One year. That was to be the approximate length of my sabbatical. One week ago I thought I might break the sabbatical early. Now I am back to the original plan. One year.
I knew this sabbatical was going to test my mettle. I knew it would slosh around emotions like a great hurricane. Hell, I was warning myself about these vicissitudes only a couple weeks into this hiatus. My Mandarin studies are a known source of emotional disruption. The effects of professional enterprise–individual projects and the occasional offer to re-enter Big IT–are difficult to predict.
At sabbatical start I planned for “about one year”. But I admitted to friends and family that the right job offer might change my mind. There are so many things I want to accomplish in a sizable and growing organization. I want to build an organization of trust, accountability, reward, empathy, and positivity. I would not pass up a chance like this. Such an opportunity landed on my doorstep several weeks back.