January 9, 2014 at 7:28 am
I think it's less about what you do and more about what you don't do. Let go of technology for a while and let go of work responsibilities. I spent a summer off and did no one big thing, I relaxed and did more with the kids and enjoyed the luxury of having free time to use as I pleased. Nothing wrong with having a goal or two, but don't make it into a race or something that if you don't get done the break feels like a failure.
January 9, 2014 at 7:39 am
I think it's awesome that your company is giving you an opportunity to have a sabbatical.
How about crafts, such as sewing, jewelry making, woodworking, etc.? It's even something you could do with your children if they're not too young. I recently took a day off from work to take a pen turning class and I really enjoyed it. Now I have to buy a lathe in order to make more pens...
If I got the opportunity to have a sabbatical, I'd probably do some combination of crafts, learn the trumpet - using my husband's trumpet that has been neglected since grade school, and exercise a lot more.
January 9, 2014 at 7:48 am
chrisn-585491 (1/9/2014)
Get your ham radio license and build an Elecraft K2: http://www.elecraft.com/k2_page.htm (Also Colorado needs more emergency response folks, take a class.)
Do this! Ham Radio is something you can enjoy anywhere you go! 🙂 I would encourage you to learn Morse code while you are at it...
--... ...--
-.- -... --... .--. .--. .-..
January 9, 2014 at 7:54 am
Congratulations, Steve, the achieving 5 years with Red Gate, and thus being able to take a sabbatical! I've never worked at a company that offers its employees sabbaticals, so I can't advise you. I wish you all the best in figuring out what to do!
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
January 9, 2014 at 8:22 am
Based on your questions, role, and employer, you might want to try something customer facing. You could choose to identify and aggregate groups of database users by some important dimensions. The universe of data base professionals probably lumps together based on specific needs, trends, and business type. It would be helpful to everyone to describe customer sets so your organization could focus it's efforts on important topics.... maybe by segment.
Just a thought.
January 9, 2014 at 8:32 am
No ideas on what you should do with your time but I would LOVE to see you solicit a bunch of editorials and articles from your community of readers to run while you are gone. I am sure there are at least 30 of us who would jump at the chance to write one editorial article for the newsletter.
January 9, 2014 at 8:52 am
I didn't notice in the editorial or any of the links an explanation of what Red Gate expects a sabbatical to be about. It sounds like they have definite ideas. What are they? I think that will make it easier to give suggestions.
January 9, 2014 at 9:03 am
You've mentioned in the past that you run at least some for fitness. You could go for 6 weeks of fitness crazy. It's now well established that exercise helps mental processes not to mention the stress relief you get. You could sign up for a triathlon, get a coach (there are TONS in Colorado) and at the end of 6 weeks do one. If you don't swim now you'll find it can be amazingly technical and precise which will scratch the tech part of your brain. And it will leave time for the family/ranch stuff.
If it was me though I'd probably go for helping a non profit.
January 9, 2014 at 9:40 am
For me a sabbatical, if it needed to be non-work related, would have something to do with sports. Since my oldest son is really into baseball I'd try to do one or more of the following:
Baseball coaching clinics so I could offer better advice to my son and the other players I'd coach as part of coaching his teams
Baseball umpiring clinic - when my son gets out of little league/cal ripken we could umpire together at that level.
Broadcasting school. I'd love to be able to do play by play or color even for a day.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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January 9, 2014 at 9:46 am
Give me the $10,000 and I'll tell you what you should do. Just kidding.:-)
If this is an annual benefit I would try looking long term at what you want to accomplish in life, outside of work.
I've always wanted to learn a different language, like Spanish. I would take a course to learn a language and then maybe the next year be able to go to a foreign country that speaks the language I learned and volunteer teaching, building, help after natural disasters.
What a great benefit, congrats Steve.
Now if I could only find a job that offered that. 😀
-------------------------------------------------------------
we travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us
Don't fear failure, fear regret.
January 9, 2014 at 9:51 am
Build something or tackle a challenge on the ranch that is outside your comfort zone? Maybe the kids will want to help.
January 9, 2014 at 10:31 am
January 9, 2014 at 11:02 am
What a wonderful opportunity! I'm jealous! 😀 I've tried to convince our company to do either a sabbatical or allow a day/week off for volunteer work, but so far no luck. 🙁 You've already started your own business, read a lot, write, exercise, do fun things like play softball and ski, so you're pretty well-rounded, so this is a tough decision!
I have seen several suggestions to work with Habitat for Humanity. I would also second that, and I suggest participating in the Carter Work Project -http://www.habitat.org/newsroom/2013archive/10_11_2013_2014_CWP_announcement. It's only a week long, so that doesn't really help you for 6 weeks (and maybe it's more "vacation" than sabbatical?). I went to Haiti with them a few years back and it was a wonderful experience - probably the hottest, hardest, sweatiest, tiring, most rewarding week of my life!
Considering that you normally work from home, maybe spending your sabbatical back in an "office environment" working for a nonprofit would be a great change of pace. (... It might be more "draining" than "recharging" however?)
Other thoughts:
- a deep-dive in "big data" and some of the other database platforms or data analytics
- doing some web - or mobile app - development
- learn to be a farrier (brownie points with your wife! :-P)
Keep us posted on your decision-making process. It will be fun to live vicariously through you! 🙂
January 9, 2014 at 11:24 am
A sabbatical with guidelines, tasks and a requirement of a yield (no matter how soft the requirement and openly defined) is kind of losing the meaning of the word.
January 9, 2014 at 11:26 am
:arrow:Here's an idea for you that would benefit you, your family, and your friends as well.
Learn more about taking good care of our bodies. I mean learning more about how much damage we cause our bodies because of the food we eat, the liquids we drink, and anything else that goes into our bodies, like the soap we use, the lotions, shampoos, conditioners, sunscreen, deodorants, etc. - literally anything that gets absorbed into our bodies. We SQL Server guys are always looking to improve our databases, servers, etc. - so why should we not want to improve our bodies and make sure they are operating as efficiently as possible, while minimizing the possibility of "crashes" or "downtime"?
Our bodies are so amazing and complex, and they can overcome so many attacks by foreign substances every second of every day (kind of like how we try to prevent our systems from getting hacked). But what happens when our bodies are overburdened by all of the bad stuff out there?
I've been doing a lot of research recently in my free time because my wife was diagnosed with something "with no known cure", but I have come across people who have recovered naturally, by eliminating toxins and allowing the body to heal itself because it was able to regain its normal function after the constant bombardment from these toxins stopped (because of the people changing what they ate, drank, and other things they put into their bodies).
Leaning more about this stuff will really change your life as well as those you care about!
So if you weigh this sabbatical option against others, ask yourself what would give you more benefit - learning something that can potentially improve your overall health (and your family's health as well, and whoever you wish to share this with), or some other sabbatical option that you are considering?
(Even prior to my wife was diagnosed, my interest in this was piqued after watching a couple of documentaries on Netflix - "Foodmatters", "Food, Inc.", and a few others as well.)
Best wishes on your sabbatical! 😀
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