| tldr: My year off was fantastic. Not life-changing, but amazing. In the years since I find individuals reaction to hearing of my year off very telling in what they'll be like to work with and their take on work/life balance. May have set career back... by a year-ish. I would do it again. I'd spent around seven years as part of an early-stage startup team, built up company to 500+, was worth tens of millions on paper then actually made nothing. I needed a break, and thought a couple months off would be great. I had hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles and had planned to go first class to India, train around, see the Himalaya, then end up on a beach in Thailand as the finale. Still hope to do this, some day. Instead I stayed in N America: skied Mt Rainier and several other Cascade volcanoes, rafted Grand Canyon with my parents, lived in Yosemite Valley climbing for nearly two months, climbed many amazing places in Cascades, Rockies & Alaska. I ended up spending around ten months off chasing adventures. I did receive phone calls about jobs from people who knew I was off, wondering if/when I'd come back to reality. One of these calls lead to my next job, consulting at Microsoft for several years. With over a decade passed since I took this year off I can say concretely I have no regrets. It may However, I do have friends who've taken extended time off who've felt it hurt their careers... I've noticed a curious thing: I now intentionally tell people about my year off when interviewing, etc, and find reactions to my extended time off very telling indicator:
reaction: "Hmmm, really. What can you tell me about your work ethic?"
=> Do not work for someone like this, period... "A year off? I hope you got that out of your system and are ready to work hard here at Widget Corp."
=> Likely have zero concept or concern about work/life balance; will question your time-off requests. "I could never do that, sounds so scary but incredible... did it hurt your career?"
=> These people are fine, and will love your slide-show screen-saver; intentionally pause your powerpoint every now and then to give them a taste because they'll enjoy it. "OMG really??? I've always wanted to... where did you go? how awesome was it? would you do it again?"
=> Almost 100% of the time people with this reaction are awesome. Find these people. |