This is Lloyd reason 1 of 3 I needed a recharge and reset. Reasons 2 and 3 are my other toy poodle Leo and my wife KB.
Working Sabbatical
A year of recharging for someone who doesn’t sit still
NOVEMBER 2024
In July of 2023 I was beginning to feel burnt out. I left my role as a Senior Product Designer at CVS in September. During my “sabbatical” I accomplished several goals:
✅ Completed Army basic training
✅ Became a certified electrician for the Army
✅ Built 70% of the furniture in our home
✅ Worked as a commercial carpenter in Chicago
✅ Found where my wife and I would like to retire
When I stepped away from tech, I thought I needed a career change. What I found was I just needed a reset. I’ve gained a new perspective on my career and have had time to think deeply about my values and prioritize my life goals. I’ve learned how to shed any ounce of ego and the true meaning of teamwork.
I don’t have a lot of visually sexy projects that are in the hands of millions of users. Most of the projects I’ve worked on are built for specific users with complicated workflows or a handful of users in a specific industries.
I love diving deep into niche knowledge bases and figuring out how to extract simplicity from snowflake problems and deliver digital solutions that optimize a users workflow.
I look forward to bringing my experience and perspective to a team that prioritizes users and balances their needs with business and product requirements.
Latest updates are the Japanese inspired floor cut out for my legs (sitting like a pretzel was getting to my knees) and a 3D printer enclosure, exhaust, and ventilation system to top of my mini maker space.
Back in tech, now what?
Something is different this time around
July 2025
I’ve officially been back to my role as a Senior Product Designer for 8 months. Everything feels lighter than it did 2 years ago when I realized I was on the brink of burnout. I’m grateful to be back at the keyboard. I work with great folks and wake up ready to tackle the day.
I have a healthier work life balance and am able to fully enjoy the experience I get during the working hours and enjoy the things that bring me joy outside of work.
Here’s a typical day. Before work I get a nice long walk to the train to go to the gym before settling in for the workday. Then I come home, eat, and cleanup before sitting down to click clack and problem solve at my desk (see pics for evolution of said desk). After work I take my two toy poodles for a walk, spend time learning Japanese for our upcoming, two year delayed honeymoon to Japan in September, work on two online code courses through boot.dev and freecodecamp (here’s my github! Hope to fill it with fun projects), and spend quality time with my wonderfully supportive wife!
What’s new during work? Healthy boundaries, productive meetings, and supportive teammates and leadership. I’m currently working on an interesting project that is helping CVS developers be 80% more efficient in building and deploying their applications and managing the design system implementation across multiple products focused on improving workflows for our internal software engineers.
I wanted my dogs to sit next to me while I work so I built a mezzanine with a low desk so I can sit at the same level as my dogs when they join me in the cloffice. There is a custom stair case and storage beneath the main sitting deck.
The original desk jammed in a closet with book case and overhead storage.
I changed the basic desk design to a framed design for integrated shelving, lighting and additional storage space. So far Lloyd is a fan of the office fortress.