A Call For Sabbaticals

The idea of a sabbatical – time away from work – to do some research, learn a new skill, or pursue a personal passion, may seem far-fetched. But the truth is that if you do the same work for a long period of time, whether that’s twenty years, thirty years, or even just five or ten, you will hit a wall where you start to experience lack of creativity, and burnout.

When I was younger, the women in the office used to joke that the only accepted way to take time off from work was to have a baby. But let’s be honest, taking a sleep-deprived leave of absence to stay home with a baby isn’t exactly a break. Later in my career, the only accepted way to take time off from work was due to long-term illness, and we’re not wishing that on anyone.

And yet the drive to constantly meet the bottom line, increase profitability, and please Wall Street can just sap all the energy right out of you.

If you want to be inspired, check out this TED talk by Stefan Sagmeister, on the Power of Time Off. If you don’t have time to listen to the whole talk, just listen to the first three minutes, or read the interview with Stefan in Print Magazine.

Feeling creative yet?

While traditional sabbaticals have their roots in the academic world, I was surprised to find that there are a number of Fortune 100 companies that offer paid sabbaticals as a benefit to their employees. But there’s too few of them on this list.

What’s in for the company? As this Business Week article notes, companies that offer sabbaticals view them as tool for recruiting and retention, and see increased loyalty as a result.

Have you taken a sabbatical? Let’s dream a little – if you could take a sabbatical what would you do with the time?

What Can We Do With Wasted Minutes?

Imagine this – you are sitting at your desk, listening to muzak, and waiting for the conference call to start. Tick tock… minutes go by.

Oh, wait – you don’t have to imagine it – it happens every day. Three, maybe five minutes into the scheduled start time, the call will start.

When the leader of the call does finally join, there are introductions and making sure everyone that is required is on the call. Most likely, as this intro process is taking place more people will join, and one of them will ask, “So who is on the call?” and the intros will start all over again.

If you’re the person that usually keeps everyone waiting, I hope you feel at least a little bit guilty.

And if there are charts to be used for the call, I can confidently predict that someone on the call will not be able to find the charts. This could be because they were left off the distribution list (maybe or maybe not by accident), or it could be because the participant is unorganized and drowning in a mass of unread (i.e. red) e-mails.

Again, if this is you, I hope you feel guilty.

Fifteen minutes into a thirty-minute call, the meeting actually begins.

Maybe I’m exaggerating – but not too much.

Now the call has started and twenty minutes in someone new joins. They have a good excuse – they got stuck on another important call. I figure there’s a 50-50 chance this person will listen and catch up. There’s also a 50-50 chance they will disrupt the call and try to start from the beginning – again.

And let's just hope that none of the call participants are on a cell phone in an airport. We all know that if that's the case, there will be unbearable noise on the line until another attendee breaks in and begs the traveling participant to use "star 6" to put their phone on mute.

I hate wasting those minutes, so let’s start a list of things we can do with those extra minutes while we’re waiting, instead of just messaging the other attendees to see whether they are also listening to muzak, or to commiserate on how badly the call is going. I’ll go first:

• Make a cup of hot tea
• Check the stock prices for the day (or if you're feeling brave your 401K)
• Make a grocery list – put cranberries on it
• Catch up on the latest news on the Galleon Insider Trading Scandal
• Check out the latest post on When Fridays Were Fridays, or your favorite blog

Your turn – what do you do with those extra minutes?

Galleon Watch – 11/19/09 Update

The news on the Galleon Insider Trading Scandal has quieted down as the deadline to indict was extended:

Thursday November 5th – The SEC amended their complaint.

Saturday November 7th – Bloomberg reported on the twenty individuals now charged.

Monday November 16th – The Wall Street Journal reported that that deadline for the prosecution to bring an indictment has been extended until December 16th.

Thursday November 19th – The Dow Jones Newswire provided more details on AMD’s buyout of ATI Technologies (Galleon’s largest holding).

Catch up on the prior installments of the Galleon Watch here.

With the indictment just four weeks away, what do you think? Will the charges hold?