When Being Unproductive Saves a Career

I second the thought that teachers and social workers should get sabbaticals. I would add child care workers. Not the administrators, but the people who work in the field with overloaded caseloads, insufficient resources and inadequate salaries could use some compensated time off to contemplate, enjoy life and recharge their batteries.

The situation on this planet at present is unnatural but probably not unique. Humans, possessed with enough intelligence to create a civilization, have managed to arrive at a level of competence such that the physical needs of our species can be provided for. Instead of evolving beyond the evolutionary competitiveness that brought us to this juncture we have doubled down on it in a war of all against all. The acceleration of technological change has not been harnessed for the benefit of the individual but for the man made idol which now controls our lives. It is not the invisible hand, it is the colossus bestride the world and we are its slaves. It will destroy us. That is my hypothetical explanation for the Fermi Paradox. Sabbaticals are definitely in order.

Fantastic concept but note to the reporter: Please don’t keep perpetuating the idea that sabbaticals are routine in higher ed. Universities are under attack on so many fronts — and the perception that faculty always — or ever — take sabbaticals is less and less true, especially when 70% of faculty nationwide are adjuncts who don’t even have benefits like health insurance. Many public universities including the University of Georgia (a top 20 public university and the state’s flagship institution) have no sabbaticals. I left higher ed after 12 years of a tenure track career because I was completely burned out and there was no break in sight — only increasing demands to win scarce federal grants and years of 60-80 hour work weeks. As some people say, “In academia, the only reward for hard work is more of it, like the prize at a pie-eating contest being more free pie.”

It's nice that a few people at the top are getting these paid sabbaticals. But really everyone needs them - although I'm not holding my breath that will happen in the U.S. I am an occupational therapist who works directly with patients in hospitals and students in schools. I see a lot of horrifying situations, especially in my hospital work. Ten years ago, at 39, I saved $28K in 18 months, took a year off, attended an intensive language school in Vermont, then went to live in Brazil and Peru to write a book. I quit my jobs and left my life behind in order to do this. I had never taken a large amount of time off in my adult life. I was not in a position to take time off after high school, college, or graduate school. Like most, I had to keep working. What I most realized during that time away is that Americans are slaves to their jobs, myself included. Most of us would be better off if we worked less or not at all but of course that's impossible for most. Re-entry back into the work force was extremely difficult for a variety of reasons. And to this day, my goal is to work less, not more. I do not think it matters what field you're in - work for most people is soul sucking - and a sabbatical shows you that up front and center. But sadly, for most Americans, a sabbatical is a far fetched dream that will not happen unless they take matters into their own hands and quit their jobs. This is unrealistic for most, however it can be done with careful planning.

"It’s easy to misunderstand sabbaticals as little more than extended vacations." "During her time off, she went white-water rafting and sailed down a zip line (“I’m not someone who meditates. I decompress by getting active”), and also spent quality time with her family." Yes, I agree. In the context of this article it is very difficult to distinguish a sabbatical from a vacation. Also, some people who don't work for non-profits also work hard and have stress. Few of these people, however, have time to write dissertations justifying extended paid vacations.

Sabbaticals are not "de rigueur" in higher education, as stated in this article. Only tenured faculty have this privilege. And today only around 50% of faculty are tenured; the rest are adjuncts (with no benefits, let alone sabbaticals), non-tenure track faculty, or staff who also teach.

I loved my career in the nonprofit world and thankfully had bosses who gave me the time off and freedom to be creative that I needed. As our society develops further it will have an opportunity to become a much higher paid and more progressive service economy. We should be paying our caretakers the most and make those careers the choicest in order to maintain a mentally and physically strong and thereby more secure country.

This working too much is also true in other sectors. Life is much too short. Nobody on their death bed ever said they wished they had spent more time working.

Disconnecting from the internet, and the cell phone, are also important things to remember when taking time off. Studies show that social media can be a stressor, and needless to say, the news lately adds stress and reinforces a sense of “helplessness” that adds to the general feelings of burnout.

Who is picking up the work responsibilities for these non profit leaders who are taking a sabbatical? For employees covering for those on these leaves, my guess is that they are working twice as hard for however long these leaders are gone. It's nice that these leaders get to take time off...not so nice for those who are left behind picking up the slack with increased work loads.

My blood boils when I hear "sabbatical" being used as a euphemism for "vacation". As a productive professor, I spend my sabbaticals---and my summers---working as hard as ever. Columns like this one contribute to the widespread misconception that academics are lazy and spoiled. (But I'm not anti-vacation. If the US copied France and mandated five weeks of paid vacation for every worker, I suspect the need for vacations relabeled as sabbaticals would vanish.)

"During her time off, she went white-water rafting and sailed down a zip line (“I’m not someone who meditates. I decompress by getting active”), and also spent quality time with her family." During my 4 decades or so in academia I have enjoyed sabbaticals. I have though never used them to go white water rafting or hiking or meditating. In my world, you submit a research proposal and plan for the sabbatical year and after the year submit a report on research accomplishments. Vacation rarely qualifies. Academics will hopefully use the year to make progress on their research and subsequently to get promoted. I have never met any academics who are not in contact with their department, students and the like during that year. Some might even spend the time at their university libraries, unencumbered of course by teaching demands. Burnout is also high among teachers in high schools and elementary schools. Some systems allow for sabbatical. Most teachers use the time to finish off graduate degrees or to take supplementary courses or to participate in lectures, all of this to allow them to improve their teaching performance as well as to catch their breath. I never met a teacher on sabbatical who used the time to go rafting. I have met many though in my classroom finishing their MAs. What Courtney E. Martin describes and proposes is not a sabbatical. It is rather a year-long paid vacation. Nice.

Or, at a small organization, you could take that $53,000 and split it up among, say, ten grossly underpaid employees. That could make a huge difference in their lives. At the small nonprofit I worked for, the not particularly hard-working executive director enjoyed a huge pay differential compared to the rest of the staff, many of whom could barely afford their housing costs and health-insurance contributions. The evidence provided in this article for claims is weak: How do we know those EDs "anticipated leaving their current jobs in two years or less" because they were experiencing burnout from working too many hours? Perhaps they were pondering higher pay, new challenges, higher-profile organizations, or less dysfunctional boards. As for development directors, they are often encouraged to leave if they do not produce.

It’s not just the leaders who need a sabbatical, although their jobs are secure enough for them to take one.

Maybe sabbatical would not be needed if we simply had longer vacations. Friend of mine is a tech exec from Europe and a hard-working guy but would not move to US to work until he found a company willing to give him 6 weeks vacation a year. Don't forget European governments mandate weeks of vacation for full time workers. Americans can at most afford a week or 2: vacation packages geared to the US are shorter than those geared towards other countries.

Part of the answer might be hiring enough people so that we're not all constantly on. Before companies became obsessed with having fewer people in order to save money we used to be able to have real vacations from work and weekends without being bothered about questions that could wait until Monday. The added plus would be that people who are looking for jobs but currently unable to find them due to various forms of discrimination, might get some work.

Seems like another wonderful way to use all the free time we will have due to AI and robots. It is really just a salary adjustment, or paid leave and would certainly generate a more excited workforce and less regret about not spending time with family or on hobbies. And certainly, folks in a more production type of job might enjoy service work, for 3 months it would be exciting and gratifying.

Civilization exists because we have time to think. When we have food and security we can gaze into the fire. If we continue to work and not gaze into the fire, well, we are missing a lot of potential for humanity. Why would we do that? Because there is a moral code between the State and Religion to control the working habits of Citizens of the State.

Would have to add this condition of burnout can be found in creative fields too. Some suffering it can just go dormant while others flip their approach (Philip Guston painter). Part of this might be a heightened sense of boredom with the self, especially if some recognition has occurred early in career. Not everyone is going to be a one-horse Rockwell for an entire life. There's just so much going on to be so narrowly focused otherwise become a dentist. It can pay off to just go fallow and come back recharged rather than blindly push on and end up Pollock instead of de Kooning. Just saying.

The article notes that the people suffering burnout the most are the people "who do direct service work." That describes the social workers who work with families in horrifying situations, the teachers who work with forty students in a class, the doctors and nurses who work with homeless or dying patients, etc. Yet the sabbaticals, laudable though they are, are for the people who head these organizations, not the members who do the day to day work. I'm all for these sabbaticals, but I beg the sponsoring organizations: let's have sabbaticals available for some of the hard-working people in the trenches as well.

I've always thought it was interesting that most people spend 17 years (K-12 plus 4 years of college) getting used to a cycle: two semesters with a lengthy summer break and a moderate winter break, plus a spring and potentially fall break. Summer break was a way to decompress before moving on to the next level of learning. A time to travel and spend time outdoors and meet with friends and family. But as soon as each student graduates, he or she learns a harsh, painful lesson: there are no more breaks. No spring or fall or winter break and most certainly no summer break. There's nothing separating one level from another, or time to decompress or unwind. Each day flows to the next, as does each week. PTO days become an employee's most valuable commodity. Perhaps we could avoid burnout if we had mandatory time off; time where a business is closed and no work may be done, even if just for a week. Time away from the job without checking emails. I don't think our work-obsessed culture will every adopt such a system, but it certainly would be nice.

So why do only the executives get sabbaticals? If it's cost effective to give paid time off to the highest earners, then surely it would be a good investment to give sabbaticals further down the salary scale as well.

This is interesting too me right now as my daughter was just telling me that she no longer knows how to relax. With 2 children at home, one in college, and a full-time job as a Social Worker, she feels there is always something that needs to be done. Her husband works hard as well, so there is always something that needs doing. By contrast, my married son, no children, gets sabbaticals from his tech job that requires nothing but planning a wonderful vacation. I am thinking of taking my daughter to a local day spa on her birthday. That would be real time away.

Its worth noting that academic sabbaticals are usually quite different in that they aren't a sort of forced decompression but a chance to get away from the usual carousel of classes, meetings, and exams so that the faculty member can *do* something different. At least in my institution, you only get a sabbatical with an approved plan of what you will do during that time (start a new research program or a new collaboration, write a book, develop a new teaching strategy, etc.). Kind of wonder if maybe there should be some allowance for part of the time being labeled "recharge batteries". [Note to those thinking that every summer is a recharge break: most faculty at Tier 1 research schools are busy in their summers doing the research they can't do in the academic year].