50 jobs in 50 states

50 jobs in 50 states

50 outranks 40, Seddiqui set an outlandish goal: working 50 jobs in 50 states in 50 weeks. His parents thought he was nuts. Friends tried to talk him out of it. Walletpop even wrote a story on his plan. And as for nightmares about sleeping on park benches? "That was a daymare," Says Seddiqui, 27. "I was like, 'How much money do I need for a trip like this?' Before I started I didn't think I could rely on the hospitality of American people. I thought I was gonna need $100,000." Turns out he needn't have worried. This week, Seddiqui hits the home stretch of his all-American employment odyssey. He's working as a surf instructor in Maui, Hawaii, which beats the stuffing out of standing in an unemployment line any day. With only one state to go (California), Seddiqui can now relax a bit, and worry about other matters, such as selling his lucky 1997 Jeep Cherokee. It navigated 48 states and 29,000 miles without so much as a single breakdown.

Seddiqui set out on Sept. 5, 2008, his first job pick as idiosyncratic as his self-styled journey. He worked at the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, Utah in the humanitarian services department, an interesting choice since Seddiqui is Muslim. (He later worked with the Amish building furniture in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; he calls them "probably the most family-oriented people on this planet." He even grew a beard for that stint.) Since then, his jobs have varied as much as the terrain his Jeep has negotiated. His resume now includes: coal miner (West Virginia), lobsterman (Maine), fashion model (North Carolina) and logger (Oregon). He's been high (a stilt walker at Universal Studios in Orlando) and low (a bartender on bawdy Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras). In Wisconsin he worked as -- what else? -- a cheesemaker. California, his last state, is also where Seddiqui hails from originally (Los Altos, to be precise), though if you ask him where he lives, he says, "I'm from nowhere, really." Chances are once he's in Cali, he'll work on a job close to his heart: turning the film footage he shot on his trip into a documentary. He hopes to write a book as well, also called "Living the Map."