Birthday Gifts
Today at work I got several gifts:
1. A Target gift card, because everyone at my job gets a random gift card on their birthday.
2. Butter cookies, because my boss bought several giant cans of butter cookies to celebrate all the birthdays in November & December.
3. I successfully convinced the VP of my department to kill a product I inherited, so that's nice.
4. A sabbatical. Wait, what? Yes, today my company rolled out a sabbatical plan. Any employee who has been with the company for eight years is eligible for a four week paid sabbatical in addition to their usual vacation time. You will specifically not be allowed to check email or voice mail or come into the office. After the first eight years, you are eligible for additional sabbaticals every five years. As it happens, I've been there eleven and a half years, so in 2014 I can take a sabbatical if I like, or I can save it for a future year. And then in 2019 I get another one (everyone at 8+ gets one in 2014, but not more because otherwise there would be people with 4 sabbaticals on tap).
What would you do with four weeks of sabbatical time? Travel? Lock yourself in a room to learn a new skill? Read books every day? I'm not quite sure myself, but I'm sure I'll think of something. I'd be a fool not to take advantage of this. My gut feeling is that I'll wait until at least 2015 to take my sabbatical, which gives me plenty of time to decide. Among other advantages, if I wait until 2015 my car loan will be paid off which will free up a lot more cash for a month of traveling if that's what I opt to do.
1. A Target gift card, because everyone at my job gets a random gift card on their birthday.
2. Butter cookies, because my boss bought several giant cans of butter cookies to celebrate all the birthdays in November & December.
3. I successfully convinced the VP of my department to kill a product I inherited, so that's nice.
4. A sabbatical. Wait, what? Yes, today my company rolled out a sabbatical plan. Any employee who has been with the company for eight years is eligible for a four week paid sabbatical in addition to their usual vacation time. You will specifically not be allowed to check email or voice mail or come into the office. After the first eight years, you are eligible for additional sabbaticals every five years. As it happens, I've been there eleven and a half years, so in 2014 I can take a sabbatical if I like, or I can save it for a future year. And then in 2019 I get another one (everyone at 8+ gets one in 2014, but not more because otherwise there would be people with 4 sabbaticals on tap).
What would you do with four weeks of sabbatical time? Travel? Lock yourself in a room to learn a new skill? Read books every day? I'm not quite sure myself, but I'm sure I'll think of something. I'd be a fool not to take advantage of this. My gut feeling is that I'll wait until at least 2015 to take my sabbatical, which gives me plenty of time to decide. Among other advantages, if I wait until 2015 my car loan will be paid off which will free up a lot more cash for a month of traveling if that's what I opt to do.