Daniel Seddiqui embarked on a year-long journey across the United States in September 2008 with a used Jeep and a check for $250 from his father.
Seddiqui ended his trip with the same $250 check still in his pocket.
His “only in America” quest inspired “50 Jobs in 50 States,” a new book detailing his mission to find work in every state in the union. Seddiqui, who will be reading from his book at 7:30 p.m. March 28 at the Tattered Cover downtown, says his biggest initial concern involved a case of sticker shock.
“Gasoline was $4.99 a gallon when I left (San Francisco) and I didn’t have a dime to my name,” Seddiqui says.
The book, subtitled, “One Man’s Journey of Discovery Across America,” recalls how he worked as a surfing instructor in Hawaii, a coal miner in West Virginia and a hydrologist in Colorado among other gigs. He did his best to pick occupations that reflected the culture of the state he was visiting.
His second job took him to Colorado, where the U.S. Geological Survey hired him as an intern to test water samples from the Big Thompson River.
“All the water comes from the Rockies, so why not become a hydrologist?” says Seddiqui, who measured oxygen content, turbidity and pH levels while the river currents did all they could to topple him.
The position was one of many he expected to take without compensation, but he was happy to be proven wrong.
“No employer let me leave without paying me. I was doing real work,” he says.
The Colorado air took some of his breath away, and he found the two-plus hour commute into the mountains along the river “scary.” He left the state impressed by the grandeur of Denver’s city parks and the fitness levels of the locals.
Seddiqui understood applying for temporary employment across the country meant being rejected a fair amount. He was used to that. His unproductive job search before his journey left him with a pretty thick skin.
“Rejection wasn’t even an obstacle. It was an everyday thing. I always felt every rejection was one step close to being accepted,” he says.
“50 Jobs in 50 States” details not just his crash courses in wood working, bartending and cheese making, but the generosity of the American people. He had planned on sleeping in his car most nights, but he often found families who would open their homes — and kitchens — to him.
News accounts of his mission spread quickly, helping him land a couple of gigs he might not have been able to snare otherwise. When he told a CNN reporter he hoped to find work as a weatherman when he arrived in Cleveland, all the local news channels from Cleveland reached out to him with television offers.
The year didn’t fly by without a few challenges. Seddiqui got hit by a car, suffered bronchitis and struggled with Colorado’s thin air, but the only job he couldn’t complete involved lobster fishing in Maine.
“My employer said, ‘You had enough. You have sea sickness. There’s no cure for it,’ ” he recalls.
His journey helped him debunk cultural stereotypes, like the image of Amish people reading by candlelight. The Amish he met rolled propane tanks around the house to bring light into different rooms.
“I was very, very surprised with Amish culture in Pennsylvania. They were more open than I thought,” says Seddiqui, who ended up staying with an Amish family and working beside them. “They were just as interested in my life as I was in theirs.”
Seddiqui could have made his year-long adventure much easier had he accepted an offer to turn his quest into a reality show. He says a producer of the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” wanted to build a program around Seddiqui’s trek.
“I wanted to have an organic experience. I didn’t want anyone to affect my journey,” he says. “If I was part of a TV show, I’d be staying in hotels and working a couple of hours a day . . . I wouldn’t be staying with families or finding out the true side of Americans.”
Seddiqui’s transient year came at a rough time in America’s economy, but he emerged with a positive outlook all the same.
“I’ve always felt optimistic. You can’t wait for opportunities to come your way. You have to look for them or create them yourself,” he says.
Or, in some instances, gas up the car, and hit the road.
