The year off isn’t the fluffy unicorn bit. The fluffy unicorn bit is that you think your choices should have no consequences.

If you want to take a decade off work, you certainly have that right. But that doesn’t mean employers should pretend that you have an extra decade of experience, just as your choice to forgo a degree doesn’t mean an employer should pretend you earned a doctorate.

Ah so discriminating against the posh kid who took a "Gap Yah" is ok now.

Presumably we should discriminate against all 4 year graduates as they took an extra year to graduate's who do it in 3.

> Presumably we should discriminate against all 4 year graduates as they took an extra year to graduate's who do it in 3.

We do. All things being equal, the person hired a year earlier will have higher pay. As they should, since they have an extra year of experience. Assuming equal candidates, the one with more experience will do a better job (second system syndrome notwithstanding).

What's absolutely amazing to me is that one of the biggest complaints about unions you see is how pay is tied to seniority; the worker who's there the longest gets the most pay, not the one who "deserves" the most pay.

And here people are arguing the exact same thing!!! One extra year of time working means higher pay!

That's exactly what a lot of union pay scales are structured like, but that's evil unions; this is somehow just right???

You’re misunderstanding. Rewarding for merit will bias towards higher pay for experience. More experience will in general lead to higher merit and thus higher pay.

Also HN, despite the meme, is not a hive mind. Some here are in support of unions and don’t consider them evil.

Oh, you totally should be able to take off for a year. The same way you can elect not to go to university. Or look in the laser. You just have to live with the consequences. And in many, many professions, a year or so out of practice means that you are measurably worse. Maybe (but likely) worse than before you left, but almost certainly worse than you could be if you would have used that year to get better at what ever you do.

In software, a year off might mean you get better. If you have more time to work on your own ideas and explore new paradigms instead of cranking out fizzbuzz all day in between commutes, you can become better.

Totally. Same goes for sabbaticals in science, for example. It really depends on what you are doing in that year though, and how fast your particular field is moving.

Are you still going to be worse after a month of work?

Are companies that short-term-oriented?

Depends really on what work you are doing. Garbage collector, probably no. Helicopter pilot, probably yes.

>Are companies that short-term-oriented?

Publicly traded ones. There are only 3 months between Earnings Reports.

> I also find it deeply depressing that "a person should be able to take a year off work" is now utopian, fluffy unicorn ideology on a forum for forward-thinking technologists.

There is nothing stopping you from taking a year off work. Go right head. You won't get paid, and they won't hold your job, and you will have gap to explain when you are interviewing for a position when you want to return. Don't expect the world to bend backwards and ignore realities so you can take a year off.