All the superficial filler leaves a linkedin flavored taste in my mouth. I’d prefer to hear the author’s own voice and thoughts without noise injected to give the illusion of polish.
At least in North America (and the author seems to be from Canada), having a company give you any sabbatical at all is pretty rare, and 6+ months is pure fantasy:) And not everyone likes travel, the post actually explains his reasoning pretty well.
I work in the US and every year I take 17 days off over the July period which works out (with another company holiday) to be 4 continuous weeks. The first year I did it I told my manager "I'm going to take three weeks off, but what do you think about four?". I got my three weeks and made myself indispensable enough to get the four the next year.
This stuff can be negotiable if asked for and planned correctly. It won't be offered.
The Danes do it best, they basically shut down the country for 3 months every summer and have an unspoken agreement that nothing will get done.
I've seen this before. Had a vendor become helpless after their only engineer took a 6 month sabbatical. Had to cancel orders and switch vendors because they stated "Until the engineer returns, we can not quote a delivery time." Imagine being that company...
> Cool idea, just wondering why you wouldn't travel during a sabbatical.
That is really none of your business and sounds judgemental. How about we talk about the pollution you contribute when needlessly traveling for ego boosting?
I'm almost 17 years in and there's been a few times where I had more than 10 days off in a row, and I recently had a four week sabbatical. Anecdotally, it was great and reminded me that retirement has always been the goal.
Work culture is so weird. What do you mean, it's reserved for the elites?
In my country you get to build your holiday days, so I could totally take a month off if I don't take any other days off this year. Hell, we even have a website to perfectly time it here so you get the most bang-for-your-days. lmao.
I will never comprehend this Silicon Valley mindset. You can also be a 10x engineer while drinking a martini in the balkans.
Lives don't exist in vacuums. If I could uproot my close friends and family and we all moved to the same place then I would, but that's not possible. I'm sure it's the same for a lot of people
What you need is a small weight or something that rises up a pole depending on how hard you hit it, a great visualisation.
You could even have a bell at the top, so if this small weight hits it with enough voom it could making a resounding ding sound, so life affirming.
Perhaps you could charge a 'apenny a go, and give a prize for those that can do it. Saying Roll up Roll up to passers by in a local fair.
>After five years at Shopify, employees get a paid month off to do whatever the hell they want. I took mine in April 2026.
Bleak.. Only a month after five years.
Is anyone else bothered that this was run through an LLM before publication? The tone is a distraction for me.
yes
All the superficial filler leaves a linkedin flavored taste in my mouth. I’d prefer to hear the author’s own voice and thoughts without noise injected to give the illusion of polish.
no
Cool idea, just wondering why you wouldn't travel during a sabbatical.
> a paid month off
that's not a sabbatical anyway, is it? i thought this was 6-12 months, not one?
https://intensity.systems/ is currently unstyled.
Post also has some LLM sniffs, so I'm unsure how much of the content is true.
At least in North America (and the author seems to be from Canada), having a company give you any sabbatical at all is pretty rare, and 6+ months is pure fantasy:) And not everyone likes travel, the post actually explains his reasoning pretty well.
I work in the US and every year I take 17 days off over the July period which works out (with another company holiday) to be 4 continuous weeks. The first year I did it I told my manager "I'm going to take three weeks off, but what do you think about four?". I got my three weeks and made myself indispensable enough to get the four the next year.
This stuff can be negotiable if asked for and planned correctly. It won't be offered.
The Danes do it best, they basically shut down the country for 3 months every summer and have an unspoken agreement that nothing will get done.
>The Danes do it best, they basically shut down the country for 3 months every summer and have an unspoken agreement that nothing will get done.
Is there a skeleton crew to run grocery and fuel?
> and 6+ months is pure fantasy:)
I've seen this before. Had a vendor become helpless after their only engineer took a 6 month sabbatical. Had to cancel orders and switch vendors because they stated "Until the engineer returns, we can not quote a delivery time." Imagine being that company...
> Cool idea, just wondering why you wouldn't travel during a sabbatical.
That is really none of your business and sounds judgemental. How about we talk about the pollution you contribute when needlessly traveling for ego boosting?
I could see this becoming a tiebreaker or ranking device for lumberjack competitions.
I'm 13 years into my career and I haven't taken more than 5 days off in a row. That's usually a family reunion.
I think 4-8 weeks to recharge and reset would be helpful. What's the research say?
I'm almost 17 years in and there's been a few times where I had more than 10 days off in a row, and I recently had a four week sabbatical. Anecdotally, it was great and reminded me that retirement has always been the goal.
I take 3 weeks in a row every summer, couldn't live without it.
Wish I could do that too. But sabbatical is usually reserved for the elite engineers in elite firms.
Or Europeans (:
Work culture is so weird. What do you mean, it's reserved for the elites?
In my country you get to build your holiday days, so I could totally take a month off if I don't take any other days off this year. Hell, we even have a website to perfectly time it here so you get the most bang-for-your-days. lmao.
I will never comprehend this Silicon Valley mindset. You can also be a 10x engineer while drinking a martini in the balkans.
Lives don't exist in vacuums. If I could uproot my close friends and family and we all moved to the same place then I would, but that's not possible. I'm sure it's the same for a lot of people
What does uprooting your friends and family have to do with taking a month off once in your life?
"After five years at Shopify, employees get a paid month off to do whatever the hell they want. I took mine in April 2026. Thanks Tobi!"
Charpy would like a word.
Now I have Peter Gabriel in my head.