Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Taking a few months off?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 24 posts

Re: Ask HN: Taking a few months off?

#11

Post by junto »

I took half a year off and went travelling around Central and South America with a backpack, no laptop and no cellphone. I met loads of great people (other backpackers and locals), learnt some Spanish, visited old friends and new ones, saw the sights.

Best thing I ever did. It tweaked my brain somehow. I don't know how to describe it, but I certainly came back a different person.

I booked a ticket into Mexico City and another ticket home from Buenos Aires, and let my travels take me where it took me. I hooked up with people I got on with and we travelled together until our journeys went in different directions. It was surprisingly easy to just go wherever my whims took me.

10/10 would recommend to anyone.

Re: Ask HN: Taking a few months off?

#12

Post by cauterized »

To me as a hiring manager, a deliberately unemployed stretch looks very different from an unintentional one.

If you wanted to take time off - to find yourself;travel and enjoy being young; take care of family who were ill; recover from burnout; work on a side project; or just take time to carefully consider and select your next opportunity - and you could afford to do it, more power to you.

If you're an engineer who was trying to find a job for 3-6 months in the current climate and couldn't, that raises a red flag for me. Companies are falling all over themselves to hire engineers. If you're unhirable now, you're probably unhirable, period.

Note that my standard is a bit different for other specialties. The market for many other professions is much more employer-friendly and less employee-friendly. A customer service manager or a PR specialist who needed six months to find a job may be great to work with and great at their job but just battling a weak job market and absurd levels of competition and gets more leeway from me.

In any case, like a lot of things, it comes down to framing and telling a good story about it.

Re: Ask HN: Taking a few months off?

#13

Post by dood »

Best thing I did since starting work was take a few months off!

That time and space was invaluable for me, gave me the time to work on myself, to figure out what was important, and come back stronger.

I feel a lot better for doing it - but even ignoring that, I'm sure it has had a huge ROI on the missed income I 'spent' by not being employed.

Re: Ask HN: Taking a few months off?

#14

Post by k__ »

I did it for 1 1/2 year.

From 01.01.2014 - 30.05.2015.

Got a season pass for the local swimming pool.

Learned to play the bass guitar.

Did some game development.

At the end I even invested some time in my masters degree (still not finished, meh :D)

Also, since I'm living polyamory I had much time to invest in my multiple relationships.

After it I started a new job where I make 20% more than in my old one AND can do all this from home, which wasn't much of a change since I did most of my masters degree team projects already remote.

Re: Ask HN: Taking a few months off?

#15

Post by jasonkester »

It depends on how much money you have saved. If you have a full year's living expenses then yeah, go for it. If not, reevaluate how you managed to work a contract for two entire years and not sock away a lousy ten grand :).

So assuming the answer to the above is "enough", then yes. Quit and take some time. Actually, I'd recommend booking a flight somewhere interesting, then quitting. Otherwise you run the risk of spending your downtime in your apartment reading HN in your boxers.

As to your career, it will survive just fine. My resume is more Gap than Work most years, and it has never hindered finding another gig. I actually found that traveling stocked me up with lots of good stories that could be pulled out during an interview to win "this sounds like a fun guy to work with" points. It turns out that those are actually scored higher than "this guy has memorized bubble sort" points in the minds of the people that will be making hiring decisions, so I always considered travel to be a net positive for the career.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Taking a few months off?

#17

Post by sandipagr »

junto wrote: post #11

I took half a year off and went travelling around Central and South America with a backpack, no laptop and no cellphone. I met loads of great people (other backpackers and locals), learnt some Spanish, visited old friends and new ones, saw the sights. Best thing I ever did. It tweaked my brain somehow. I don't know how to describe it, but I certainly came back a different person. I booked a ticket into Mexico City an…

+1. I quit my job at YouTube to travel around Latin America for half a year and just got back this month. One of the best decision ever.

Re: Ask HN: Taking a few months off?

#18

Post by siquick »

I was in the same boat as you so I left my job last Thursday, and I'm flying to Bangkok in Thailand in 5 hours.

Excited yet terrified.

My worry has been that I am spending a portion of my life savings on this trip. But as my sister rightly pointed out, life savings are for major life events and this is definitely one of those events.

Re: Ask HN: Taking a few months off?

#20

Post by foundersgrid »

Happy to see so much support for the extended trip. I'm 11 years in, so obviously would highly recommend it too!

I've actually incorporated travel and quality time off into my daily life: 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off. I wrote a post about my experiences here which you may find useful: http://remotejournal.com/blog/how-i-remote-work/http://remot...

Post reply on HN