Time Out From Life: Sabbatical Lure Growing
What’s the latest baby boomer status symbol? Consider the empty desk calendar.
Although their numbers still may be small, there’s no question that more and more boomers--as they edge closer to, or pass beyond, 40--are taking sabbaticals, waving goodby to corporate life, 60-hour weeks, and switching temporarily to slower tracks.
Accustomed to measuring self-esteem through job title and satisfaction, many are taking career risks by dropping out and exploring new territories in a quest for personal satisfaction. They might be fighting burnout, or more likely they’re stalled at career plateaus and reassessing their goals. And in the meantime they’re getting back to basics, traveling, learning new skills, doing good works in the community and seizing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
Banker a Rug Weaver
Want examples? How about a bank operations manager who spends 3 months on an Indian reservation learning Navajo rug weaving? Or a Washington attorney who drops out and moves his family to Austria for 6 months? A museum director who plans a year in Italy to study ruins and complete a book?
“It’s an awakening that happens in your 30s and 40s when you realize that there is life outside of work,” says Bonnie Miller Rubin, author of “Time Out,” a comprehensive book offering both case histories of sabbaticals and practical advice for those considering the option. In her interviews with 75 people who have taken sabbaticals she discovered that “after years of running faster, jumping higher and winning through intimidation, people were talking about balance and perspective.”
Michael Kinsley, editor of the New Republic who is currently on a 7-month sabbatical in London working at the Economist, says: “American capitalism should restructure itself so that more people could do this kind of thing. It’s very healthy to have a change of pace.”
However, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics, only about 13% of America’s corporations offer sabbaticals, long a perk of academic life for tenured professors. Among them: IBM, Xerox, Wells Fargo, Time Inc., McDonald’s and Apple Computer.
But as the demographics of the work force change, with both men and women demanding greater flexibility in hours and benefits, more companies in competitive fields are considering offering a wider spectrum of opportunities to attract and keep the most talented workers.
Flexibility for Family
Margaret Meiers, an analyst for Catalyst, an organization that studies work and family issues, says: “More companies are offering personal leaves of absence, but one of the concerns I’ve heard from companies is that they want to provide flexibility for family reasons and are concerned about the equity of doing so if they don’t provide leaves for other personal reasons.”
Some old-line firms and their senior managers complain that all this is just another narcissistic me-first attitude prevalent among the boomer generation. Nancy Russell, manager of information services for the American Society for Personnel Administration, observes: “It is not especially popular among management. . . . It may backfire in some companies.”
Still there are some risk-free sabbaticals, including fellowships and academic leaves. Robert Bergman, who became director of the Walters Art Gallery 8 years ago after teaching art history at Harvard, admits, “I was riding on a different track, and when I switched gears I was naive to think I might be able to pursue scholarship.”
In September, however, the 43-year-old director will leave for a 9-month sabbatical in Italy, where he plans to study ruins of medieval palaces and finish writing a book. “I can’t squander my scholarly training nor should the Walters seek a scholar as director and then create a situation in which it’s impossible to maintain scholarly traditions.” He adds, “I’m doing this to renew myself.”
IBM Expands Programs
Among the companies that offer structured sabbaticals, IBM recently announced an expansion of its programs--offering up to 3 years for personal leave with benefits. Employees who leave must be available to work part time the second and third years and aren’t guaranteed a job at the same level if they return after the second year.
On any given day, 2,000 employees out of a work force of 228,000 (IBM is the fourth-largest U.S. employer) are on leave. “Three-quarters of those on leave are women, primarily staying home to take care of children,” says IBM spokesman Michael Shore. And although most of the remainder are on family-care or social service leaves, there is a category for “once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.”
“It is open to interpretation,” explains Shore. “If someone says to a manager, ‘I want to go water-skiing in Tahiti for 6 months,’ probably that wouldn’t qualify. But if a person says, ‘I have an opportunity to do special research,’ that would be more amenable.”
But that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity--frequently with reduced salary and benefits--is one that few employees can afford to take. However, Rubin found that more than 90% of those on sabbatical had found creative ways to finance their own leaves and had made personal sacrifices to fulfill their dreams.
Her own story is as good a case history as any. As a feature writer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Rubin faced constant deadline pressures and began resenting the pace. “I think it’s a hollowness or emptiness. It’s doing things that used to excite you and suddenly leave you feeling empty. . . . You just don’t feel you can get yourself up to do it one more time.”
Rubin discovered that her architect husband, David, was also receptive to change, suffering from “growing disenchantment and a feeling of being underutilized, unappreciated, and lost in the shuffle of a big firm.” So they went off with their 5-year-old child to live on a kibbutz in Israel, followed by two months of traveling in Europe.
“I felt I had been living a script my whole life,” she says, “but on this trip there was an open-ended quality.”
