Most of my interviews for the Anti-Hustle have focused on hobbies or side hustles. But what happens when the thing you love isn’t career-driven? For Adam Melfa, quitting his full-time job to pursue a career as a woodworker provided an avenue to that joy.
When I ask Adam what made him take that leap, the short answer is, “I was clinically sad.” The long answer is tied to his job and how it made his mental health take a dramatic dive.
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Adam Melfa is 34 and has worked in higher education for a decade. As a support staff for faculty and students at a local Maryland university, he worked in the Student Outreach and Support office, which they refer to as SOS because they help people in need.
His job was rewarding because he helped people during particularly vulnerable times.
“I had a really rough start to college, then I met that one person who put me back on course. I ended up graduating and going to grad school because one person was there at the right time. So it felt very, very dear to me to be in that type of role.” He said.
Quitting to save himself
Unfortunately, the work began to grind him down. Working in this field attracted people who were natural caregivers. The university administration had figured out that if they make these staff members work harder, they could ultimately avoid hiring more people.
Adam continuously asked for more support. But, it never happened. He wound up being the only social worker for the entire student body, almost 25,000 people. And it was taking its toll on his mental health.
Adam gave his supervisor a timeline. If he didn’t receive support within a year, he would leave, even if he didn’t have another job lined up.
He wound up quitting – no new job in sight. Before finding a new source of income, Adam decided to fully reset and heal so he could feel like himself again.
Woodworking let him pursue other joys
He had always enjoyed woodworking as a hobby. During his break, he kept up the practice as a way to keep busy. But soon, he began to think that just maybe this hobby could turn into a viable career. He and his wife, Allison, sat down for a discussion. They decided that he would treat it like a business for four months. If he hated it, he would get a full-time job. If he liked it, he would keep working on it for the next year.
That was in November of 2022. Since then, Adam has created a business, called Zenith Woodcraft, that is slowly but surely thriving. He’s constantly busy with projects. He has close to 1,000 Instagram followers.
While many people enjoy a practice outside of work that brings them joy, for Adam, woodworking allowed him to pursue other joys.
“One of my biggest passions in life is people – caring for and supporting them. People would describe me as aggressively friendly.”
Maintaining relationships in his life is a high priority. At his university job, he was using this ability to empathize daily, to the point that when he got home, he wasn’t able to provide this care to the people he loved.
It felt heartbreaking. Stepping away from that work was a relief. His new career had turned into a source of income and given him the means to return what he actually enjoyed.
“My hobby is loving people around me,” said Adam. “I can do that again now. That is, a bit of a funny way of looking at it but that is really what this transition has been for.”
Woodwork has always been a part of his life. His mother grew up on a farm. Whenever something broke around the house, she wanted to fix it herself. She was also a parent who believed that letting kids play with dangerous tools meant they would learn how to use them safely. From a young age, Adam remembers being handed kitchen knives but warned not to cut his fingers off.
Eventually, Adam started learning how to make things, due to what he calls “a really dangerous combination of “access to YouTube and friends who worked for Stanley Black and Decker.”
Finding fuel efficiency mode
Now, he finds that he’s never been busier. Even on the days when he’s doing more administrative-type work, it has never felt oppressive, problematic, or draining, the way his old job did. As someone with clinical depression, Adam views mental health as a battery.
With depression, it feels a lot like having a malfunctioning battery, where it drains faster than it should. Recharging is harder than it would be for someone who doesn’t have depression. Working at his full-time job used to make it even harder. Now that’s completely changed, he’s on what he calls “a fuel efficiency mode”.
Breaking it down
Running Zenith Woodcraft is exciting for Adam. He loves the mentality of looking at a chair and breaking it down into steps to figure out how to make it.
His wife Allison isn’t always fond of this habit. Adam jokes that she will show him something in a catalog she finds beautiful. Adam will immediately say, “I can make that!” Though this works 90% of the time, this isn’t always true when it comes to other items like a TV.
One of the most challenging aspects is figuring out how to price his work. Normally when Adam works, he’s either listening to music or an audiobook. Having ADHD means that he often slips into hyperfocus mode. He’ll start at 8 am, then look up again and it’s 8 pm. Being able to give clients a rough estimate of how long a project will take is a struggle in this capacity.
“I can’t tell clients that it's gonna take me like two and a half audiobooks, and I'll be done. That's not an ideal measurement system!”
Adam loves working with live-edge slabs, pieces that maintain the natural wood elements. Instead of a typically two-by-four, a piece can have the ripple of an edge or still has some bark. It makes for unique pieces that Adam enjoys working on.
Finding solutions to weird problems is a bonus of the job. A customer recently approached Adam for a custom piece. He, his wife, and his two stepdaughters have a family game night where they play Dungeons and Dragons. The customer didn’t have much room in his house but wanted a table they could attach a TV to in order to project the games and fantasy maps onto it. Adam wanted a piece that was useful but also sleek, so his customer could put it away if needed. He created a table with an attachment that held Plexiglass to put a TV inside. Encountering obscure situations where he can literally create the answer is so satisfying for Adam.
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