"career breaks" or as I'd prefer to call it- buggering off.

[Trail-rat]

Has anyone regretted quitting their job and taking time out to do what they want to do ?

I work in oil and gas I get sent round the world to crap holes at a moment's notice to deal with stressful situations.

I've done it for 7 years and I'm sick to the back teeth of it now. We are both 30 ,We have a house with a significant sum paid off which is our only liability and is covered solely by the wifes income we have enough savings to last a decent length of time on one income

My wife's a teacher and has a 7 week holiday next year due to the way things work and is keen for adventure.

Was thinking about changing jobs anyway to something else. Have no worked out what -will probably end up retraining or setting up business on my own doing something unrelated to o and g. Doubtful I'd get back in where I was jobs are thin and an unpaid sabbatical isn't an option.

Toying with something silly like riding towards Mongolia.......(we do have previous for long tours together)

[jameso]

Has anyone regretted quitting their job and taking time out to do what they want to do ?

Very much doubt it. I like my job but there's no way I'd regret packing it in to ride a long way, eg a year or 3. Can't see how you could regret taking a bold step like that unless it cost you something more important than work or money. Even then, not doing it might be worse longer-term.

[Richpips]

I can't see why you wouldn't.

Go!

[Trail-rat]

Let's be clear if it was a year id be gone no question.

Wife's not going to give up her job she likes hers. It would be 7weeks together and probably another 7on my own ie 4 months or so -although that's a point for discussion with the wife but that's why im hesitant as it seems silly to give up a job for 4 months of fun

i'd like to come back down via the Pamirs back into Europe through turkey visa/wars dependant.i f I can get away with it.

[Chew]

You only regret the things you don't do

I've done it when I was younger, and although things didn't work out as planned I'd never change the decision I made.

Sometimes you just need close your eyes, jump into the unknown and have the confidence things will work out.

[Bearbonesnorm]

A little different but maybe similar enough to be useful ... at 30 I had this odd feeling that I wasn't really happy and 3 years down the line I still felt the same. The end result was selling up, leaving behind a lifestyle I'd been immersed in for as long as I could remember and a business I'd spent years building. Not so much a career break but very much buggering off ... Do I regret it? No, not one little bit.

[macinblack]

I worked oil & gas, albeit onshore UK but still weeks away from home. As soon as we had kids I had to think long and hard about the financial benefit against a reasonable family life. Coming home to a daughter who doesn't recognise you isn't the best of welcomes.

We decided that I would jack it in and take an effective 70% pay cut. There was a period of transition where we didn't have two pennies to rub together but ultimately I have no regrets and I have seen my kids grow up in a way I would have totally missed (and rued,) had I continued to work away.

It was scary for a while but money isn't everything and I have had the same job for 28 yrs now which I still mostly enjoy.

[Trail-rat]

Well Mac interesting you should say that. That's the main driver for getting out of o and g. This possible trip is a bi product.

I always said age 30 I'd quit the field and be looking to start a family.

There is no opportunity to do that where I am currently or in the near future..

Like you say life will be hard in that transition period. Dont know what your circumstances are but I've taken care not to take on wedges of debt so I can get to the point of leaving the field and been putting a heap of my field earnings aside.

Would just have to curtail my bike spending :)

[voodoo_simon]

Can you not save a years holiday up and take it in one go AND do free overtime to cover the extra time you need away?

I gave up a job once to go away for three months, realised after three weeks away we would run out of money right in the middle of Mongolia (everything was triple the price of the guide book!, so we bailed early

Seriously didn't do me any harm, found a dead end job easily enough, so all good in the end

[Trail-rat]

Doesn't work like that in my game voodoo.

I just had to fight tooth and nail for 2 weeks off that I booked in February- after 3 months away-3.5 weeks in Australia home for 3 days(1 day in office and 1 day getting a medical) and then to Angola for 7 weeks.

Came home and they asked me to go to Turkmenistan right in thw middle pf my holidays as no one else could go.

I didn't go. But I'm heading there tomorrow as my holidays are over now.

I've also recently moved to another job in same co starting in a couple of months doing 35 on 35off out of West Africa to avoid redundancy....but the more I think about that the more I'd rather just be back working in a bike shop somewhere or under a car ramp somewhere.

[Scattamah]

I took not so much a career break, but a 2/3 pay cut to bugger off elsewhere. Have never looked back, although have been hungry a few times (my own fault). I'd do it all again in a heartbeat too.

Greetz

S.

[Yorlin]

Dunno if this is at all helpful - but can you ask about 'sabbaticals'? ie a big chunk of unpaid time off. My sister took a 3 month break to cycle across Canada without having to chuck her job...

[Trail-rat]

Nah sabbaticals are reserved for the office guys. I'm a field hand now. Used to be an office monkey but was shifted out of that......i best not write on a public forum why or what I think about that ,;)

There's no love lost with the company now. They have taken and taken and taken. I did 3 months near continuous and they had a sub standard fit that I was taking 2 weeks precooked holidays.

[Dave Barter]

I've quit good jobs twice to do exactly this. The first time with a young family and no idea what we were going to do. Ended up starting a small business that I sold which led to the second job. A few years later I realised I was back in the same place so quit again to write a cycling guide book.

My view is you can over plan this and end up doing nothing through worry. It's like stopping at the top of a technical descent. You can either turn away and always regret it. Or let go of the brakes and see what happens. Sometimes you will sail down and wonder what all the fuss was about. Other times you go over the bars, get a bit of a rash but still push on. Very rarely it goes horribly wrong, but even then your life changes. For one of my mates, breaking his back led him to the women he *really* loves and a new passion for skiing and flying.

Point is that you are thinking this way. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back now. What would you say to yourself?

[jam bo]

If redundancy is a real risk, then hold out for a payout and then you have a perfect excuse of being between jobs.

[HaYWiRe]

I'm afraid I cant speak for myself, too young to be in a situation like that.

I can speak for my father though, whom worked back and forth between 2 top steel traders for 10-12 years, each time the other offered a pay rise...the stress went up.

Money was stable and he was good at his job, but he was miserable, constantly tired and I didn't get to see him much growing up.

4 years ago he walked out on it all, stuck his two fingers up and joined me working from home with my mother.

We now run a family business making embroidered patches together. While its tough, unstable, and money can be tight at times we're all alot happier. There's still alot of stress but we're in control of our own path and for him to not have a boss at his ear constantly piling on work......well nothings changed there as my mother is the same now


As for me? I'm always doing it wrong, homeschooled, no GCSEs, no college but I've worked in 7 different trades, 12 diplomas in various crafts, and set myself up as self employed at 18. Worked the markets unofficially from 11 though.

One thing I learnt, no amount of money is worth being unhappy for.

Plus if you can graft, there's always work out there

[Matt]

What Stu said, sort of

I never buggered off but I did stop working (long hours) and I'm fortunate enough to have realised

Lots of time and less money

is better than

Lots of money and no time

[Dan_K]

I wouldn't bother for 7 weeks unless you really are thinking about a new career. I take 3-4 weeks most summers and it goes so quickly that I wouldn't consider leaving a paid job for a few weeks holiday.
If the company are that harsh, go sick for a couple of months with stress, have a break and then go back. If nothing else it will give you time to think and make a decision.

[Trail-rat]

Dank.

With my thinking head on today rather than my dreaming holiday head(first day back) I'm thinking along those lines also.

Also I wasn't thinking of leaving for 7weeks.. it would have been 4 months.

I think its a combo of the post holiday blues and spending alot of my time holed up in compounds and floating prisons around the world

How ever it's good to have a back up plan.

Gonna keep saving and see where the world lies in the spring.

[slarge]

If you feel like this now when you're youngish, then do it. Some of us are at the other end, staring at 35 years service with the same company, wondering how long to keep working (I say to my 54th, the other half says another few years after that). To be honest I can't wait to get out and do all the things I don't have the time for now, but won't have the energy for in my 60's.

My eldest did a fair few years travelling and living abroad, and whilst he is now settled, he would have been a restless person without doing all that first.

One regret will be not doung it!

[petemaz]

I'm moving to the USA with my family early next year. Long story but my wife is American and her father in law is poorly so I'm going to help out with their small business (absolutely nothing to do with my current job). We're giving up absolutely everything... reasonably well paid jobs, cashing in on our house equity (praying for the exchange rate to improve!), good pensions and a degree of security. I'm 45 now and looking at this as being there to support my wife's father but also a chance to escape the daily grind (we both hate our jobs), sort of working for myself and a new adventure in a foreign land. As soon as I get there the plan is to buy a new bike and explore!

[barney]

My thoughts...

much more to life than money, I've just given up a 30 year career in a job I dislike to go to university. When I graduate I'll be earning a lot less but in a field I've a passion for.

Loving every moment and wish I'd done it sooner

[Trail-rat]

I think as a compromise i might try and negotiate my 35days into her summer holidays ..... If they wont play with that then ill have other reasons to tell em to stick it. When yer wifes got non negotiable holidays and yours are prtty rigid too it sucks.

If we can get 4 weeks on the road - we might not make it to mongolia but we could do something pretty decent.

In the mean time im going to start looking into new jobs - as much as i could likely get a seasonal job in a local bike shop with not too much difficulty - i think it would kill me inside.

I loved working the bike shop . I hated the politics in the local shops i worked in where i live now - where ordering in bulk seems to trump customer service always. Much prefered the propper local bike shop i was workshop manager for back home where you had discression

[Yorlin]

Great for you :D

I'm just going into the 2nd year of an Open University course in a field I'm actually interested in, had to cut the work hours back a bit but fingers crossed I'll get a job that lets me get out on the hills full time at the end of it!

[Trail-rat]

The other side of all this is ive just finished reading zen and the art of motorcycle maintainance.

Im a straight classical thinker , very little romantic thinking in me if any.

It also highlighted - i went to uni from school , i did mech eng , i got a degree but i never worked nearly as hard as i should/could have.

Ergo i never got as much out of it as i should have.

Ive always been the hands on do it guy rather than the theoretical guy.

How ever NOW im seeing in my own projects rather than my work - why i did all that stuff at uni. Uni never taught me how or whe to apply it - just what it was and i was too stupid to be interested in stuff i couldnt see the application for at the time.

I do think going to uni as a mature student is a much more useful prospect than what i did , and ive said it for quite some time that if i had my time again i would do something vocational first - plumbing , heating engineer , machinist and then go through school if i needed to.