[statquontrarian]

It was mostly accidental: first, I took a 3 month leave of absence to explore a midlife crisis. I came back announcing I'd like to go half-time to do a masters degree which my company was okay with, and when that was over, I just never went back to full time and my company was okay with it.

I guess and hope that simply directly asking for this is another strategy (and what I plan to do if I ever lose this job); otherwise, performing the above sort of misdirection, consciously, might also help justify the exception for management and peers.