Help Wink stay in Hawaii ideas (school, university, minimum wage)

[mdand3boys]

I think that the main issue is wink is on Maui - way too limited in population and potential jobs.
Although the cost of living would be even higher - Oahu is an option, especially with the whole rail thing getting started. Me thinks there be lots of private employer needs for that multi-year project alone?

[McFrostyJ]

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

Wait, you guys know my goal is to get a better job and leave Hawaii right? It's not to work 3 jobs to barely scrape by in Hawaii for the rest of my life. That's a dead end. I think the folks who do that might have some variant of Stockholm Syndrome.

Makes sense to me. However, if you take a part time job while you are looking for something much better somewhere else, at least it will off set the cost of your insurance and might keep you from going further into debt while you are there. You also might then be able to put some into savings so that when you do find something better, you have the money to move!

[MickeyE]

Wink, you didn't list any hobbies or interests other than photography that would help us give you ideas. There have been some good ideas listed here already.

Back in the late 1970 early 1980 period I worked with a guy whose hobby was making 3D maps by cutting maps on the contour lines and using thin cardboard or poster board and raising the cutouts to their proper scale heights. You could do something similar and offer the service to architects, model railroaders, builders, landscape architects etc.

You can also take photos of buildings and scale them to proper sizes and offer them to the same people. I have seen artist that will do pen and ink drawings of houses and frame them for their owners.

Combine the two and make scale plots with scale buildings from architects drawings.

You could also offer your mapping skills to solar/wind/geothermal installers.

You could teach off-road driving skills. Also map reading and GPS use. You would be surprised at the number of people that can't read a map.

Check senior centers and see if you might teach some of your software skills to seniors. I have seen classes offered to seniors here for the Microsoft Office suite, basic Photoshop, etc.

Offer home software/computer upgrade/network setup services. Computer maintenance could go along with this. Seniors would be a good bet for these services.

Get a good pocket knife and some heavy branches and make some hiking sticks and canes - offer them to tourists.

Along the same lines, make some hair sticks, offer them as tourist goodies.

Do you have artistic skills? Get a wood burning iron and some wood and make wood burned art. You could probably get scrap wood from local sawmills for almost nothing for all the above woodworking, and tools for this can be inexpensive.

We already had inputs to put your photos on Cafe Press and Lulu and other assorted sites. I still think you can use your present camera and Photoshop skills for this.

For things that would require more expense for equipment, or possibly rental of equipment -

Pen turning, Jewelry boxes, and other small woodworking with a Hawaii theme.

(My favorite) get a torch and glass and make beads, small sculptures, paperweights etc. Build a furnace and kiln and do larger off-hand glassblowing and/or glass fusing/slumping. Can you tell I like Hot Glass? NOTE: I have taken classes in hot glass work with this in mind!

I will probably come up with other ideas later, and if you need info on web sites, books, etc. let me know and I'll see what I can come up with. This goes for anyone else besides Wink too.

Mickey

[hotzcatz]

A friend of mine does the same cartography stuff and he's from around here, has folks here, etc., but he still had to go to the mainland to find a job using those skills. This is the Big Island, though, and construction - which would be one of the larger group of folks wanting those skills isn't it? - is extremely slow for the past several years. Perhaps Maui would have more opportunities, I dunno. He found a job in California and is planning on coming back at some point, but that's where he could find a living wage. Does your job search include the mainland, Wink? I'm sure it must already.

Tourists are starting to come back, but as usual, ordinary folks getting access to them to sell them stuff is still quite difficult. Usually the galleries and regular sales routes want fifty percent of the sales price and they want that to be low so it's easier to sell things.

How much more per month do you need to stay afloat, Wink? Several hundred? That might be doable with these small jobs/ideas, etc., but if you need more than several hundred most of these ideas won't bring in that much. A flat rate fee to set up a computer system for a business (that sort of thing was listed on your skill sheet, wasn't it?) where they provide all the materials and you just put them together and make them work might be something worthwhile.

[winkosmosis]

Yeah MickeyE, the art stuff is a decent idea. I can cut gemstones (but those jobs are outsourced to India) and I can sculpt and paint a little. Though Maui is literally overflowing with artists. I think I can make money from photography because once you have a portfolio, it sets you apart from the hundreds of bad photographers. Painting and sculpture are more "subjective". Even at $100 for an outdoor portrait shoot, a camera and prime lens would pay for themselves pretty quickly.

hotzcatz, for construction what they need is CAD work, not GIS at all. GIS is mainly useful for cartography, and for managing geographic data like large numbers of parcels. I did get a job with a surveying company on Oahu to convert CAD data to GIS and make maps for their federal gov bids, but they didn't give me any work. They hired a GIS analyst working remotely from the mainland, because I told them they needed one for a big project they were bidding on, and then they cut me out. I think that is what you call "aloha".


As far as the amount I need, I'm breaking even as long as I don't have do any car repairs etc. Right now my Jeep needs about $3000 worth of work which I'm ignoring... I'll just sell it as is for about $1000 when I leave. I'll get about $4000 when I cash in my pension and vacation time, so I'll have enough to buy a beater on the mainland.

[missingpattaya]

Even though you say you want to leave Hawaii here is list of job hunting tools and websites. Don't know if you have this list of Hawaii employers but it is a start for anyone looking fo work.

Job-Hunt.Org: Hawaii Jobs, Jobs in Hawaii, Hawaii Careers, and HI Job Search Resources

[CyberCity]

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

I do have the credit available, but I can't risk not making a return.

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

Wait, you guys know my goal is to get a better job and leave Hawaii right? It's not to work 3 jobs to barely scrape by in Hawaii for the rest of my life. That's a dead end. I think the folks who do that might have some variant of Stockholm Syndrome.

Why live where you don't want?? Life is too short for that, we all deserve to live happy lives. Why put off moving, perhaps:

1) Use your credit and buy an airline ticket to where you want to move.

2) Post your possessions on Craigslist and sell them. Use that as pocket money.

3) If needed, beg and borrow from your relatives for money to put you up in an affordable place in your new location (renting a room, YMCA, etc) while you pound the pavement and the keyboard doing internet searches for a new job.

4) Begin your new adventure in a happy life sooner, rather than later. Especially if living here in Hawaii is not in your best financial/emotional interest.

[MickeyE]

OK, here's a few more:

Write some programs or apps for computers/phones/pads etc. and put them on the market - shareware or outright sales.

Build some cigar box ukuleles and/or guitars. Only simple hand tools are necessary. Don't laugh until you google them and see what some of them sell for!

Make art/useful objects from coconut shells - maybe other than the coconut shell bras we see the hula dancers wear.

Build exact scale solid models of people's boats/airplanes/cars for display on their desks, etc.

Most everything I've suggested can be done anywhere, but if you are making things in Hawaii, then they should be labeled as "Made In Hawaii", but see Made In Hawaii Festival - MIH Defined (http://www.madeinhawaiifestival.com/page3.aspx - broken link) and Made In Hawaii Festival - Home and Hawaii Food Industry Assocation - HFIA | Serving Hawaii's Grocery Retailers | About us to make sure it's legal to use, and possibly join the organization.

Also, don't some of the farmer's markets have artists/craftsmen selling their products? Might be worthwhile checking out.

Mickey

[winkosmosis]

Originally Posted by CyberCity

Why live where you don't want?? Life is too short for that, we all deserve to live happy lives. Why put off moving, perhaps:

1) Use your credit and buy an airline ticket to where you want to move.

2) Post your possessions on Craigslist and sell them. Use that as pocket money.

3) If needed, beg and borrow from your relatives for money to put you up in an affordable place in your new location (renting a room, YMCA, etc) while you pound the pavement and the keyboard doing internet searches for a new job.

4) Begin your new adventure in a happy life sooner, rather than later. Especially if living here in Hawaii is not in your best financial/emotional interest.

Basically, that is a plan that leads to getting a minimum wage job (if I'm lucky) in some strange place, and being poorer than I am now.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

Basically, that is a plan that leads to getting a minimum wage job (if I'm lucky) in some strange place, and being poorer than I am now.

If your job experience and degree has no better prospects outside of Hawaii time to address that now - get another degree online like University of Phoenix. I know some people on the mainland with online degrees in computer science and they are making big $$'s.