Yeah just considering the approaches... I mean essentially I just want a time-out... no specific plans or anything - I realise some people take unpaid leave to go traveling which I wonder if older managers frown upon(don't know if my boss' boss who runs our subsidiary company would be happy or if it would need approval from our parent company who absorbed our finance team and can be rather inflexible). I'd read that some companies do allow/encourage it to reduce costs/ a few redundancies by allowing employees to take up to a whole year off unpaid.
Problem is that I don't know if I could pitch it as something that would save money... technically any time I spend working on a project is billable to a client at a rather large daily rate far in excess of what I earn. Any non-project related stuff has generally been paid for from a general maintenance fee by the clients too. They could easily view me taking time out as costing them money. Alternatively me taking sick days costs money, me leaving the company will cost significantly both from the gap between me leaving and a replacement being found, the direct costs of recruiter fees for hiring a new person and the slightly hidden costs of that new person taking most of the first 6months to a year to get up to speed.
Obviously I don't want to highlight that possibility or even mention it as it would come across negatively but I'd hope it would be something that would factor into their calculations... i.e. X isn't happy at the moment, its only a month, come back refreshed/motivated etc...
Apologies for the rambling post - would especially welcome any more views, especially anyone in a management position who'd perhaps have to decide these sorts of things.
