This is the first post I’m making on my transformational leave itself, but of course the journey began long before now. I will expound on some of these points in future, but as a summary to kick things off:
- The Enlightened CEO, Dilip DaSilva, of the company where I work, Exponential Interactive, launched a kind of “mini-sabbatical” scheme for staff with tenure of at least 4 years; duration of sabbatical proportional to time at company, as you’d expect.
- The aim of these Transformational Leaves, as the programme is formally known, is to give employees the chance to do something they wouldn’t otherwise have the option of doing in a normal holiday (as the usual 2 weeks wouldn’t be sufficient) or even between jobs (as you can’t really relax in that scenario)
- I’ve been with the firm for 7 years, so can take a six week break. The one snag/feature with my situation is two young children, a full-time working wife and no nearby retired relatives or other free/long-term childcare. So no waltzing off to Indonesia to climb Puncak Jaya, or to Kazakhstan Cosmonaut College or anything like that. The kids are part of the team.
Fast forward a year or so from programme launch then, and here I am in a salubrious airport hotel at Heathrow ready for a 7.30am flight tomorrow to Toulouse where stage 1 of the trip begins. We’ll be picking up a boat at Castelnaudary for 2 weeks on the Canal du Midi – and frankly, it’s hard to know what to expect! The weather forecast has veered around a lot, and at the moment it seems warm but with significant showers (this would be fine – stair rods for 14 days uninterrupted would not). The canal itself is described as beautiful, scenic, historic and all that, but also referred to in melancholic terms mourning the filthiness of the water (apparently boat traffic here dumps their latrines straight into the canal, which seems unconscionable) and the blight of the once-mythic beauty (the signature plane trees of estwhile ubiquity have been devastated by disease). So something of a mixed bag in store. Equally, with the kids, they may take to the idea as great fun…or not. Worst case, we’ll have a day or two of tears, but probably not even that. They are good girls. Generally.
Ok, time to close down now, as 2YO is asleep to my left, 5YO in a cot bed to my right and the cold remnants of the Traveller’s Favourite, a Club sandwich with fries and a Peroni need to be moved out of (what’s the equivalent of earshot or eye’s reach for noses? Noseshot? Nose’s reach ? I’ll go with noserange) noserange. Ah, and Aurélie has finished in the bathroom, so that’s my cue. :o)
Timsformational 