Spotlight: Katie Noborikawa
Jr. Developer, Book Lover, & Casual Hydrophobic
Spotlights are a chance to take a look behind the curtain and catch a glimpse into the lives of those who make working at Five & Done weird, wonderful, and enormously rewarding.
Welcome to another exciting edition of Five & Done’s Spotlight Series. Today we’re shouting KATIE NOBORIKAWA from the rooftops (while being both socially distant and very excited). Born and bred in Hawaii, Katie made the big move to California in 2018 to join the Five & Done fam- now we can’t imagine life without her! When Katie isn’t squashing bugs (or creating them), you’ll find her slinging snacks to her fellow employees, (hold the freeze dried crabs, please), reading as many fantasy-adventure novels she can get her hands on, and catching up on Disney+. Without further ado, the creamer to our coffee, the cuttle to our fish, the Harry to our Ron…Katie Noborikawa!
Q:What is your favorite podcast/last podcast you listened to?
Katie: “Wonderful!”- it’s a podcast about a married couple and all of their favorite things, it’s really nice to fall asleep to.
Q: What was the last thing you ate?
Katie: Uhm, Just Crack an Egg for breakfast. It comes with frozen vegetables, and you crack an egg in it, then put the whole thing in the microwave. Oh man, I have gotten laaaaazy.
Q: What was the last video game you played?
Katie: On the Nintendo I’m playing Animal Crossing, of course. I’m also playing another game on my phone called Animal Restaurant. It’s about running a restaurant, kind of like Diner Dash but the animals are cute. You can earn money and make upgrades. That’s mostly what I play with my roommates.
Q: What is a movie quote you overuse?
Katie: From Willy Wonka, “Good morning starshine, the earth says hello.” Actually, I think that’s a lyric.
Q: Tell the story of your first day at Five & Done:
Katie: On my first day, I didn’t realize there was a doorbell on the front door so I sat outside for a while. Once I actually got into the office, I worked on my new employee packet, then I met with my new boss, Joel.
My first task was to get into the new site we were working on and essentially try to break it. We were working on the Starlink game website for Ubisoft at the time.
There weren’t any real instructions, it was more about figuring out how the website worked and how all of the components connected. I ended up learning a lot about the build of the site doing it that way.
Q: Describe your dream project, or your dream client?
Katie: My dream project (I think) would be a circus website. Imagine all the weird stuff we could create to put into it. Just think of the pop-ups!
Q: What is something that you are irrationally afraid of and why?
Katie: It’s a tie between swimming over rocks in the ocean or stepping into random puddles of water on the ground- especially if I don’t know where they’re from! We give ice cubes to our dogs sometimes so wet spots that I can’t identify really freak me out. The dorms at my school had open floor showers and I hated going in there and potentially stepping in other people’s puddles.
Q: What three things do you need to be successful at your job?
Katie: I need to have music playing or some kind of noise that I can control and paper (to write things down)- I know it’s not exactly a tech thing but I’m a visual learner. Lastly, I need a cup of coffee ( coffee to Katie: ¾ flavored creamer with a little splash of coffee).
Q: As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Katie: I wanted to be an architect, but in middle school I learned that I didn’t have an eye for judging how long or wide something was. I have bad depth perception.
Q: What conspiracy theory do you actually believe?
Katie: I would like to believe that Avril Lavigne is actually a lizard person.
Q: If you could wake up in any fantasy world what would it be (from fiction)?
Katie: Probably the Mercy Thompson universe. The book series has humans, werewolves, and vampires in it. The main character is a human, but she has all kinds of special abilities.
Q: If you could time travel, where would you go/who would you meet and why?
Katie: If I could go anywhere, I’d like to go to the Samurai era of Japan. When everyone wore Kimonos and traded their stuff instead of using money…wait, that was a thing then, right?
Q: Tell me a joke:
Katie: A brother and sister take their grandma to a nursing home one day. They drop her off and say, “we’ll see you tomorrow,” then leave. The doctors and nurses are talking with their grandma, and suddenly she starts tipping over! The nurses check on her, but five minutes later she starts tipping over again. Grandma does this over and over every few minutes, and the staff run over and check on her every time.
The next day, the brother and sister come back to the nursing home, and ask, “how was your first night here?”. Grandma says, “ it’s been great, but the only thing they wont let me do is fart.”
Q: Which is your favorite Power Ranger?
Katie: The Yellow Ranger! There’s a specific Yellow Ranger from a certain series I liked the best, but I can’t remember what season that was.
Q: What kind of music gets you in the zone?
Katie: I’m listening to a lot of indie stuff. I’ve been listening to a lot of Cody Fry lately, and I’ve gotten really into Lawrence too.
Q: What 3 famous people, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party?
Katie: The Rock, Kevin Hart, and I guess Jack Black. I really love the new Jumanji movies!
Q: What are you really bad at, but enjoy doing anyway?
Katie: I usually give up on things if I’m really bad at them! I just took up gardening though, and I’m not great at that. I keep buying plants and it usually doesn’t go well, I’ve already killed five basil plants.
Q: If you could have dinner with anyone in history who would it be?Katie: Probably my grandmother on my mom’s side. She passed away when my mom was in her twenties. My mom says she was a really cool person, and I’d like to meet her. I don’t really care about meeting any famous people..
Q: What is a “phase” that you went through that makes you cringe now? Katie: In the 6th grade I moved to a new school and around that time I went through an emo phase. It was embarrassing, “I’m so sad, I’m gonna be sad now, I’m gonna be emo now.” I didn’t wear any black, or have the hair either. I would write on myself and stuff like that. Oh man, what a loser! It was more of an inside thing than an outside visual thing.
Q: A sugar daddy buys you nice things, what does a “Splenda” daddy buy you?
Katie: He probably would buy you something from Walgreens. It’s nice enough, but it doesn’t cost much.
Q: What was cool when you were a kid, but is NOT cool now?
Katie: That’s hard because a lot of stuff from when I was a kid is becoming cool and vintage. I will say, Crocs though, I was REALLY into Crocs.
Q: What show are you binging right now?
Katie: I’m binging two different shows right now. I’m rewatching Bones and I just started watching Space Force on Netflix. I really like it and would totally recommend it.
Q: How would your mom describe you?
Katie: Laaaaazy? Haha!
If you liked this article, check out the rest of our feed at blog.fiveanddone.com. If you just like Katie, you can follow her on instagram, check out her work at knoborikawa.com, or find her on Animal crossing for Switch.
