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It’s not every day that a person asks a total stranger deeply intimate questions about their life, career and goals. But there I was, on the phone with someone I had found on the internet. And I had big questions, like, “How much money have you saved?” “Why did you quit your job?” And, “What exactly do you want to do with your life?”
Even before becoming a journalist, I have been ceaselessly curious — probably uncouthly so — about the philosophies people hold when it comes to their jobs, routines and money. I am the passerby who cannot resist glancing into people’s living room windows if the blinds are up. But aren’t we all? I like to think there are gems to be gleaned when people are honest about their successes and troubles, especially when it comes to finances and work.
So I perked up when the term “micro-retirement” — essentially a career timeout — came across my social media feeds a few months ago. Anecdotally, I had also heard stories of people, largely corporate professionals, who had quit their jobs to travel, work on a side project or spend more time with family. As a reporter who covers breaking news and digital trends for The New York Times, part of my job involves keeping an eye on online shifts in global conversations.
But if people were leaving their jobs in these uncertain economic times, how were they planning it? Why were they doing it? And the million-dollar question (no pun intended): How were they funding it?
I began scouring social media for mentions of mini-retirements and asked around my own social network. My editor, Joel Petterson, and I agreed that we wanted to find people from a diversity of industries who had used their hiatus for different experiences. I also wanted to find people who would be transparent about their finances.
But talking about money can be difficult. Some people I initially spoke to were reluctant to talk about their experiences publicly, perhaps out of fear that strangers on the internet would criticize their choices.
On social media, I eventually found Marina Kausar, who had worked in finance and technology and had taken three months off in 2023 to decompress. I found another source on Reddit, where she described her career break in glowing terms. They and others I spoke to expressed a similar sentiment: They were unhappy, overworked or otherwise unfulfilled in their daily grind. They were worried about what their retirements would look like, given factors like climate change, the economy and their own physical health. So they had decided to take a career hiatus.
I wanted to learn more about this pivotal juncture in the lives of younger workers, and how they had saved up for it, so I reached out to labor trend researchers. That’s how I found Kira Schabram, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the University of Washington who has studied sabbaticals.
In a study she conducted with 50 professionals between the ages of 20 and 40, she found that many of the workers returned from their sabbaticals with a greater sense of confidence or better work-life balance, or had turned their time off into a drastic career change. But many had also reached a level of financial stability, or had reached a high point in their careers, before they made the leap. I had to wonder if many of these retirees had benefited from familial wealth and whether this trend was confined to the super wealthy.
But that didn’t seem to be the case for some people I spoke to. Some said they were happy to forgo paying student loans or burn through their savings if it meant feeling a freedom they hadn’t felt since they were children: precious time spent with family members living far away, or mornings meandering hiking trails that would normally be spent under office lights.
As I was writing the article, anxieties over the economy and the stock market were spiking. I wrote and rewrote, in my mission to explore some of the complicated feelings micro-retirees had about their time off.
When the article was published, I expected some skepticism around the feasibility of mini-retirements and warnings about their longer-term costs. After all, it’s hard to take even a micro-weekend if you’re living paycheck to paycheck or don’t have access to health care.
What took me by surprise were comments from people old and young who wanted to share the lessons they had learned after a life of work. One person recounted a decision to step back from work after watching a parent grind up the corporate ladder; he passed from brain cancer shortly after retirement. Other people said they had taken advantage of medical leave policies to treat their burnout and wondered if the issues were harder to solve than simply taking time away.
“Death is coming either way,” one commenter wrote. “We might as well take risks and see if we can make our lives better by trying something different.”
Reading those comments, I’ve found myself contemplating the same questions in the bustle of the evening commute home. Since age 15, I have worked, part time or full time, in one job or another: dishwasher at a local cafe, tutor for high school students, translator, reporter.
When, if ever, would it be a good time to step away? It’s a question I might need a weekend, or maybe even longer, to mull.