You know what they say about plans
They say that retirement is wasted on the old. Instead of waiting until the tail-end of your life to enjoy the fruits of your labour, you should take mini-retirements throughout your career where possible. It’s something I’ve done for the past 20-odd years and it’s great for your mental health.
Usually I take anywhere between 3-9 months off to relax. I don’t set an end date, I just go with the flow and see when I feel like getting back into the game. One time I decided to take a summer off - only to be offered an interesting contract a few weeks in.
The longest mini-retirement I’ve taken to date is a year, which I mostly spent travelling. I purchased a one-way bus ticket to Paris and left late one evening waving bye to my mother and youngest sister at the bus station. Almost a year later I was back home after having travelled around the world having one of the best (and sometimes scary) times of my life.
Before the pandemic started I decided that I would take another year off. When my current contract came to an end I would relax, chill-out, enjoy the summer with my family and do some cyber security training. That was the plan anyway. Covid-19 came along and I ended up working from home, taking a contract extension.
Many months into the pandemic and I finally decided to take that break, declining a further extension and completing my contract on April 1st 2021. April fools? Hopefully not.
The (rough) plan was to take a break from working for one whole year, April to April. I’d figure out what I wanted to do next, while updating my cyber security skills along the way, plus a healthy amount of what I call relaxing: reading, watching TV streams, gaming, and catching up with friends over a (virtual) beer or two.
That kinda happened-ish, along with some other stuff thrown in. I became a chapter leader for OWASP Suffolk, joined the board of ISTN: the Ipswich and Suffolk Tech Network, and started researching the cyber security industry in and around Suffolk. I also agreed to do various talks, write some articles and provide some free consulting. Somehow I became more busy than when I was doing paid work!
I have no regrets though. Although all meetings were virtual, I’m meeting a lot of interesting people and I’m learning about the local IT community. I’ve been helping out with several Meetup groups and I’ve been doing behind-the-scenes admin and marketing for one or two. I also helped start The Thirsty Robot: a virtual pub where patrons are free to talk about whatever they want. It’s become a guilty pleasure of mine and I look forward to catching up with everyone. You can read more on that here: http://www.thethirstyrobot.co.uk/
Several months on and I’ve been nominated to be vice chairman of the ISTN and head of the Community sub-committee. I’m still carrying out research into the local cyber security industry, and I’m working on growing the OWASP Suffolk chapter so that it supports everyone interested in cyber security and offers free education on the subject to all. And every other Thursday evening I can still be found in the Thirsty Robot having a good catch-up with everyone.
I haven’t given up on the original plan. I’m still teaching myself cyber security tools and techniques while completing online challenges. I figured that the worst case scenario is that after a year if I do decide to go back to the daily grind I’ll have a new set of skills to offer clients. Or maybe I’ll take longer than a year. We shall see!
All the best,
Dave
David Flint is owner of Mobile and Secure Ltd, a cyber security researcher, Chapter Leader of OWASP Suffolk, Vice chair of ISTN, and head barman of The Thirsty Robot.