How would you like to take time off and sail around the world, take cooking lessons in Paris or write the Great American Novel? In ”Time Out: How To Take a Year (or More or Less) Off Without Jeopardizing Your Job, Your Family or Your Bank Account” (Norton), Bonnie Miller Rubin tells how she did it and how you can do it, too.
Q-What made you want to take time off?
A-I had never backpacked through Europe at 19 or 20 as I should have. I got out of school on Friday and went to work on Monday. At the time I was proud of it. Now I think it`s sick. As I had often been told, ”the next chance you`ll have is the senior-citizen tour when you`re 65.” I didn`t want to wait that long.
Q-Was there more to it than that?
A-Yes. As a reporter, I had spent 15 years recording the parade, interviewing people who had taken risks and followed dreams, and I found I was living vicariously. This was my way to be a participant. So my husband and my son, who was 4 at the time, and I took eight months off. We spent two months traveling through Europe and six months on a kibbutz in Israel.
Q-How do employers look at time off on a resume?
A-A lot of employers like people who are courageous, risk-takers. One woman said six months traveling up and down the Mississippi looked far more interesting on her resume than another six months at her public-relations job. Companies are becoming more flexible. And good people have options. In general I found that people who take leaves are overwhelmingly doers. They`re self-confident, exciting people who want to learn to play the cello or to travel or to write a screenplay. They`re not couch potatoes who are headed for six months of ”Gilligan`s Island” reruns.
Q-Aren`t you taking a risk that your position will be filled by someone who can do it better?
A-Yes. So I advise getting it in writing that you can come back to your job. But the fact is, they can turn off the lights even when you`re there. No one has a ironclad guarantee about anything anymore.
Q-How can families financially swing a leave of absence?
A-It cost us about $6,000 for eight months, but that was partly because the dollar was very strong in 1985. We stayed on the French Riviera for $20 a day. We got free room and board on the kibbutz in exchange for working. It`s all a matter of priorities. Someone spends $18,000 on a car; someone else drives around in a clunker. We knew the trip would sap our savings but that we`d still be young when we returned. We still have another 30 years in the workplace. The coffers will fill up again.
