I get asked a lot if I am able to work in Hawaii and what it’s like, so my intention is to shed some light on what I’m up to.
I left my job at Conformis in 2019, my last day at work was the day Brian proposed. I worked my way up from being a CAD engineer to Lead MES (Manufacturing Execution System) engineer over the course of 7 years. That role meant that I was sole owner of the manufacturing automation system; the maintenance, the projects for updates, upgrades, it was a lot. The factory worked 24/7. I didn’t have anyone else to help, and if I were to go on vacation the only way I was completely off the hook was if I was out of cell service range. There is a lot that goes into leaving a job, but it came down to no longer wanting all that stress on my shoulders, particularly for the amount of money they were paying me (70k for 24/7 availability was not enough). I also had no where to go promotion wise.
In comes NECI, which reached out to me via a recruiting company on LinkedIN. Their interview process was what really gave me confidence I was going to the right place. The interview was tough, and I knew it would take decent quality people to get through it. It also gave me the opportunity to go from working inside a facility to consulting on projects as the outside vendor, more opportunities for promotion, less 24/7 availability, and more take home… on the order of 30k more.
Two years later and I am very happy with my decision. When I was working in Cambridge, NECI opened a remote office there for me and a couple people to take advantage of. It was a five minute walk from home. Then we went remote because of COVID and I’ve been able to be remote ever since. Currently I work Hawaii hours, but I start at 7am after my sunrise walks, so it’s decently early. That’s noon EST.
It’s been working nicely with my current project, because by the time they sort out the details and hand the work over to me, I have about 6 hours of work I can get done before I hand it back to them for review. My day to day currently is working with a company called ElevateBio who partners with researchers who want to learn more about gene therapies to cure things like Alzheimers. I use a software (Syncade) that records data, shows step text, collects signatures, calculates, and does a whole host of other things through a step by step process. This used to be, and still is, done on paper in some places. So I worked on building Elevate’s process into this Syncade so that an operator can just click buttons and sign off and get calculations and data collected.
This project is coming to an end for me shortly, and I’m moving on to a project that is working with this data to present it in a manageable, readable format. I’m not entirely excited about that, it’s something I had to do at Conformis and there were a million people who had a billion views on what data should look like or what data we should be looking at, but it’s something new and data is the new “in” thing so I’m sure it’ll be valuable for my career.
They very generously offered unlimited PTO this year, so people could take some extra time after a pandemic year with so much stress, which I value tremendously and used a lot to travel from Connecticut to Hawaii. I’m hoping they keep this for another year.
In the meantime, I offered to support Conformis as a contractor. They took me up on that offer and paid me $90/hr (there’s a lesson there, somewhere). So I worked to train a new hire for them that was replacing me. For a lot of reasons this training has continued to the present time. However, after Brian telling me multiple times I work too much (particularly when I was recovering from COVID) and me just realizing it’s probably the better for the both of us, I am ending that relationship in the coming month. I also want to be able to enjoy Hawaii while we’re here. It’s one thing to work extra in gray boring Connecticut during a pandemic, and another in beautiful Hawaii. I’m not sure if I’ll miss the extra money, but I certainly won’t miss the extra stress.
I also work for TED. This originated back when I was desperately paying off my student loans. It’s really basic, I answer customer service emails (Yes, if you write into contact@ted.com, I’ll be the one answering the email if it’s the weekend. No one’s ever taken me up on that, though). It’s not usually more than 4 hours on the weekend which I fit in while watching a movie or watching football etc. They’re also really chill and don’t need me, so if I don’t work a weekend or two they are very ok with that. I also work customer service for their conferences, so this coming week I’ll be online helping out with behind the scenes stuff. They pay $15/hr. In the budget in my head, I use this to pay for way more than it can actually pay for. I’m not really sure why I do it still, but my colleagues are fun and it has certainly improved my customer service voice and ability to deal with people. They love that I’m in Hawaii because the conference is in California and I can cover the late late hours. (I start working at 5pm my time).
And finally, I’ve made a little money taking photos! Who knows where that goes.
So, yes, I still get to work while in Hawaii and it’s Hawaii hours. It can be a little lonely. I do often joke with Brian that if someone offered me a full time job teaching people to snorkel (is that even a thing?) I wouldn’t say no. I am the envy of a lot of military families to be in the position I’m in, and I try to remember that when I am looking outside at the adventures that await me.