that's fair. I think the important distinction to make is that there are likely two "modes" when shifting into retirement or a long sabbatical:

- Recovery

- Steady state

I think understanding that both exist is important so as not to fall into negative patterns of thinking like "I'm just wasting my time away" vs. "I'm giving my system a very needed break".

[NineStarPoint]

As a counterpoint to your edit, personally work exhausts me to a level where weekends are mostly spent recuperating/doing chores and not being productive. It’s a week or two into the breaks I’ve taken from work where I start being productive in ways I rarely manage during my working periods.

[dougmwne]

Yes that part didn't ring true for myself. I have found that burnout absolutely kills my weekends. I don't have energy for anything besides doom scrolling. And it takes at least several days off to feel my intrinsic motivation come back. After a week I'm ready to learn Japanese, not go back to work.

[dr_dshiv]

Weekends exhaust me because kids and wife vs work and colleagues.

[mrfusion]

Family meeting time?

[dr_dshiv]

Sounds healthy. How do you do it?

[mrfusion]

Just get everyone together and talk about the problems and how you can fix them.

[themdonuts]

Totally. One thing I don't miss is hating my Sunday evening just because next day I'm back at it. I never hated work, but some Sundays were terrible.

[winternett]

The part for me was having to go to sleep early every night so the next day wouldn't be an early morning drag... I hated it even way back in my school days. Quitting a job is liberating, but it's also terrifying if you can't financially sustain a full or comfortable retirement into the future.

Getting a paycheck means surrendering your ability to wake up and live your life based completely on your own internal clock, and it can be a big drain on your mental health and physical well being. There are ways of charging your battery, but it's not always possible without risk and/or sacrifice if you weren't born rich or somehow otherwise financially lucky.

Health is wealth too though... We're usually born with a "glass full of water" that represents our health - mental and physical health. Over time we drink from that glass until it's gone... Once you burn out, you're toast. It's important to always be cognizant of where your water supply is, and to try to stop letting people drink from your glass before it completely runs dry... If you're lucky, you'll turn your water into a nice vintage wine.

[jimmyvalmer]

Yes, a thousand times yes. Recalling Sunday evenings is giving me PTSD.

[Jensson]

The 2 weak break spurts you talk about are mostly temporary and happens because you do them so rarely. Long term it will likely look more like those weekends.

Best case you keep your work habits and can continue working on your hobbies like you did work previously, but worst case it will all look like those weekends.

[NineStarPoint]

Two weeks is how long it takes me to be somewhat recovered from work burnout, I’ve taken a much longer break and kept up productivity for the duration. You’re not wrong about the need to be mindful of habits thoughts. They’re not quite work habits, but no longer needing to spend energy maintaining work habits creates the room for me to maintain other habits instead. I do still have to be mindful of what it is I want to be achieving over a period of time and work to maintain habits that will push me towards those goals, but it’s a lot more pleasurable to get to choose on your own what those goals and habits will be.

Edit: A side note being, between the changes to work culture and me gaining the experience to be more desirable to work places, I’ve managed to move to a more flexible remote position that gives me a fair bit of control over my day to day. This has definitely increased my ability to be productive in my off time, due to the lowered stress on my general energy levels.

[martincmartin]

the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement.

Interesting, thanks for the insight. I've also heard that, your teenage hobbies are another source of where you might find your passion in retirement. What did you do for fun as a teenager, and how does that compare to what you do during your breaks?

[rtomayko]

Interesting to see this as I’ve never heard returning to adolescent interests being common but that’s exactly the path I followed after leaving tech. I tried getting into sound engineering because I loved recording with rented 4 track recorders and early software DAWs in my late teen years. It didn’t stick and I ended up going back further to when I found an old Honda Trail 70 in a barn when I was a kid and rode around absolutely everywhere in my local area just to explore.

I recently found the adventure riding community and built up a Husky 701 for multi-day (hopefully multi-week in the future) on/off road trips. It’s not unlike a small open source project but more physically active. I’m early 40s now and plan to explore on a bike into my 60s.

I also recently bought a ranch in Colorado. This isn’t from my childhood but turned out to hit all the right notes for me. Ranchin’ is almost impossible to make a profit at but I’ve met a bunch of people now who can’t stop doing it and I understand why. It’s a never ending stream of natural projects, big and small, that engage every part of you mentally and physically. Again here, not unlike a (larger) software project.

I went into tech because I thought I liked hacking, turns out I just like work, especially on systems you can iterate on every day and see improvement.

As for tech, I haven’t written a line of code in years and rarely use the internet except for practical things like maps and basic information. I still browse HN occasionally. Not sure why as there’s not a lot of content relevant to my current interests. It still has a little of whatever I loved about tech in the 2000-2015 era, which seems entirely gone from the wider internet now.

[themdonuts]

Actually that might make sense. I started "wood working" when I was 10yo and later helping with construction stuff. This was not child labor, but I would spend a lot of time at my grandparents. Thanks to crappy tv channels and no internet, kids would be super creative to find stuff to do.

My DIY face then went into sleep mode for many years and came back when I started taking breaks from work.

What you said might be spot on.

[fho]

> Thanks to crappy tv channels and no internet

I think you have that the wrong way around. That should be:

> "Thanks" to modern distractions like binge watching and doom scrolling people lose their creativity and drive to do anything but further please their addictions.

(somewhat /s)

[BurningFrog]

When I quit a job, I'm full of projects to do with all that time, and I am quite productive.

But I also get 1% lazier every day, and after 6 months it seems like I eat breakfast, and then the day is over.

[themdonuts]

We might be twins.

[caymanjim]

> Also I wonder if I'll still be able to do this when I'm in my 40s or 50s. My parents always taught me it gets tougher to find a job as you get older. Obviously someone that's good will always find, but I wonder in general how aging will apply to tech.

I work for 2-3 years and take anywhere from 6-18 months off in between jobs. I'm pushing 50 and it hasn't been a problem.

I hear the ageism claim all the time, but I've seen no evidence of it whatsoever. I have no problem finding a job when I put myself on the market, usually within a few weeks at most. Many of the people I work with are in their 40s and 50s. I've never heard or seen any age discrimination.

I occasionally run into people in their 50s who haven't learned anything new in decades, but they're always working. Sometimes they express fear that they won't be able to find a new job. In all these cases, it's warranted, but also deserved. Regardless of your age, if you're not keeping up with the technology trends, you don't belong in the game. You don't need to chase the latest flavor, but if you're a software engineer, you'd better keep up with at least some modern tech stacks. That applies regardless of age.

[ryandrake]

Yea, I'm closing in on 50 and I would be terrified of just "taking a break" without another job lined up. Despite what you hear here about tech workers being in high demand, and companies just handing out job offers, I wonder how much of that takes into account the Valley's well-known ageism. My last job search (about 3 years ago) took about a year and resulted in one offer which I gratefully took.

[themdonuts]

Excellent insight. Thanks!

[polynomial]

And HR depts are just fine with that? (taking 2-6 months off) I get the impression They prefer those who stay on the wheel, as they don't have to worry you will just decide you need to take a break from working again.

[moksly]

I’m not American and maybe your HR culture is different, but I have worked in enterprise sized organisations for a few decades, currently one with 10,000 employees and a relatively large HR department, and I’m curious as to why HR would get involved.

If I had a valuable employee that could leave us for 2-6 months a year (without pay), without us having support issues from the absence, I wouldn’t much mind it, and if I don’t mind then HR would never get involved. My employees work for me, not for our HR department. The only time HR processes are forced upon me is in hiring situations, the yearly employee development plan review meeting or if someone logs a serious complaint, like bullying or sexual harassment, and, that’s not because of HR, it’s because the four CEOs have decided those are the organisation wise processes to follow.

If you mean hiring processes, nobody really cares about absence periods in my experience. Sure you’ll be asked, but it’s not like it’s really relevant in most cases. It’s like hiring a young woman around 30 with no children (I work in the public sector where there are fairly good maternity leave plans), you know there is a pretty big chance they’ll have one or two kids while working for you, but if they are good, then you’ll still want them.

[themdonuts]

Yeah and actually some companies allow you to have unpaid time off (like 1 year) after you've been with them for x amount years. Companies know people need a break.

[pwinnski]

It helps if you take the six months off in the same calendar year, so end job A in January, start looking against in July-August. On a resume/CV, that's invisible! But even ending a job in mid-2018 and then looking in February 2019 didn't seem to raise any eyebrows for me. I just said I got a nice layoff package and spent some time traveling and basically got "must be nice!" in return.

[caymanjim]

> And HR depts are just fine with that? (taking 2-6 months off)

Another myth I see spread all the time. HR departments don't care about this. If they ask, it's only because someone told them it's a thing to be concerned about, and they're parroting what they heard. Make something up if you really feel like you need to address it and are afraid to tell them to fuck off. It's a stupid question that doesn't come from any legitimate business concern. In my 30+ year career, I was asked about a brief gap between jobs only one time, and that was decades ago. If a place actually cares about this, it's a good sign that you should find a job somewhere better. If you're really concerned, just leave the dates off your resume entirely, or at least leave the months off. Who cares about this stuff?

[themdonuts]

I think you don't mean how much time I take between jobs, but the fact that I quit every so often? I always ask the same question. How much is too much? However, that's one of the benefits of working in tech. It became acceptable to change jobs every so often. And it became acceptable to quit to focus on yourself... If you sell it that way.

There's also this time I had a chat with my manager and peers about whether or not to hire this guy. We wanted to hire him, but we had a feeling he wouldn't stay long with us. He was very entrepreneurial. The conclusion straight away was "it's fine, if he stays with us just 1 year, we already benefit from it". I'm not saying I'm this guy, but it sounds acceptable nowadays.

[software_guy_10]

I've heard that some companies will filter you out if you have over a 6 month gap on your resume. I'm not sure how common that is though.

[otto2]

Probably getting smaller contracts, and not being employee.