Ever Dream of Taking a Sabbatical? Here’s How Our Columnist Did It
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Before we get into today's episode, Your Money Briefing is exploring what you need to know to become a homeowner and sustain your home. You can get early access to our series, Buying a Home and Keeping It, on WSJ Special Access, available only for WSJ subscribers. Now on to the show. Here's Your Money Briefing for Thursday, April 11th. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. Many of us take a week off from work to recharge. WSJ's work and life columnist Rachel Feinzig asked her boss for a sabbatical and took several months off.
At some point during the pandemic, I found myself making this list on my phone that I called dream break of all the things I would do if I had time for myself. I have two little kids. I have this big job that I love. But I did start to feel like the things that weren't work started to feel like they were impositions or distractions. And I came up with this idea to ask for a stretch of time off.
Rachel will join us after the break.
Listen at schwab.com slash washingtonwise.
WSJ's Work and Life columnist Rachel Feinzig took a four-and-a-half-month sabbatical from her job, but the results weren't what she expected. She joins me now. Rachel, what's the difference between a sabbatical and vacation time?
The sabbatical is generally longer. It stretches out in front of you in a different way. It's something that has been common in academia for tenured professors. They get a certain amount of time off after they've been working for a certain number of years. It feels like this luxurious time to just better yourself, which is foreign to many of us who are just sprinting from week to week trying to get through our working lives.
Why did you decide to take a sabbatical from work?
I think some point during the pandemic, I found myself making this list on my phone that I called dream break of all the things I would do if I had time for myself. I have two little kids. I have this big job that I love, but I did start to feel like the things that weren't work started to feel like they were impositions or distractions in my life because work just felt like And so I wondered, who else was I or what else would I do? What would it feel like to spend more time with my kids? And I came up with this idea to ask for a stretch of time off.
You write the work and life column. So spotlighting a work life balance is a big part of your job. But what was it like asking your boss for the time off?
It's so funny because I think I wrote a piece about sabbaticals years ago. I've been writing about this stuff for more than a decade. And I've been working since I was 22. I mean, I just went straight into the workforce and never stopped, which meant that I was really nervous to ask for it. It's something that we write about at really forward-thinking companies, but it's not something that everyone is taking that's like this well-worn path that's still this almost weird thing. I mean, someone in the preschool parking lot, I told them I wasn't working right now, but I still had this job. You know, I hadn't totally walked away. And they were like, is it like a maternity leave? Like, it's not a maternity leave.
It's this confusing thing. So I was really nervous to ask.
You mentioned when thinking about the sabbatical that you'd spend more time with your kids and spend some time decompressing and relaxing. Was there a hard list of tasks and activities you had in mind for the four and a half months?
Oh my God. So the dream break list on my phone was like, you know, run a marathon.
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