Work vs. Life Balance in the Extreme

With all the "work vs. life balance" talk one hears from the executives and HR folks in large Silicon Valley corporations these days (thou shalt not burn out), it should (on the surface, at least) be surprising when folks leave with the intent of not working again for quite a while. I have three recent cases in mind. Ken First is a guy named Ken. He left Yahoo at the beginning of this year after 4 or 5 years with the company. I had lunch with him on one of his last days. During our discussion I learned that he's planning to spend the next 6-12 months not doing anything in particular. Maybe he'll travel a bit, get back into some hobbies, catch up with old friends, and so on. It turns out that he's done this a few times before. He's a big a fan of working at a company for 3-5 years, not taking much in the way of vacation time, and then taking 6-12 months off before his next job. He'll have no trouble getting another great job when he's ready to jump back in. Andy Second is Andy. He's leaving Yahoo in a couple weeks and plans to, quite literally, travel the world. He already has plane tickets to far-flung destinations, a small assortment of gear ready to pack (he's trying to travel light), and quite a list of other places he'd like to see. I'm a little jealous. I've been pretty lucky in that I've been able to travel in my job now and then, even internationally a bit. But I've barely scratched the surface of seeing our little planet. Like Ken, Andy will have little trouble getting back into the flow of things when the time comes. Nelson Third is Nelson. He's Jeremy Zawodny's blog. Jeremy is part of the Yahoo search team and frequently posts in the Jeremy Zawodny's blog