Sabbatical: Unsatiated

I poured so much of myself into the GKN Florida greenfield site, and I fully bought into the vision my GM painted for all of us. What's more, I was looked at as the informal leader of the leadership team - I was the one the GM looked to for feedback on how hard to push or when to lighten up, AND I was the one the other leaders, all of them with many more years of total experience than me and certainly more years in management than me, given this was my first formal management job. It felt like a David and Goliath story and I truly believed that having right on our side, the amazingly intangible but very real thing we were building there, had to win in the end. It just had to! It was in October that I got my first confirmation of what we all mostly privately worried about - that the plant would have to be shut down and all of its wonderful team members laid off, myself included. I was going to be given a life line, and I knew, as my GM had pointed out in my interview for the job initially, I would always land on my feet. My GM wisely let me know the official plans just before Thanksgiving knowing I would need time to process it. Yet it didn't seem to take the sting off when we actually announced it to the leadership team. I held it together when we brought it to the broader team, but just barely.

The life line I was given was an opportunity to go to a site near San Diego. I was familiar with some of the players already and the prospect of living in San Diego sounded great with one caveat, and I made it known early on - it would be very expensive and I would want to be adequately compensated for the change in living expenses. While the development of the role and offer were slow going, I also happened to have made the personal decision to sell the house I had been renting out in Arizona. So at the time that I was meant to be transitioning to a role in California, I secured over $100,000 in my checking account from the proceeds of the sale. This, along with proceeds from selling my Florida house, would certainly be a healthy down payment for a house in San Diego. But the offer development dragged on, and the clock was ticking before I'd be laid off with the plant closure.

As that was happening, I considered my alternatives. I applied to a handful of jobs in the area, but there weren't many - that was the awesome thing about our site was that it was bringing good jobs to an area that didn't really have them. So much for that! The other thought I had was, honestly, I was so tired, and with six figures in my bank account, living where the cost of living is quite low, I could easily coast without a job for over a year, probably 18 months to 2 years. So I started to seriously consider taking a year off which would still give me time to find a job before I ran out of funds. I would decompress and enjoy days at the beach. I would focus more on my health. We would visit Disney World more. We would travel. It sounded so good and was so within reach.

Having leverage - like 2 years worth of expenses in my back account - made it easy to turn down the initial offer that came from California. It was so far from the number I had in my head that it didn't feel worth negotiating because meeting in the middle would not suffice. I joke that my response was the "No heard round the world," because I was very quickly getting calls from multiple higher ups including the VP as to why I turned down the offer. My response to the question, "Don't you need a job?" Was, no, I don't. I have money to last me two years here and a sabbatical sounded really nice. If they couldn't make it worth my while, then I wouldn't move. 

One of the things on my Life List was to take a cruise through the Panama Canal, but that is challenging because it requires a lot of time and money and most people in their working years don't have that kind of time and money. But here I was having seemingly all the time in the world and plenty of money. So I booked the cruise, not knowing if it would be the start of my sabbatical or if GKN would come through with an acceptable offer for me to take, but my start date would have to wait. I needed at least this.

A talk with my Dad also scared me from the idea of a sabbatical. He pointed out that  companies often prefer to hire people who are currently working and being laid off from my last job a year ago wouldn't look too good. In the end, GKN did get me an acceptable offer, and I set my start date to be after I returned from the cruise. We thoroughly enjoyed three days in Miami followed by 16 days on the cruise ship, visiting beaches and a handful of countries in Central and South America as well as multiple stops in Mexico. Most mornings I would read and enjoy quiet time on the balcony or go for a run on the top deck, and then the boy would wake up and we'd hit the buffet. We dined at the buffet a lot - it was so convenient to be able to pick and choose since I'm a picky eater and it gave us the opportunity to try lots of different  things. We killed it at trivia, we drank, we saw wildlife and went on fun excursions. It was both a peaceful vacation and had a little bit of fun and adventure. I could do that for another 16 days, easily. He was not so keen on additional long cruises, getting a little tired of it towards the end.

A week later, we were road tripping across the country to bring our necessities, our dog and our snake to California. Once again, I poured myself into my work. At least until they put a pyscho boss over me - she was ultimately the reason I quickly left. We then moved to Palmdale and I didn't mind tackling stuff at the Skunk Works. And then another psycho boss was put over me and I got a life line again, which resulted in me moving to Texas.

At this point, the work I do doesn't feel like it makes as much of a difference. I hold my time in Florida as the absolute best part of my career and shutting that site down was the absolute worst thing. I know I'm still fortunate to always land on my feet, and I try to remain grateful for that. But I'm so disillusioned by the multitudes of bad bosses and what they do to their organizations and how helpless I am to change it, even as much as I am hopeful and try to fight the good fight.

The timing of the sabbatical when I first seriously considered it ended up being bad - it was just at the start of the COVID pandemic and so my plans to travel and do all those fun things would have been severely hampered - so it was fortuitous that between the fear my Dad put in me and the offer coming up to my expectations, I opted to continue working. But now that I'm once again financially stable and feeling a bit burnt out or in a rut at work, the idea of that sabbatical keeps cropping up. I truly probably needed it then, and not doing it weighs heavily on me. Yet, I'm not quite in the same situation financially - I don't have as much runway. I've also been spending a bit lavishly on vacations, almost like I'm rewarding myself with mini sabbaticals, but it's not enough.

I just got back from the UK and thought that would leave me refreshed. But the truth is, I sat there at work a few days back and just didn't want to work anymore, not that day, not the next day, not ever again. It's so not like me. Early in my career, I liked every new job better than the last even though I had thought the last one was the best job ever. That stopped being the case after Florida, and it feels like I've flatlined or gone downhill even. That little UK vacation was not enough. I need to rejuvenate my soul somehow. It begs the question - what would be enough? Do I need the full 2 weeks I used to take? Do I need a month? Perhaps it was less the length of time but more of the activity. I had originally envisioned treating myself to a relaxing place in Santorini, Greece for my 40th birthday. But the prospect of sharing a vacation with Sam was enough to persuade me to do something other than Greece which he refused to do, and I was able to convince myself logically that the UK was a good replacement because I'd be able to knock off a bunch from my Life List. But that view and that rejuvenating doing nothingness was missed, I suppose. In hindsight, while Sam was visiting his parents in Turkey, I probably could have given myself a few days in Greece. But timing was challenging as it was, so maybe not.

Whatever it is, I know I need something more. I have this unsatiated desire to shut off. It was so refreshing when I got to my hotel room yesterday here in LA. I realized I didn't have to go anywhere, didn't have to talk to anyone, didn't have to do anything. At home, I feel guilty if I'm not doing something productive, and there's always something to do. The house needs something, or the dishes need to be put away, or I should exercise. Here, in those moments, I was truly my own person, and it felt amazing. I think that's what I love most about cruises - they take care of just about everything for you, so you have no responsibilities (except keeping to a schedule for excursions and meals and the like - but if you don't do those, then who cares?). I'm hoping to take a decently long trip to Australia to visit Sam and do some new things and some revisits. The question is - will Sam tolerate me for an extended chill vacay with him? Haha, to be continued!