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.

• One Red Paperclip
• Brave New Traveler
• Seth Godin
• Steve Pavlina
• Get Rich Slowly

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

I am starting to feel more and more like Dr. Doolittle each day I work at the Animal Hospital. It is really cool working with the animals - each one has a different personality and you find yourself developing relationships with them before it’s their time to go home.

This week has been so interesting and I have been able to see and learn so much.

I have helped with holding down the animals while anesthetic is being administered, monitoring levels during surgery, taking temperatures (use your imagination), preparing some blood smears, polishing teeth, helping with an x-ray… pretty much everything.

The first morning we witnessed a surgery in which a large fatty lump was removed from the side of a dogs belly. Louise, the owner of the hospital and the Veterinarian who was doing the surgery, asked Ian and I if we had eaten that morning. Apparently if you have something in your stomach, you will be less likely to feel sick witnessing the surgery. I admit that I was a little bit queasy going into it not too sure what to expect, though I was fine and it was amazing to see the lump being removed.

The precision that it requires to be a surgeon is quite impressive and I wonder about the sense of responsibility they must feel going into each surgery. It’s incredible how similar surgery is to that of humans. For the record, I am basing this judgment solely on what I have seen on TV, though I can imagine that it would be quite similar to this.

Everyone at the clinic has been really great to us. They have allowed me to learn about all the different aspects of the job, and really get in there and try everything out.

One thing I have learned is about the importance of taking care of your animals teeth, as a lot of other complications can surface as a result - there is your Vet tip of the day!

-Sean

This episode is a change of pace from the previous one, highlighting Sean’s journey into the behind-the-scenes of a radio station. Along the way, he experiences promotions, how to record a commercial, show hosting, and develops his on-air voice. By the end of the week, Sean realizes the importance of having fun in the workplace.

Enjoy! And of course, feedback is appreciated.

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!

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.

This week I will be working as a Veterinary Assistant at Hespeler Animal Hospital in Cambridge, Ontario.

I will get to help hold animals for exams and treatment, assist with procedures such as dentistry, surgery and radiology (with a lot of supervision, of course!) and perhaps help out the receptionists as well.

I had no idea where I would be working up until Thursday of last week. I had various offers though nothing seemed to really stick with me until I received the offer from the Animal Hospital. It is going to be a very interesting week and I am really excited to learn more about how things work in an animal hospital as it is an environment I have never previously been exposed to.

-Sean

It has been a fun week here at DAVE FM. Started off pretty quiet on Monday with a tour of the studio, some introductions and an interview with local media. I am also working at the Holiday Inn Kitchener this week, working for my keep, and so have been spending a couple hours each day helping out around the hotel. I spent some time in the laundry room, folding towels, ironing linen, in the kitchen peeling some potatoes, serving drinks to priority club members, and helping set up a banquet last night.

Over at Dave FM I was on site for their Tee it up Tuesdays golf event broadcasting live from the golf course. I was dressed up in an alligator costume, taking pictures with golfers, handing out some Dave FM stickers, and helping co-host the afternoon drive show. It was my first time on air this week and I got to do the weather and traffic, though the alligator outfit might have been the highlight of the day.

Of course you listen to Dave FM if you live in the Waterloo region, so stay tuned for an upcoming commercial over the next few weeks that I was able to do the voice over for. It was pretty cool to record the commercial in the studio and hear my voice transformed by the acoustics giving it a radio sounding effect.

Yesterday I co-hosted the morning show with Jeff Lumby and Gayle O’Brien. Great people and we had a lot of fun with it. Whenever I hear morning radio, it always seems like they are having such a good time in studio and really enjoy what they are doing. I got a first hand experience of it yesterday.

Today is my last day at Dave and then it’s time to start a new job next Monday. I wasn’t too sure where we were going up until Wednesday, and we were thinking of going anywhere from Stratford, to Montreal, to even Halifax.

I finish my last shift from 4pm - 5pm (EST) tonight and then we are heading to Toronto for the weekend. Although we have no idea where we will be staying or how we are getting there as of yet, should be good times. I think I will announce on air tonight if anyone can give us a ride East. If you want to tune in, you can listen live on the DAVE FM website.

-Sean

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.

I am sure you have all heard the story of how Kyle MacDonald traded one red paperclip for a house in only one year. He wrote a book about his experience, all of his trades and the adventure that he had a long the way. His book was released in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa last week and was released today throughout North America.

Kyle is an awesome, amazingly creative, and just generally fun guy to be around. You never know what is going to happen or where you are going to end up when you are hanging out with him. I ran into Kyle about a month ago and he gave me a copy of his book. It’s funny, inspiring, and I would definitely recommend picking it up. You can find it here.

Happy reading!

-Sean

This week I will be working with DAVE FM, a radio station in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario. I have to figure out this whole Kitchener/Waterloo thing they have going on here, which one is it or is it both? I think if I lived in Waterloo, I would want to say I come from Waterloo, not Kitchener/Waterloo, perhaps you get the best of both worlds. Not sure on that one yet.

I will be a co-host for different shows throughout the week as well as attending some events, helping out with promotions, and of course there is always time for some office work.

This week is kind of different in that I am working two jobs at the same time. The people over at DAVE FM struck a deal with the people over at Holiday Inn Kitchener/Waterloo that if I worked a couple hours a day at the hotel we would be able to stay there for free. We thought that was pretty awesome of them and on top of that there was even a card in our room when we arrived welcoming us.

So that’s where we are staying for the week, if you want to come and visit us, this is the map.

Not too sure what the plan is for next week, we are thinking of heading through Montreal on our way to Halifax, though plans are still in the air. If you have any job offers, ideas, contacts for Montreal, let us know.

-Sean

I worked with some pretty incredible people this week and was able to learn a lot from them. One big thing that stood out for me was the idea of contributing to something greater than yourself; knowing that the better job you do, the more good you are creating - pretty cool stuff.

I was able to attend a sponsorship presentation with a boardroom full of area managers at the head office of Swiss Chalet on Thursday. They will be the presenting sponsor next spring for The Ride To Conquer Cancer. It was an interesting experience and very similar to what I was told to expect when in business school - you walk into a room full of executives with your power point presentation and you have 15 minutes to sell them on your idea. When I was introduced a couple people in the room said out loud, “oh yeah, you’re that One Week Job guy” which helped make me feel more comfortable.

The Foundation had a large mural painted on a wall near the hospital of a couple cyclists promoting The Ride To Conquer Cancer event. It was painted through Toronto’s graffiti transformation program which uses the artistic talent of local youth to help clean up graffiti covered city wall space. About the program - ” Since 1996, 430 murals have been created in the city and over 1,200 youth have received paid work as well as training in the technical aspects of graffiti removal, outdoor art, and business skills.”

On Friday afternoon, all of the kids who were involved in painting the mural were invited back for a photo shoot in front of the mural and then a pizza lunch at Princess Margaret afterwards to say thank you for their involvement. It was a lot of fun and I was able to spend time speaking to the kids about my experiences with One Week Job, tell them stories and what I have learned a long the way. They were very interested, asking lots of questions, and I really enjoyed sharing the experience. I think it serves as a positive experience for the kids and is something that I would like to spend some time doing after 52 weeks are finished.

Here is a video outlining the making of the mural:

We are now in Kitchener/Waterloo after having spent the last three weeks in Toronto. It seems as though there is always some sort of festival going on in Toronto, so we definitely were never bored. We had a great time over the past few weeks, and met some really awesome people. For example, you may remember that it was first week in Toronto that I was working with Steam Whistle Brewery, though it was just this morning that we finally packed up all of our stuff and moved out of the co-founders house. Thanks so much Greg and Sybil!

Tomorrow is another Monday and so time to start another job; this week I am actually working two which I will explain more about later.

-Sean