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30
January – March 2014
www.deltalivingmagazine.com
By Charleen Earley
charleenbearley@gmail.com
N
ot everyone knows what
they want to be when
they graduate from college. Sean
Aiken was one of those kids. He
graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree
in Business Administration, was the
top of his class with a 4.0 GPA, and
was the valedictorian – but even
with all that, he had no idea what
he wanted to do in life. So at age 25,
he decided to work one job a week
for a full year. He later wrote about
his experience, published a book
called The One-Week Job Proj-
ect (2010), and is now working on
designing high school curriculum.
I had the opportunity to ask him
about his current projects, and the
one-year project that had him test-
driving jobs all over the country.
While doing The One-Week
Job Project – since the companies
donated your pay to Make Poverty
History – how did you pay for your
own personal expenses?
I had a few hundred dollars in
savings to get me started, but I had
no clue how I was going to keep
it up for a year. For the first five
weeks, I stayed in the Vancouver
area so I was able to live at home
(in my parent’s basement).Once the
project started, I wrote a post on
my website, OneWeekJob.com, to
try and find a sponsor to help with
travel expenses. Luckily, NiceJob.ca
contacted me inWeek 5 and agreed
to give me $1,000 a month. If that
hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have
been able to continue. During the
entire year, I didn’t have to pay for
accommodations. I stayed with my
employers, with people who con-
tacted me through the website, or
I used couchsurfing.org. I also kept
costs down by taking the bus, hitch
hiking, or using Craigslist rideshare
whenever possible, which made the
experience all the more exciting.
What are working on now?
I've been speaking at schools
and conferences about my expe-
rience. I wrote a book that was
published by Random House, we
released a feature length documen-
tary, and are currently working on a
high school curriculum. I spoke at
TEDxVancouver in the fall; here is
the link to the video: http://youtu.
be/VcMyX5R4dzs.As word about
the project has spread around the
world, we've launched One Week
Job projects in Australia, India, the
UK, and the USA. In each country,
there is a resident who is complet-
ing the 52 jobs in 52 week experi-
ence. My next big project is creat-
ing a school with the focus of help-
ing others discover who they are
and how they want to contribute to
the world.
Where were you born and raised?
Where do you live now?
I was raised in Port Moody,Brit-
ish Columbia, a suburb of Vancou-
ver. I currently live inVancouver.
How did your family feel about
your year-long project?
They were supportive, but at
first they thought I was a bit nuts.
Can’t Find a Job?
Try Test-Driving
Them Instead
Sean Aiken: 1 Man,
1 Year, 52 Jobs
After a while, they realized the im-
portance of what I was doing and
how it was inspiring others.
What jobs did you enjoy the
most and why?
My most enjoyable gigs were
the weeks where I was working
with some great people. It was not
necessarily the job I was doing,
but my coworkers that made the
experience memorable. The ones