Hey everyone, just a quick note to ask for your help in promoting One Week Job. We’re currently (as in this second) gathering Digg votes for our article today on CNET. So if you’ve got a moment, it would be a big help if you went and dugg the article:
http://digg.com/world_news/Job_wanted_for_one_week_only/
Thanks for your help!
- Sean
Ian was able to call ASUS today and it looks like the computer is going to have to be sent away to get a new hard drive. They have told us that we should get the computer back by next week which would be great as we will be coming back through Montreal then.
In the meantime, Ian tried to install the program he uses for editing on my computer, though that didn’t work either and almost crashed my computer in the process so that was the end of that.
As I am sure you have realized by now, there will be no new episode tomorrow and Ian will not be able to start working on it again until next week when he gets his computer back. We are hoping to have the episode from my week as a Veterinary Assistant up by the end of next week.
Until then, we will still continue to blog and post photos to the Road Journal section.
-Sean
It seems the worst has happened. Last night, while working on the upcoming episode of One Week Job, my laptop crashed. No word of warning.
For a fraction of a second I saw the “blue screen of death” and then all went black. The computer restarted but didn’t get very far. The harddrive suddenly started emitting a terrible scratching noise, like a skipping record player.
It could only mean one thing…complete hard drive failure.
The laptop, a brand new ASUS G1S, had been great up until that point. No idea why the hard drive decided to pack it in. All three of us have spent last night and the entire morning trying to salvage the data – which includes 1/3 of the completed episode from the animal hospital.
No word on whether we’ll recover the data. Thankfully, all the previous episodes I backed up on an external hard drive. The current setback is more one of time, rather than catastrophic consequence.
Today is also a holiday so we can’t call ASUS tech support, or ship the laptop off for repair.
Anyone out there in internet land have a spare laptop kicking around they don’t need? Just thought I’d ask…
We finished up at the Hespeler Animal Hospital yesterday and are heading off to Montreal tomorrow. Louise treated Ian and I to lunch yesterday which was really kind of her. It was great to have some time to sit down and chat away from the hospital setting.
We spoke about her business, work-life balance, managing the level of professionalism with employees so not to risk the loss of authority or respect, having a positive attitude, and she told us about this cool cycling event she is participating in this September. It’s to raise money for The Farley Foundation. Animal care can be quite expensive and The Farley Foundation helps seniors and disable persons on limited incomes pay for the necessary treatment of their pets. Louise is raising funds for the 100km bike ride, here is how to make a donation to help her out. Just say the donation is to support Dr. Louise Langlais, Hespeler Animal Hospital for the ride.
Next week is slightly different because my job starts on Thursday and goes to Monday. It is because I will be working with Roots Canada and helping out with their involvement in the Toronto International Film Festival. So, we are taking off to Montreal until next Wednesday, where hopefully we will be able to catch up on everything and get somewhat organized for what will be a busy next few weeks. If you are in town and want to meet up, give us a shout.
I wrote an article for TheTyee.ca that came out today, it has my 5 must read blog recommendations and I wrote a paragraph for each one in the article.
We will be in Toronto from Wednesday night to the following Monday and we are not too sure where we will be staying as of yet. Any ideas, send them our way!
Cheers,
-Sean
First off, Sean and I want to thank everyone for their continued interest and support of the One Week Job project. I’ve only been on the road with Sean for 4 weeks, and it’s been an incredible experience.
That said, we need your help! Yes, you, reading this on your computer screen right now.
We need you to help spread the word about the One Week Job project, allowing as many people as possible to join the journey and learn from Sean’s weekly experiences.
In a perfect world, we would have thousands and thousands visitors to the website. In reality, this only happens when good people of the internet help the message go viral.
So if you’d like to help out, we’ve put together a brief list of ideas. If you’ve got some of your own, please share with the rest of us in the comments!
BONUS: Join the Facebook Fan Page
1. Blog About The Project
If you have your own blog, write a post about your own thoughts on the One Week Job project. Better yet, embed your favourite episodes right in your post and offer your own commentary on what your thought of it.
2. Email Your Friends
Be the first on your blog to discover something new! Write an email to your friends far and wide, telling them about the project, with a link back to the site. There’s no recommendation as powerful as the word of your friend.
3. Email your local newspapers/radio stations
Visit the websites of your local media and ask why they haven’t written up a story or spoken about the One Week Job project yet. If they have, suggest a follow up story and spread the word among the masses!
4. Talk about it around the watercooler
Need something to chat about at lunch? One Week Job is the perfect awkward silence filler. All you have to do is start with, “Did you hear about this guy who’s traveling around working a job a week?”
5. Download the show to your iPod
Did you know you can download One Week Job in you favourite format, and take it with you on your iPod? Watch it in the car, on the bus, and let curious people you meet have a look at the show.
6. Ask your favourite websites to write about it
If you have a few news/entertainment sites you like to visit, why not ask them to write about One Week Job? (Especially if this website happens to be BoingBoing, Steve Pavlina, or Seth Godin).
Once again, thanks to everyone who’s followed Sean’s trip thus far. We hope to entertain, enlighten, and inspire for many weeks to come.
Ian and I left Vancouver just over three weeks ago now when we started filming of the One Week Job show. It is awesome having Ian on board. He is amazingly talented and brings so much to the project. He has done another great job in putting together the footage from last week at Princess Margaret and Episode #3 can now be viewed in the player on the homepage.
It’s come to our attention that some people are having issues with the video player not working properly or not showing up at all. I figured out the likely problem: your flash player is not up to date.
To fix it download the latest flash player here and follow the instructions. It takes a few seconds and you’ll be good to go.
Once again, thanks for all your feedback and support!
Ian and I are almost all set to head out to Toronto tomorrow. We bought a new camera on Thursday and have most of what we need for the show – thanks to Fiddy who set us up with some great equipment he used when set a goal to hitch hike through all 50 States in 50 days last year. Was he able to do it? Well, see for yourself – Hitch50
We are still in need of a wireless microphone which we are hoping to pick up in Toronto. If anybody out there has one that they are looking to get rid of, please send us an email or give us a call.
These next few weeks are going to be pretty busy and will be a lot of fun. I am really excited to start shooting footage and get the One Week Job show going. It will really help to show what I am up to each week and the experience I have been having so far.
It was great to be home for the week, see family and friends and finally get some sleep. It’s incredible how easy it can be to slip back into that comfortable feeling of being at home so quickly. I had gotten used to living outside of my comfort zone, constantly changing locations, changing jobs, continually meeting new people. I have only been here a week and already I feel a sense of nervous excitedness about leaving the comfortable feeling of home and heading back out on the road. Though, I guess that’s what it’s all about.
My friends wedding is this afternoon, then we will be on the plane bright and early tomorrow morning on our way to Toronto. Do you live in Toronto? Myself, Ian and some of our new friends from the week will most likely be going out somewhere next Friday night, August 3rd – you should come!
-Sean
Greetings everyone! This is Ian here, excited to add my first post to the blog. I thought I’d kick things off with a brief reminder and description of the One Week Job RSS feed.
Basically, an RSS feed (which stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’) is an easy for you to stay updated on all the One Week Job blog posts. You can subscribe to the feed, and your feed reader automatically grabs the latest.
Here’s a short video “RSS In Plain English” (thanks to Common Craft) that will help demystify the process:
Make sense? If you have any questions, let us know! Otherwise, if you scroll down you’ll see an icon and a link to our RSS feed on the right hand side. Or just right-click this link and copy the feed into your reader.
Voila! Until next time…
– Ian
NEW SHOW
As of July 30th, One Week Job will become an Internet TV Show/video podcast!
A new episode will be released after each One Week Job and will begin production next week in Toronto, ON when I am working with Steam Whistle Brewing Company. Part reality-tv/part adventure series, each episode will run approximately 10 minutes and will document my journey, what jobs I am doing, interviews with my employers, what I am learning, the people I am meeting a long the way, how I am getting city to city, where I am staying, etc.
I am pretty pumped about the start of the new show! It can be difficult to accurately relate the experience I am having and all that I am learning simply by using blog posts. With the show, it will be easier to share the experience as others can join me for the journey, feel a part of the adventure, be inspired, and hopefully learn with me.
Check out ‘the show‘ section to find out more!
We are currently looking for sponsors for each weekly episode, so if you, your company, or anyone you think may be interested in getting some publicity and would want to get involved, we would really appreciate if you could pass on the word about the project.
If you would like to sponsor an episode, you can contact me through email, oneweekjob@gmail.com , or call me on my cell, 416-735-9335.
NEW TEAM MEMBER
Ian Mackenzie is my best friend. He has been helping me with One Week Job since I decided to go through with the idea and start working on the website in January. Ian will be coming on the road with me starting next week Monday, July 30th in Toronto – he will be filming and editing our weekly episodes, as well as contributing to the blog.
If you are a Survivor fan, you may have come across Ian before – he started a campaign a while back in which he was trying to convince the producers at CBS to let him on Survivor. He made an online petition, received over 5000 signatures including the endorsements of many past Survivor contestants. However in the end CBS didn’t budge and would not open up the show to Canadian applicants.
As of this week, you will see Ian contributing to the site – writing posts, musings, updates from the road… etc.
It is going to be awesome having Ian on the road and he will really be able to contribute to the project. He is a great writer, has amazing web skills, and pretty much just an amazing guy.
If you are in need of a great website marketing consultant – looking to improve your company’s online identity, change your websites look, increase traffic, search engine optimization, lay out, basically anything web related – check out his website.
NEW LOOK
If this is your first time visiting the site, then you won’t notice a difference. But if you have been here before, then you may have noticed the site has a new look.
I am not a fan of the photo in the header but Ian insists it was the best he could find – I am not convinced. Anyways, let us know what you think!
I have the day off today as it is a holiday in Quebec – St. Jean Baptiste Day. I have been to a couple of St. Jean Baptiste day festivities in Quebec city which were a lot of fun, yet this weekend I decided to come down to Toronto and visit a friend. We went to Canada’s Wonderland yesterday and so went on a bunch of rollercoasters and into the water park. It was nice to spend a day at the amusement park and just relax, as you may have noticed by the lack of entries this weekend.
I am back in Montreal for Week Fifteen starting tomorrow and it should make for quite an interesting week. Not too sure how quite to describe it just yet, but will do my best and be sure to announce it for tomorrow morning.
The plan right now is still to head to Ottawa after Montreal, so if you have any offers for the week of July 2nd in Ottawa, check out the ‘offers‘ section and send me an email.
-Sean
I am all packed up after spending a few weeks here in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec and today I am on my way to Montreal to get ready to start work bright and early Monday morning. More on that later and how Week Thirteen finished up, but for now I have to hit the road.
I have not decided where I will be working the week after next, so if you have any offers, ideas, or are in the Montreal area and want to meet up, let me know!
-Sean
My week of work with CADFEL (Centre d’accueil et de formation en langues), a language school here in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, hasn’t been all too exiting, but I did come to another realization which is great.
It is something I had previously recognized, yet I really understood it today; I really enjoy the creative process and developing a vision for the future. I was speaking with the president about the french immersion programs they have, ones they are thinking about developing, his passion to share the french language and expose as many other Canadians as possible to the distinct Quebec culture.
We were discussing the direction of the program and generating ideas as to how we can cultivate our vision of its future. During this talk, I had a lot of energy as I was contributing my ideas and was passionate about the possibilities and where it would lead. Then, I was assigned to do some research on the computer in which I was lucky not to fall asleep on a few occasions.
I realize that I am going to need to be in a creative position, a visionary type role in which I am sharing my vision with others and seeing the potential of a certain idea or opportunity. I am not all that interested in the day to day (for more than a week that is), yet I love to look to the future and develop a plan as to what needs to be done in order to get there. And thus, one step further…
My first article in the Globe and Mail came out today, I am not able to pick up a copy as I am currently in rural Quebec, though I could tell that my mom was pretty proud in an email this morning, so I guess it turned out pretty well.
Next week I would like to head to Quebec city, yet do not have a job lined up as of today, so perhaps I might just go straight to Montreal. If you have any contacts or ideas for potential One Week Jobs in Quebec city, or if you live in Quebec city and just want to meet up, give me a shout!
If you haven’t checked out the ‘Pledge Your Passion‘ section on the site as of yet, give it a read and make your promise today:)
keep searching,
-Sean
I would like to start using oneweekjob.com as a platform for others to share their stories regarding ‘One Week Job’ type themes.
I will still be blogging about what I am up to week to week, but I think by having other people contribute and share their stories, we can all learn from each others experience, share ideas, help others out, and open up a forum of discussion on different topics.
So as of now, if you would like to be a guest writer and contribute a post to the website, please send it to me in an email with the subject line: “Guest Post Submission”
The piece can be written any way you like and be of any length that you feel necessary. Tell us your story, what inspires you and why, what are you passionate about. Perhaps you are in the same situation as me; how are you going about finding your job, what scares you, what inspires you, what advice do you have.
Perhaps you are in a career that you love and want to share that experience with us, why are you passionate about it, how did you discover this is what you wanted to do, what advice do you have. Maybe you found the courage to leave an unhappy work situation and go after what you love doing, maybe you feel as though you are stuck in a rut and hate your job…
If you have a website, be sure to include a link so that we can direct people to your site and what you are up to. If you have a picture you would like to be included, send that too.
I look forward to hearing your story!
-Sean
I was contacted several weeks ago by a media relations advisor from Vancouver, BC named Carla Shore. Carla has been nice enough to volunteer her over 15 years of experience in the communications field to help me out with organizing my media interviews, writing press releases, etc.
It has been a lot of work trying to organize my jobs, how I am getting there, where I will be staying… on top of trying to organize interview requests and it can sometimes be a little overwhelming. Carla contacted me at just the right time and was asking just the right price.
Her company, C-Shore Communications Inc., was started in 1998 and “offers expert public relations and writing services to create effective communications programs for private and public sector clients.” I am really grateful that Carla has so generously donated her time to help me out, as it will allow me to focus more on my jobs, the experience I am having, and what I am learning in the process.
If you or your company is in need of media relations advisor, Carla is awesome! She is easy to talk to, very nice, polite, helpful, and great at what she does.
You can reach her through email at info@cshore.ca, by phone at 604-731-0975 or check out her website: www.cshore.ca.
Thanks so much Carla!
-Sean
