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Ryan Paugh graduated from Penn State in 2006 with a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business. After working in corporate communications, freelance writing and reporting, he co-founded 
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Think you have commitment issues? Well, so does Sean Aiken. He’s had 32 jobs in 32 weeks. And still plans on 20 more before he’s done. It’s all part of One Week One Job – one man’s epic search for an answer to the burning question: “What should I do with my life?”
After graduation, Sean committed to himself that he wouldn’t settle for a career he was not passionate about. Only problem was, he didn’t know where those passions would lie. And so, One Week One Job was born. 52 weeks, 52 jobs. One of them has to work out, right?
While on his most recent job as a pest exterminator in Miami, I had a chance to talk to him about his travels, what he’s learned and what we can all take away from his refusal to commit to the ordinary.
Here’s what he had to say:
It’s common for young people to not know what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but after college it’s almost ritualistic to land a job we don’t love doing and anticipate that it will lead to bigger and better things. What do you say to this mentality?
To be honest, I don’t think that taking a job that we don’t love doing can possibly lead to bigger and better things because the reality is, we will never truly be happy in that chosen profession.
It’s no secret that the Gen-Y mindset is meeting some resistance. Have you experienced any conflict during your travels? With who? Why can’t they just chill out?
Most people get what I am doing. I receive emails from people in Gen-Y who are in the same situation and completely get it, and at the same time I have received emails from those of an older generation who have been inspired to go back to school and pursue their passion as a result of the project.
Though, sometimes I will hear someone from an older generation say, “Sean, why don’t you just get a job.” My response is, “well, I don’t want just any job, I want something that I am going to be happy doing.” I don’t think we can blame these people for not just chilling out. They grew up in a different world, with much different expectations on the work force – work is not supposed to be enjoyable, it’s called “work” for a reason you know?
So enough about the dissenters, I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without a little mentorship from someone older and wiser. Who’s keeping you in line?
Throughout my life I have always looked up to a few teachers who I found were really motivating and inspiring. During the course the project, Ian (camera man and best friend) has been great at keeping me in line. The project can be quite overwhelming at times so it’s great to have such a good friend with me. Also, all the emails I receive from people finding inspiration in the project definitely keeps me focused and in-check.
Keeping on the subject of mentors, you’ve had more bosses in the past year than most of us will have in our lifetime. What qualities does a boss have to embrace to be a good mentor?
I write a column for The Globe & Mail, a Canadian national newspaper, about what I am learning. This is actually one subject I wrote on. The title was 18 jobs, 18 bosses: insights into a great employer. Click here to check it out.
Not to bore you with the question you’ve probably been asked a hundred times, but I’m sure readers want to know. What was your favorite job so far? Why?
Here are a few of my favorite so far:
Working as a Cancer Fundraiser for Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation – I was working with people who were very passionate about what they do, and being in a position where what you do has such a positive impact on so many others is pretty awesome.
Steam Whistle Brewery – Lot’s of fun, great people, great work environment, great beer!
The Georgia Aquarium – Working with people who really love their job. Also, it is an amazing aquarium and a very peaceful environment to go to everyday.
The majority of college grads will inevitably end up corporate, an area we haven’t seen you explore too much. So truthfully, how bad do you think the corporate world sucks?
I am not sure if the corporate world is for me. Though you never know. I realize this is a generalization, but I kind of associate ‘corporate’ with office job, and I am not all about that.
Do I think corporate sucks? I don’t know, everyone is different. I think there are many people in which the corporate world works for them. Basically when it comes down to it, if it’s being in a corporate environment that makes you happy, then great. What sucks is if you are not happy in the corporate environment or any situation for that matter and are not willing to change it.
What you’re doing is remarkable, but let’s be real, job-hopping once a week is a sure-fire career killer. What should our generation take away from what you’re doing?
Don’t settle, period. Take the time to figure out what you need in a career to be happy and make a promise to yourself that you will find something that you love doing. Once you make this promise to yourself, with every decision that comes your way you will be asking yourself whether it will keep you on the right path to making this situation become a reality.
So this is where I ask the most important question…from one long-haired guy to another. How are your weeklong bosses responding to the dreads?
There are a bunch of photos on the website, so I guess they know what they are getting into before they offer me a One Week Job. I imagine there are some employers who have neglected to offer me a job because of my hair, though I wouldn’t want to work for anyone who would pass such judgment anyways. The way I see it, they are just making the decision that much easier.
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Leave your thoughts here. (19 responses)
- 1 Pingback on Nov 10th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
- 2 Pingback on Dec 19th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Just for the sake of argument and curiosity, what about the jobs that require years of training and expertise (law, medicine, etc.)? What if one of THOSE was your passion — how do you think you would be able to figure that out using this method of trial and error?
Also — do you think that you’re finding less of a an ACTUAL job you want and more the QUALITIES you want in a job and a spark of an idea?
Also - Ryan/Devin — the “click here” link for the Globe & Mail article doesn’t exist. Just fyi.
This is a somewhat “neat” experiment, but it seems like more of a cool thing to do than an actual useful experiment in searching for the job. Definitely falls in line with the whole “journey more important than the destination” type thing.
Danielle hit the nail on the head, the most I think he’ll get out of this are basic qualities of the job he’s going to end up enjoying the most, and I’m not sure it’d take 52 of those to do it. I think limiting each job to a week puts a pretty severe limitation on the jobs as well. Obviously his point is to dive right in and not waste any time, but I just think a week is too short for that. He’s basically doing the Mike Rowe/Dirty Jobs imitation, only without having the TV audience.
Cool experiment, but I think it could actually be a little more productive or worthwhile if he actually lengthened to about 2 weeks or so. Then he might actually learn something useful about the job he’s doing, and not just the work environment he’s in. I think the variety of jobs I’m sure he’s had would be interesting to read about though, and I’m sure at the end of the 52 week’s he’ll have some interesting stories to tell.
You’re really taking this seriously? It’s obviously a business ploy rather than a real job search.
Normal people call this sampling of jobs an internship.
Ryan,
“it’s almost ritualistic to land a job we don’t love doing”
hmmm…who says? And what does that mean?
What if you’re working in the place you want to work, but
your first job with the company is entry level? But that
entry level position give you the opportunity and exposure
to get noticed? Give me that job over a management trainee
job with some company/product I could care less about.
“The majority of college grads will inevitably end up corporate”
Ryan, that question is misleading. Actually, the biggest employers in
the US are small businesses. And what is corporate? Google? Yahoo?
Chiat/Day? These “cool” corporations aside, perhaps it’s not the job,
but the person in it that sucks
Ryan: “What you’re doing is remarkable.” Really? Sean is goofball–
nothing more, nothing less.
Anyway, the epic question of ” “What should I do with my life?” is an on-going one
for most people. As we grow and develop, gain wisdom and life experience, get
exposed to new things–we will always ask this question. It’s a good question that
we should always pose to ourselves.
“To be honest, I don’t think that taking a job that we don’t love doing can possibly lead to bigger and better things because the reality is, we will never truly be happy in that chosen profession.”
Spoken like someone utterly without the voice of experience or a whit of wisdom. “… we will never truly be happy” … oh how I love it when someone graduates from college and starts speaking in absolutes the very next day like he knows anything about ANYthing. Everything has to start somewhere. Of course I wouldn’t advocate sticking with something you hate, but you can absolutely start out doing something you like, or can even just barely tolerate, for the sake of gaining experience at the fringes of an industry that interests you and building your personal network and your personal brand. Many times you’ll have to work your way from job to job to find the thing you really love to do, but it’s not unheard of for a person to find a toehold with a company, gain some respect, and actually turn it into something he’s passionate about. That’s what I’m doing, and I promise you I’m not the only one.
This is a neat little experiment and I hope it ends well, but I worry for the Sean Aikens of the world. I’m increasingly convinced that the thing they are best at is making excuses for remaining in perpetual adolescence. At some point you have to stop thinking and looking and judging; you have to move out of your parents’ basement and actually DO something.
I think it’s a great experiment. In most of the BS places I’ve worked, I knew there was going to be an issue on day two or three at the latest. When I say, “issue”, I mean something that would hinder my ability to stay there long term…a dealbreaker.
One Week One Job is awesome. I wish I’d done something like this when I didn’t have a lot of responsibility…or lived at home.
Tim:
It’s one thing to climb the ladder in a field you love at a place you know you’ll be happy at for a long time, but judging by the restlessness of my generation, I find it hard to believe that this is really happening.
I’m sure you’re right about small businesses being the largest employers in the U.S., but that’s because the American workforce is a lot larger than “recent college grads.”
“Perhaps it’s not the job, but the person in it that sucks.”
I don’t know exactly what you mean here. If you’re saying that it’s the employees fault that their not in a better position, I don’t fully agree. Companies are losing top Gen-Y talent every day because they’re not getting what they want from employers. The issue of retaining Gen-Y is huge, ask your HR department.
Sean Aiken may be a goofball, but to say he’s “nothing more, nothing less” is something I have to defend. Here’s a guy who refused to settle for something ordinary. He took a enormous risk straight out of college and loves what he’s doing. I absolutely admire that.
Ryan - To be fair, I’m not sure he’s really taking that big of a risk. He’s setting out with predefined goals, and now reaching them through week long job stints. I don’t think employers 2 years from now are going to really care about the journalistic experiment that he took part in. I think that it would be held much less against him that someone who’s moved to 4-5 different jobs in a year and a half without these same predefined journalistic goals. He’s also staying for such a short period of time, that the cost to the company isn’t all that great, because he isn’t getting involved with anything that would require longer than that.
Nathan:
You’re right from the point of view you’re looking at it from.
The admirable quality I see is that he dared to do something others would only dream of doing. He’s not making any money (in fact he gives all of his weekly earnings to charity), he travels from place-to-place living by the kindness of strangers who take him in and not even he can tell you where it’s all going to lead in the end.
So there’s definitely risk associated with what he does. Maybe it’s not career-killing risk, but dedicating so much time to something that lacks stability is risk all the same.
I think this is a great idea. Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince right? At least Sean’s approach is planned. Which in theory makes it less of a career killer than random job hopping.
Eric: Totally agree. I’ve had a few jobs where within the first week I got a gut feeling telling me to run for the door. In the interest of paying my bills I often discounted that feeling. In the end though I should have listened to myself, ditched the optimism (”It’ll get better”) and started looking for a new job right then.
“It’s one thing to climb the ladder in a field you love at a place you know you’ll be happy at for a long time, but judging by the restlessness of my generation, I find it hard to believe that this is really happening.”
I’m with Ryan on this one. It seems like a lot of comments on here automatically associate restlessness with being flaky. Dissatisfaction with the norm, frustration with the system and a desire to do something you actually enjoy for a living does not have to equal basement dwelling, extended adolescence. It doesn’t require running off to Europe to ‘find yourself’. I have no aching desire to join the peace corps nor do I need to do something profound just to feel self-important. Some of us our just using our 20’s to (hopefully) find a career we can passionate about and do for a long time.
Thanks for the comments!
It is not my intention to find that perfect career in one of my One Week Jobs. I am learning about the characteristics that I need in a career to be happy and speaking with my employers about how they ended up where they did and any advice they have for others that find themselves in a similar situation.
Sean - If we don’t like what we are doing, how can we possibly be happy in our careers?
“At some point you have to stop thinking and looking and judging; you have to move out of your parents’ basement and actually DO something.” - I am curious, just what exactly do you define as “something?”
Tim - “Ryan: ‘What you’re doing is remarkable.’ Really? Sean is goofball – nothing more, nothing less.” - That’s unfortunate. Give me a call 416-735-9335 and hopefully I can better help you understand what I am trying to achieve.
This a great example of ‘outside the box’ thinking. Let’s face it, it’s rare to walk into your dream job straight out of college, so why not try something different. Plus this may be one of the only times in life when we’re not encumbered with families, mortgages, etc. So take a leap and see what happens. At the end of the year at worst you’ll have an amazing experience and a great perspective on what you may want to do next. There’s also the real possibility that this will open additional doors.
Sean -I’d love to see where you end up in 2,3, or 5 years and what bearing this experience had on you.
Good Luck!
My reaction to this approach is similar to my reaction to performance art.
It’s interesting, but useless.
Sean - If we don’t like what we are doing, how can we possibly be happy in our careers?
“At some point you have to stop thinking and looking and judging; you have to move out of your parents’ basement and actually DO something.” - I am curious, just what exactly do you define as “something?”
Ugh, I was happy to just say my piece from the doorway and leave, but if you’re going to call me out by name, of course I have to respond.
Question one (”If we don’t like what we are doing, how can we possibly be happy in our careers?”): because your first job out of college–maybe even your first five or ten jobs out of college–aren’t necessarily your “career,” although they should be leading you towards it. As Scott points out, it’s rare to walk into your dream job straight out of college, and yet I’m beginning to feel that that’s the expectation of GenY. Call it “entitlement” again if you have to; Ryan Paugh calls it “restlessness.”
Question two (”I am curious, just what exactly do you define as “something?’”): I meant to stop looking for something perfect, to get a job that you don’t hate, and to get out of your mom’s house so your parents can stop paying for your food and hot water and start saving for their own retirement, which is probably less than two decades away.
It is not my intention to find that perfect career in one of my One Week Jobs. I am learning about the characteristics that I need in a career to be happy and speaking with my employers about how they ended up where they did and any advice they have for others that find themselves in a similar situation.
To be honest, what you say here reshapes my perspective on what you’re doing quite a bit. If I’d understood your intention a little better, I might not have been so harsh in my original post.
Sean,
“I am learning about the characteristics that I need in a career to be happy and speaking with my employers about how they ended up where they did and any advice they have for others that find themselves in a similar situation.”–That’s good. It might be nice, too, to find out why they like what
they are doing. What do they value? What is really important to them in work and in life?
Okay, I admit it, you might not be quite the goofball I thought you were.
I’m not as interested as much as where you’ll end up as much as the insight
and wisdom you could gain–and share–about what really is important to
people as far a work, life and family go.
Sean,
Way to go for thinking outside the box. Though I wasn’t as brave as you and joined the Peace Corps instead, it’s important that people “gather intelligence” as much as possible to avoid a career that turns into a “quagmire”. I have to wonder as Danielle did - what about those “jobs” that require specialized education such as a Physician or Teacher. I’d love to introduce you to the world of “Shop Teacher” in a public high school. I can’t see myself doing anything else but I don’t see how you could spend 5 days doing it unless you have an in. But I’d encourage you to look into it. With your adventureous spirit I believe you’d be a natural, and the kids surely love those that can think outside the box.
Sean,
I am a 37 year old wife and mother of 3 that worked most of my life until I became fortunate enough to have a financial change that made it unnecessary for me to work outside of the home. Being at home is more work than all of my jobs combined, so now I am returning to the work force but with the luxury of taking a job I like as opposed to a job that pays the bills, it is both frustrating and liberating.
I am facing constant resistance from those who do not understand why I would choose to work when I don’t have to and pressure from companies who do not understand why I would rather use my MBA for jobs that are satisfying and not lucrative.
If you can remember how many times you’ve had a twenty dollar bill in your hand than you know how fast money comes and goes, money’s not a constant. However you have to pass a mirror everyday on your way to work and you do not want to walk by one day, and not recognize the person in the mirror, so create a job if that’s what it takes. DO NOT settle and DO NOT let anyone tell you that you cannot find happiness in the work place, or anywhere else for that matter, it’s a choice, and you have to be brave enough to go for it, or create it where there is none.