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Comment by ahelwer | Hacker News Reader

Prolonged periods of time spent without obligation to work for pay is one of the greatest luxuries you can have in this life. People shouldn't have to wait until retirement to enjoy it. Sabbatical, basically, although even sabbatical often comes with obligations for self-improvement serving the company offering it. A lot of discourse on working hours revolves around decreasing the hours worked per week. I would also like to see people talk about a right to take 6-12 months of unstructured leave after 3-4 years of service. Seems unrealistic? What is all this wealth and automation and productivity growth for, then?

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> People shouldn't have to wait until retirement to enjoy it.

Also people should not pursue a strategy that concentrates ALL their enjoyment until retirement. It's a high variance strategy with IMO low EROI . My bias is because my father died in his 40s and my step father in his late 50s.. Both never saw a day of retirement despite saving for it.

I highly recommend a patterned approach to life enjoyment, yes this is highly privileged and I hope it will be universal one day.

Here's my strategy now that I'm financially stable:

I do something special, scaled to the time available, where they overlap I intersect them (ie, use the one weekend to build the one week)

* One weekend a month have a special plans

* One week a half disconnect, could be travel or camping, or staycation where you just chill and do stuff you love only

* Two weeks once a year - take an adventure, or a deep disconnect according to needs

* One month every 5yrs - Do something big that stretches you. Backpack foreign countries, or disconnect and focus on intensively learning a skill you intended to also practice going forward

* One quarter every 10 - Sabbatical (Sabbath) . Let your body and mind reset. Only do healthy and restorative things, celebrate every win you can remember, the only work you do should be investing in others, and do it at < 50% your capacity.

YMMV

I'm happy you've boiled your recharging needs down to a science but none of this compares with long contiguous periods of unstructured time you can choose to use as you wish. Three months off every decade? Really?

Nb the described plan is luxurious by US standards.

I have ~ 15y of experience and I have a grand total of 3 weeks PTO. My father, at my age had 5 whole weeks and doesn't understand why I don't take big trips more. Despite the trend in 'unlimited vacation', I feel it's only getting worse.

Unlimited vacation has the greatest negative spread between "how it sounds" and "how it actually works". It's incredibly employee unfriendly.

As a leader, I will fight against it every time it gets proposed.

^^ you're correct on average, this is why it's good to establish in the interview what is common, how much is taken by higher ups etc.

If they push back you can literally say to the manager "You told me that 6 weeks was normal"

> with long contiguous periods of unstructured time

Can you tell me more concretely what you're thinking? How do you define "long"? And, what is it about my list (despite it's prescriptive structure) that makes the time usage not "unstructured" ?

This is an interesting idea — there could be a sabbatical accrual of sorts.

One way this could realistically work today (with a lot of kicking and screaming about how it’ll ruin the economy) is each year of work earns a month of sabbatical, and once you’ve earned at least 2 months you can exercise your sabbatical rights, given some notice.

Companies could cap it at 6 months at a time so you don’t completely lose track of changes at work.

We could even make up to 2 months transferable between companies, and if you’re ever fired you can choose how or if you’d like to be paid out. That would help discourage retaliation against using the time, in addition to making it illegal.

I don’t see a reason that we couldn’t pass a law tomorrow that does this. Sure the economy would slow a bit, but what a giant quality-of-life gain it would be. And maybe it would actually make the economy grow faster in the long term if it encourages more private innovation.

But we already accept this idea for parental leave, this would be the same thing without the need for having a baby.

>>I don’t see a reason that we couldn’t pass a law tomorrow that does this.

Why do we need for a law to be passed? There are so many people seemingly in favor of this, why don't they just band together and start a company and then pay people to take 6 month vacations?

It's fairly common for a majority—even a large majority—of people to want something, but to be unable to make it happen without a law. Coordination problems are real, and they are everywhere.

And that's just at a basic game-theory level—quirks or dysfunctions of political systems can make passing a law extremely difficult, too, even given super-majority voter support.

I know you're asking this question in bad faith because you posted the same thing elsewhere in the thread, but the answer here is because they will be outcompeted by companies that don't offer that policy. In much the same way, businesses that use child labor will outcompete those that do not. Of course a great many people are against child labor, but you don't see people telling them to go start their own company that doesn't use child labor if they're so against it.

I mean, lots of things we could do but don't because of who actually runs this country. The US is an oligarchy by most definitions.

what is stopping you from doing this?

Is there a law that says you can't start a company and provide your employees with 6 months paid time off?

In Canada, there is the concept of sabbatical accrual (https://ett.ca/know-your-rights-self-funded-leave-plan/). When my wife & I were backpacking in Patagonia we met a Canadian teaching couple with their two children doing the same thing, except instead of one week (us) they were on a 6mo trip from the southern tip of South America up to Alaska.

Then, the same year, we were visiting family in Grenada and met a young family (teachers) with a 4yo on a 40' sailboat they were cruising around the Caribbean on.

This would not only provide a break from work but also offer opportunities for personal growth and exploration.

This could reduce the career growth penalty for mothers. Companies may be hesitant to hire or promote women to leadership positions, fearing that they will take significant time off for childbirth. However, if taking sabbaticals every few years becomes normalized, women wouldn't be viewed as a special liability for taking leave around childbirth.

Furthermore, during these sabbatical periods, there could be programs created for potential career switchers to try out new jobs. These internships could provide workers with opportunities to explore different fields and find work that aligns with their skills and interests. This could ultimately benefit the economy as a whole by increasing job satisfaction and promoting a better match between workers and their jobs.

If you don't want to work for a year then just quit your job and then get a new job later. But it's ridiculous and unrealistic to think that an employer should hold your job open for a year. How are they supposed to get work done during that period, hire a temporary employee and then lay them off when you decide to return?

If you want that lifestyle then just become an independent consultant rather than an employee. I know a married couple who does that. They work for a while to save up enough money, then take off and sail their boat around until they run low on money and have to find new consulting gigs.

If you aren't careful you'll find yourself making an argument against maternity leave, like you just did.

Anyone who ever wants to make an argument against maternity or even paternity leave just needs to experience a kid of their own. Seriously

> What is all this wealth and automation and productivity growth for, then?

Why, more wealth and automation and productivity growth to no end of course.

I know all of these things sound nice. But in the real world a lot of businesses aren't making the kind of profit that allows workers to just take time off and not generate any revenue for the company. Sure there are some that could pull it off. But most small businesses aren't making that kind of profit. Unless you are assuming workers are supposed to take unpaid time off. But then how are they going to afford to take time off?

If your business can't pay its bills without forgoing its legal and moral responsibilities, it has failed.

If it can't for any reason, it's failed. The problem is the more things you pile on, the harder it gets. The main point of a business, and the main good it does, is not employing people. It's what goods or services it provides its customers, at a lower price.

If you moralise and add more things for a business to do, the big ones will do some performative stuff and spend their vast marketing budgets on it, and the small ones will go under, and we all lose because we get less choice and higher prices.

Not really. It could be a new business that is only a few years old and is still trying to grow and become the type of business can afford these. Or an established business that lost a major client. Your viewpoint is really limited.

Most of the world has statutory minimum of vacation days that also applies to small businesses, and somehow those businesses manage to survive. They just include it in their business model and market finds new equilibrium.

All of the industries that moved to other countries that are willing to provide goods for less did not survive.

Moved from where to where and which industries exactly? Do you think this happened in the entire world? I do not see Germany as de-industrialized country, for example.

Not in the entire world. I wasn't suggesting work moves to other worlds.

That’s rather strange reading of my question.

> But most small businesses aren't making that kind of profit.

It always feels that way in a small business, but then all of a sudden a key employee needs to take a three month medical leave and somehow the business survives.

You just have to plan well, and I'm sure there will be devoted employees who answer the odd emergency email during their sabbatical.

Businesses don't start flush with cash. It's a long process to become established. Your viewpoint is that businesses just have positive cash flow at all times and if they don't it's poor planning. It's not poor planning. It could be investments need to be made in certain areas in order to grow. or they haven't established a big product or client portfolio yet. Everyone starts somewhere.

It's to provide goods and services for less, and to give a competitive advantage against other brands.

Personally in my career I would have much preferred sabbaticals to a reduced work week. I think most companies would find sabbaticals hard to retrofit though. You either screw the people who have a long tenure with the company or you suddenly have an unsustainable number of people who are now eligible for a sabbatical all at the same time.

Just a quick reminder that while paid time off was mandatory, working was also mandatory in the Soviet Union. One couldn’t just go on a sabbatical, that’d be a crime there.

> Those who refused to work, study or serve in another way risked being criminally charged with social parasitism (Russian: тунеядство)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_parasitism_(offense)

Hey if they let people work less because the machines do it, they might figure out we're "dangerously" close to post-scarcity in a lot of fields. Gandhi figured that out a long time ago and talked about it, it's why the only machine he liked was the sewing machine.

The things that people really covet will always be scarce no matter how much machinery we have. There will never be "post-scarcity", it's just a silly concept.

Indeed, that's why I said, "in a lot of fields."

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