In French, work or job translates to travail and travail stems from the word tripelium,
which was a medieval torture instrument consisting of three sticks to which you were tied in
order to receive a beating.
Needless to say for many cultures, working meant suffering.
But nowadays, things are different.
There is a variety of jobs out there with different levels of pleasantness.
Still, it is rare to come across people who are truly passionate about their jobs, who
find meaning in their job, the kind of job that aligns with your most deeply held convictions,
a job that makes a difference, a true positive impact in the world.
My name is Ryan, this is The Vegan Report and if you are vegan and looking for that
kind of job, then this episode is for you since we will be talking with Ben Bramman,
the founder of veganjobs.com.
Ben, welcome to the show, thank you so much for being here.
Well, yeah, definitely.
Thanks for having me.
So, my first question for you, Ben, is what is veganjobs.com?
Well, it's an employee, I like to call it an employment hub that allows any vegan organization
or company or even household looking for say a nanny or a dedicated personal chef to post
a job and receive applications to the job or just list their email address if they want
people to reach out directly to them or link to the, say they have an application process
they want to send people through, they can just link to that and filter people through
that.
On the other side, it allows candidates or really anyone, it might not even necessarily
be looking for a job, sort of how LinkedIn is, you might be employed but you create a
profile in hopes that you might end up networking with others.
And so, it allows vegans to create a, to join as a candidate and post a profile on which
they can list their skills and their job history if they want and their resume, which is only
accessible like their actual resume files, only accessible to employers that I've hand
approved and so they can be fairly confident that it's not something that's just publicly
available.
But there's limited information that others can see and I hope to, I guess, configure
different ways for people to hide and show more information on.
Currently it defaults to hiding a lot of information and so it's a little bit limited.
People can put, I think, an introduction and currently I don't believe you even link to
your social media profiles.
I don't think that, I could be wrong, I should probably know this.
It's changed a few times but I can discuss why.
But yeah, so anyway, it allows employers to find these people in the candidate database
and for people to list themselves for these employers to be found.
The first question that springs to mind when I hear you say that and explain how vegan
jobs net com functions is, do you need to be vegan in order to apply to those jobs and
do you need to be a vegan company or organization in order to post a job offer?
Is it a requirement or is it more like a preference?
Since I can't actually police everyone 100%, I guess I could probably read it to you.
When someone goes to register as a candidate, you're speaking of first of all, just the
candidate side, correct?
Sure.
Let's start with the candidate.
It says we're a niche job site that works to support vegans.
We help match individuals with like-minded companies and organizations that identify
with and share enthusiasm for the vegan lifestyle.
What does vegan mean?
Vegan means not consuming or manufacturing something with animal meat, flesh, organs
or animal secretions, milk lactations, eggs or other bodily fluids such as a bear's bile,
wearing an animal skin or exploiting animals for entertainment.
Examples include aquatic species, seafood such as fish and shellfish as well as insects
such as bees, honey as in parentheses.
It says why be vegan?
Click here and it's a website that has more information.
What if I'm not vegan?
Please use one of the thousands of other job sites on the internet.
If you're interested in a specific job, you could of course reach out to the employer
by way of their website and be honest with them that you are not vegan but came across
the job on a Google job search or VR website.
I like that transparent approach.
Yeah.
I do ask a question when they join.
Please share a sentence or more about your vegan story such as what brought you to a
vegan slash plant-based lifestyle.
This doesn't need to be perfectly written.
It's only seen by admins.
That's true.
I'm the only one that sees that.
They can of course post something on their profile that's similar or the same thing.
It's just part of the process.
You can see how it might help weed people out that might not even know what weed vegan
is.
They just came across the site or a job posted somewhere.
I guess it's going to be interesting how AI influences that.
I used to be able to just read someone's story if I was curious how authentic they were.
But that's a whole separate conversation.
How AI is impacting a number of things with the employment industry.
Before getting into that, what about the employer side?
How do you select employers?
Initially I reached out to quite a few to let them know about the website.
It's really just word of mouth.
Perhaps a number of them just searched vegan jobs assuming there's a website, a vegan
jobs board and come across it that way.
On that page when they join there's similar requirements I guess that are outlined.
I could go ahead and read that too.
I suppose it's easier than trying to recall all that it mentions.
So it says, give me one second.
Our site is for vegan oriented companies slash organizations and vegan job seekers.
Vegan jobs.com sets itself apart from other job sites by being a purveyor of only vegan
employment opportunities and candidates.
This means your products should be all vegan and your company should be related to veganism.
Specifics along with some other restrictions include one, we accept companies that only
offer vegan products, no animal derived ingredients or animal testing.
Vegetarian restaurants for example that serve eggs or dairy are not posted.
If however you're shifting your menu to vegan and you need a vegan consultant for example
or otherwise have a unique situation, please send us an email.
Job postings involving multi-level marketing referrals slash affiliate marketing are not
allowed.
This includes, and I list a list of, there's several multi-level marketing companies that
happen to have mostly vegan or all vegan type products but they're not accepted.
Like supplements things.
Yeah, a lot of supplements.
Juice Plus is one.
Regana, Tropic, Zikja, Airbon.
So not all jobs are posted.
Examples that may not be accepted include certain supplements that make unproven medical
claims, spiritual slash metaphysical claims such as animal psychic services, remote healing,
etc.
And if you're unsure of a unique situation, please contact our friendly team and there's
a link there to email.
And so yeah, I do occasionally have the restaurant reach out saying we're not vegan.
And yet we're going that direction and we're looking for a vegan chef.
And I just will put a note in the job post explaining that the person will not, the chef,
potential chef will not be working with vegan or with animal ingredients but they might
currently be in the kitchen as they transition.
That's a question I'll ask the employers.
Are they expected to work with any animal ingredients as that transitioning chef or
are they just the new vegan chef working that side?
So yeah, so there's certainly allowances made for things like that.
It's been tough.
I shouldn't say tough.
There's so many vegan restaurants.
It's incredible that I don't feel too bad reading out the ones that just have say everything
but a milk option on the menu for their coffee or something like that.
And I'll say, I'm sorry, it's just the established these rules.
And have you considered all these plant based milks that you could trial instead?
And I said, please come back if you happen to go all vegan.
And so yeah, that's kind of describes that process.
Again, I love the transparency aspect of your work.
And I also like the fact that you're creating the job offers.
By the way, it's not just job offers.
There's also lots of volunteering opportunities that we should mention.
Correct.
Yeah, definitely.
There's quite a few.
I've got some history in that myself.
So I've seen how as a volunteer, you can overextend yourself.
And there's definitely nuance there where I've learned over time, one of the lessons
I've learned is that there's people that may kind of stretch and potentially get into a
territory where they're almost exploiting an opportunity maybe a little bit.
And even though they might have really good intentions, but maybe it's not so much a nonprofit
as more of on the commercial side.
And they're hoping they'll be volunteers that are eager to help run their social media,
for example, yet ultimately they have a business they're developing.
And so things like that, I don't accept unpaid internships unless there's clearly a compensation,
something of value given that if they are actually enrolled in something where they're
meeting, they're allowing that person to obtain certain credits for school and things like
that.
There's some exceptions there.
But most even in those cases, the people will be compensated monetarily to a degree.
And so yeah, it's definitely involved.
I didn't quite realize what I was getting myself into when I started the website.
It began just, I was naive in thinking at first even I knew I'd least have to improve
employers, but just even allowing employers freely post jobs whenever I quickly realized,
no, I really have to hand review each post because sometimes there's some big mistakes,
including things that may or may not violate employment law.
Once in a while I'll have a restaurant, some little pop shop that will mention they would
prefer a female waitstaff, something like that.
And I'm like, you really can't ask that.
And you need to correct this.
But otherwise it's just sometimes errors that are made.
There's even an error in the link to their Twitter account or their Facebook account
or a typo.
And there's really great posts.
You can tell they've really put a lot of diligence and effort into their job post and others
that it's as if they spend five minutes just typing it out really fast and hit submit.
And I'll actually, I take the time to format it a little bit, maybe bullet point some things
and then let them know I've done that just to make it easier to read.
I do wonder though, should I just let them post what they post and that might be revealing
to candidates?
Maybe this person's not, this employer's not completely organized.
But so there's some balance there.
I'll help a little bit, but I don't reword things necessarily other than maybe fixing
a typo or two.
And I'll separate a jumbled mess into paragraphs and that sort of thing.
But yeah.
Well I realize how thoughtful you are in this project.
And that is something I wish more job boards or job hubs or anything out there.
I wish they would be on the side of the job seekers and do the work of filtering out.
Because as a job seeker, you don't know where you're getting into.
Like you said, there are so many crazy companies and bad organizations out there and the way
they show themselves publicly is not always a good reflection of who they are.
And often your values might not be aligned.
So yeah, you have to take all of that into account and I guess as a job seeker, you have
to spend so much time researching the companies behind the job offers.
And you're left on your own device, I guess.
Yeah.
There's yeah, that's very true.
There's you reminding me that occasionally there'll be a startup, you know, someone I've
seen many apps come and go or social media networks that have tried to launch.
And those type of jobs will, you know, and it's one thing if they're willing to, you
know, well compensate whoever they're bringing on to develop their app or their website or
be their social media person or, you know, that sort of thing.
Sometimes people are looking for co-founders even.
And I would hope someone getting involved in being a co-founder would do due diligence
and also just to realize that it's a little bit of a roll of the dice with startups.
But it's yeah, it's interesting because there's it's not that prevalent, but there are occasional
jobs where I don't I can't take the time to truly research the person behind it.
Although I do have to for startups, for example, if there's no established website and history,
I have to know if they're real.
And so I'll investigate a little bit the person behind the company, ask for links to their
LinkedIn profiles and Facebook accounts and message them on there.
And usually there's some track record online that they're a vegan in the community and
have been involved in some things once in a while.
There's not enough and I'll turn it down.
But at the end of the day, I don't know this person, how dedicated they are to this new
startup and how well they're you know, they might have a really good pitch for people
to join in.
But so it's a balance where I feel some responsibility, obviously, in filtering things.
But I hope that people take you know, I realize and I realize people have to take you spend
a good amount of their time checking into a company or maybe even asking the founders
some questions themselves to gauge how serious they are and that sort of thing.
So yeah, when friends go to job interviews, I always tell them, you know, it's not just
about you and you performing at that job interview, you also have to look at them critically and
wait their questions and their attitude.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, there's I've met I've been being quite a while and I've met all sorts of unique characters
that have had startup ideas or just different started organizations, you know, half hearted,
well, not half heartedly, maybe the hearts in it, but they don't realize what they're
getting themselves into as the as the founder.
And and they've never gone to, you know, the school for this.
They're just and some people are really great at it naturally.
But others are very disorganized.
I've I've volunteered volunteered for a few of those.
And yeah, well, at least I know if an organization is looking for a volunteer and they're taking
it, you know, looking at it as a job and they're posting like a something that looks like a
job offer for a volunteer position.
I know there is some thoughts behind it, that there is a strategy and they're thinking about
the place of that volunteer and how many hours they need to spend on certain tasks.
I much prefer that kind of professionalism than a nonprofit where, you know, it's more
of like, oh, come and I'll give you some tasks and then I don't know, like maybe in a few
weeks I'll give you more.
And it's just disorganized and they don't really know how to manage their volunteers.
Right.
Yeah, I won't I won't name a group I worked for, but I've experienced exactly that where
I tended I was actually running their website as well.
And that's all I was going to start as all I ever intended to do.
But I quickly realized they were in over their head and I would start asking questions because
I wanted to see see their initiative succeed.
And and and I started even when they would then would onboard somebody I would I would
introduce myself and and and sometimes reveal that they should ask some questions, some
certain questions just to give them a heads up that yeah, that that that we don't that
the group doesn't necessarily know it doesn't have their whole act together.
But and I guess what I'm saying is I've revealed I've seen people join an organization and
yet get way in over their head.
Not they just want to help with a thing or two.
And like you said, the next thing they know, they're they're given tasks that take hours
on end and the person delegating that task has no idea what's necessarily involved with
that.
And so I've tried to bridge that gap a little bit and in my own experiences.
But and I think that's that's helped with the job site to a degree when it comes to
maybe weeding out certain jobs.
Yeah, and I'm I'm saying this because I'm thinking about the well being of the volunteers.
Ultimately, it's so hard on your mental health to be like way over your head, like you said,
with so many tasks, and then you can't quit because you have this guild, you know, what
are they going to do without you?
Right, right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I know that feeling such a horrible like mental trap that you just found yourself in.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, it can be it can become like a bad relationship.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So let me tell you a story.
Last summer, I visited the Vegan Festival of Montreal, and I decided to invite a few
entrepreneurs to appear on the show.
And then to my surprise, most of them were not vegan.
And yes, and if you look at you know, their website and their messaging and their pitch
and all of that, you would think they are vegan.
But they really not.
And then you know, they look at my my show and they see all the episodes on ethical veganism
and animal rights and you know, interviews with people who are hardcore on that side
of things.
And they just get very shy and just, you know, decide not to appear or not to be interviewed.
Were you like when you opened Vegan Jumps that come?
Were you surprised by maybe the number of vegan companies that are not vegan in their
employees and even maybe in their attitude, maybe for them veganism is just, you know,
a strategy or something like that, just an instrument, a tool to reach a certain audience
and make money.
It's not doesn't have anything to do with the ethical aspect of it or their personal
values.
Yeah, there has definitely been a few.
It's always nice when there is like an about us type page that where the founders, you
know, just explain their their vegan story even and that's usually a good indicator
that someone is in it for the right reasons.
And they mention animal rights or not just maybe, you know, and there's jobs that are
accepted that are just more appealing or just more focused on the plant based message, I
guess you should say, or I could say.
And that's fine as long as, you know, is there is they stick to that.
Where was it going with this?
I don't know that, but yeah, if I it's definitely a huge thing indicator to look for is the
story behind the company and the founders.
And there's been there has been a one or two that I've I kind of learned a lesson on that
there was excuse me, there was a search engine optimization firm that that worked with vegan
organizations and some big names when they by the time they had posted, they had a little
bit of a resume and portfolio on who they'd worked with.
And I later learned that they were probably just exploiting the fact that, you know, the
vegan organizations happy to is it's the you know, happy to work with or give extra attention
to I guess extra consideration to a company that yeah, that touts that line, where I think
these guys when I at the end of the day, they were just the founder themselves, I found
out later wasn't vegan.
And they had really great messaging and had this I think it was the portfolio that convinced
me early on that, you know, but it's like, has anyone really looked at these guys, you
know, it's one of those things where everyone just maybe goes based on.
Yeah, their credentials, but has never truly looked at the company.
And it is an interesting.
It's it's just it's interesting to think about because it's, you know, ultimately, you do
there's like the you've probably heard the term like the veg economy, the vegan economy,
that it would be you don't want a firm that's like SEO firm.
It's it's one thing if they're specialized maybe in helping vegan companies.
That's one thing they've maybe really honed how to help them with search engine optimization,
for example.
But and there's probably value there.
At the end of the day, you really do want to be paying them maybe thousands of dollars
and they're spending that on vegan products themselves or putting it back in the vegan
community through, you know, visiting restaurants or purchasing vegan goods and and and just
supporting vegans in general.
That's the whole idea is to there's probably other others out there that want to do search
engine optimization.
And as a career and and they just if they're truly vegan, the the idea is to, of course,
support them over the millions of others out there.
So yeah, I've definitely I've definitely come across that.
Of course.
I mean, as a client, as a consumer, I'm not looking to, you know, do a purity test on
the various businesses out there who brand themselves as being vegan.
As long as the product is vegan, I'm OK with that.
But then it's a whole other thing if, you know, you present yourself as if you're an
ally of a political, social, social justice cause.
But really, you're just here as a business.
And if the opportunity rises, you will change your business plan and, you know, dump those
vegan products for something else.
You know.
Yeah, you're reminding me that this particular company, they actually mentioned they give
like they gave like 10 percent back to animal causes.
And that's, you know, another huge.
Oh, wow.
That's great.
That's normally, you know, a check in the plus side in considering them as a job board
and as a candidate or as an employer, maybe seeking their B2B services.
But at the end of the day, anyone can say that they could choose a charity and claim
that as a, you know, as a selling point.
But that's just that doesn't necessarily mean the other 90 percent of the money is going
towards vegan options in their life or just supporting that, you know, a vegan in general.
And I like the idea of helping lift kind of lift all vegan boats, you know, in the tide
of this rising movement.
And and and yeah, it certainly it's it's nice when companies I've seen a lot of companies
also choose the they'll choose a non vegan just because it's quick and easy.
They'll go to, you know, a gig gig worker work website like Upwork or one of those.
And even some of the organizations I've worked with have gotten posters designed that way.
They don't necessarily want to take the time to create a job post.
You just want to get it done like that afternoon and that sort of thing.
But there's.
And so I think there's a little bit of balance to some of that.
But yeah, it's just the prevalence of non vegans in this culture that that shocks me
before, you know, starting this podcast.
I did not know about it.
I had a false impression of how the vegan business world looks like.
And you know, true discussions and interactions.
I just discover a whole other reality.
You know, I had I recorded an episode with and found who has launched like a Christmas
vegan Christmas market in Montreal, but also in New York, I think, and in Toronto.
And she was telling me that in the first editions of the Christmas market, there were those
non vegans who own vegan companies and they would come with coats made of feather and
boats boots made of leather.
And then she would get complaints from the vegans that visited the event like, who are
those people?
You know, how come they're selling like vegan products and they're talking like if they
are vegan, but they're wearing this brand new like coat made of feather.
So yeah, it's just shocking that the prevalence of it and bit like the hypocrisy to.
Well, yeah, that's that's that's disheartening to hear.
I've seen a little bit of that.
I can't recall exactly that sort of thing where you can you can spot someone just based
on what they're wearing.
It's identify them as an imposter and they've just they're piggybacking on the movement
and how how charitable we are as vegans towards each other and and we'll go above and beyond,
which, you know, to help others out.
And it's it's like the secret sauce.
I felt like early on with some of the websites I'd launched even before vegan jobs.
And it was the most any vegan organization or podcast, anyone's willing to to help out
and give you some exposure, whereas in any other industry, you're just kind of lost in
the sea of, you know, maybe it's it's say it's fitness or something, which obviously
is crossover there with vegan stuff, but and plant based lifestyles.
But the there's definitely yeah, I always I always thought of it like as it was just
of all the things I could get involved in, it was one of the easiest to network in, find
good people.
But then, yeah, I think people got hip to that, it seems.
And they started exploiting it to a degree.
And yeah, yeah.
I also want to address something else you mentioned, which is there are many employers
who are into like the supplement, the marketing schemes, the pseudo science stuff.
And it's also very prevalent in the vegan community.
You know, this is why I don't platform people who talk about veganism as a diet, because
then they start talking about also, you know, the name studies and talk about the benefits,
nutritional benefits.
And I'm not a nutritionist.
I'm not a physician, even if I was, I don't know if I would be competent or have the necessary,
you know, critical skills to understand what they're saying.
And I doubt that they understand what they're saying.
And you know, it's why do you think there is this prevalence of pseudoscience and, you
know, dieting culture around veganism?
Yeah, I guess it's like a catch-22, I think.
It's like that trifecta, the whole right aspect, the ethical arguments.
And when I went vegan anyway, I realized what I discovered, it wouldn't at the very least
be unhealthy for me that could potentially be beneficial.
I was like, my God, like, not only is this, I've realized this isn't really a sacrifice.
And once your taste buds shift that you're doing, you're not exploiting animals.
But on top of that, it's, there's potentially some health benefits.
And it's, but it's easy to, I think it's easy to over extrapolate from studies.
And I know there's been a whole rash of studies.
I don't know if they've, if any of them have been related to plant-based nutrition, but
you've probably seen in the news, there's so many number of studies that have been,
in hindsight have been poorly designed and then pulled.
But you don't want something, I like, I'm definitely an ethical vegan.
And I worry that if people ground themselves or they come to veganism through the nutrition,
but don't make the shift that, yeah, they very well could someday just read another
study or have an influential person talk to them about, you know, going keto or something
and how that worked for them.
And the next thing they know that the, they're convinced of that diet instead.
But yeah, there's, it's, I think it's, I've seen, I've been vegan for about 17 years now.
And I've seen it go from when there was like one ice cream in the store, zero protein powders
to zero cheeses and to this exploiting, exploding selection that we have now where it's almost
like every week there's a new vegan ice cream, right?
And it's clear that it was this huge exploding niche.
I didn't even realize it at certain times how fast it was growing.
And I guess everyone, there was a number of, it just became ripe for exploitation, for
jumping on the bandwagon for companies.
And I think because vegan, the nutrition stuff we know as a society, I guess the supplements
is like a multi-billion dollar industry and what is the diet industry as well.
And so it just became another hook that, a marketing hook.
And I think because it appeals to not only vegans, maybe, the food options and supplements
or some of the diet programs perhaps, but non-vegans who just think that they hear vegan
is a healthy option or a way to lose weight or fix your diabetes and something like that.
And it just seems like there's so many angles to it that can be worked that it's just, yeah,
they're very ripe for just marketing exploits, for sure.
And I'm a big skeptic of some of the nutritional things, nutritional claims that are made and
supplements and I certainly take some supplements, but yeah, often you'll see things, there'd
be study, a product and they'll tout the scientific-backed research.
And you dive into the study and it was just some one-off study that maybe they even paid
for, but the findings were, if you really look at the percentages of differences between
the two groups, the control group and the group taking their product, it's maybe a 5%
better whatever.
And they'll claim that as, or even if it's 10%, but maybe they p-hacked the results and
selected for certain things, certain outcomes after the fact.
And so you really can't trust any one study.
It's more of an aggregate of data, it seems.
And I think it's real promising, the nutritional studies for things like heart disease and
such.
I'm certainly hopeful it'll help me.
I have some of that in my family.
Yeah.
Well, it's interesting because everything you're seeing is backed by everything you're
seeing and which is inspired by your experience as a 17 years vegan, long-time vegan, is backed
by studies.
I'm thinking about phonetics and the multiple studies they have conducted examining closely
vegan advocacy and they say clearly that yes, health is more, it's easier to hook someone
on the health argument, but then they should be exposed to the ethical argument because
if they're not, they're going to quit.
They're not going to stay vegan.
Yeah, it becomes, it definitely could be a fad for some people.
Yeah, phonetics, they're one of the organizations that I think recently posted a job.
And yeah, I've looked at some of their data.
It's interesting too, examining, you get into the whole debate of, of welfarism versus more
abolitionist approaches to things and that's a whole other topic.
But yeah, I like looking at data and, but with some caveats for sure.
Since you mentioned it, if listeners want to check it out, phonetics is currently looking
for a people and operations director.
So what about the perspective of employers?
Why do they need vegans?
Like if I want to recruit a manager, why should that manager be vegan?
Normally, like that manager should be good at their job and have great skills.
Why should we require them to, in addition of their skills to be vegan?
Yeah, I think in a lot of cases, there's certainly going to be exceptions where you have a vegan
that's, you know, not the, that doesn't turn out to be the best choice at the end of the
day, but, and maybe even compared to just a really go-getter, non-vegan that still maybe
has their finger on the pulse of the, of the lifestyle and the, you know, the industry.
But for the most part, I think vegans have, because they have a, they're hard in it and
they, and have had a lot of experience.
Certainly when you, I think when you go vegan, you really dive, at least you dive, you dive
head into every little aspect and nook and cranny of veganism and, you know, everything
from watching DVDs to reading books and lots of podcasts for me, especially early on.
And you really get your, you know, your finger on the pulse of, of the movement or just on
how to live vegan in this, this, this non-vegan world where you, you feel like you wake up
in a world of, in a different world, like an alien world where there's exploitation
every which way you look, every commercial, it just happens to, you know, it's just everything
at the grocery store and just people celebrating over, you know, just dead animals in front
of them as they watch a football game or even your local humane society, maybe having some
sort of hot dog eating contest or something ridiculous like that.
And, and so I think we, because we wear that lens of seeing the world through vegan eyes
that we bring a unique perspective that might be quite beneficial for an organization or
a product company when it comes to maybe their marketing or, or just helping with the cohesion
of, of, of that team.
I think having that in common is very helpful.
And certainly, you know, it's definitely easier now.
I would say maybe 10 years ago, it'd be absolutely amazing if you came to work and all the food
options were vegan if your organization happened to help feed you.
But nowadays it's a little bit easier maybe to, or definitely to, to, to quickly bring
your own vegan options to work.
But yeah, the, there's, I think there's quite a few factors that come into play that where
selecting a vegan is quite beneficial.
And then I think they'll go, you know, they certainly people can burn out and that sort
of thing, but you'll probably get a lot more enthusiasm out of, out of vegans that are,
are interested in, in what they're doing and helping animals at the end of the day, especially
if it's, if it's, and certainly if you're an organization that is taking ethical stance
and is, is for example, you know, an, an advocacy, an animal advocacy group, you certainly want
people that are walking the talk, you know, especially when it comes to educating the
community.
And, and I know there are people that will come to those organizations, just they're
not quite vegan.
They haven't just been able to make that switch.
This, this, I'm thinking of people I knew 15 or say 10 years ago, maybe when there weren't
something, like cheese was, was the last hurdle that I couldn't get over.
And nowadays I would hope that they would, they would just be able to select one of the
gazillion cheeses out there, but, and even find that at a restaurant they're eating at,
but I, where was I going with that?
That I think there are, you can definitely maybe gauge if someone, even if they're not
quite vegan, but you know, they're going to end up there.
I've seen some animal rights organizations be happy to take them on because they're going
to expose them to things that will probably get them all the way.
And certainly when you, you know, when you're around people, you end up, you know, if you're
around vegans, you're going to, to learn how to be vegan for sure.
Or see, see exemplified in front of you, people living that lifestyle very easily, like it's
second nature.
I absolutely agree.
And that's why I like events like the vegan festival or the Christmas market, because
you can, you're exposed to real life vegans, you know, not social media vegans, and you
can speak with them and see that, you know, they're not the caricature that they're often
portrayed to be.
And that's also the approach I decided to adopt with my podcast.
You know, I'm open to welcoming guests who are not vegan, even though this is the vegan
report, as long as they're comfortable talking about why they're not vegan.
And maybe this is a way for them, you know, an entry to learning more about veganism and,
you know, being influenced in a way.
Yeah, I, I've seen, I've seen, I was involved in meetup groups for a while.
I haven't been as much recently, but I've seen a lot of people that just are curious
and show up to things like that and festivals for sure.
And I've watched people that have, were vegetarian for many, many years, for example, and then
became the biggest vegan advocates when they finally made the switch and never looked back.
And yeah, as I was mentioning earlier that people should certainly consider maybe someone
who's not fully vegan.
I was realizing my, my job board, for example, won't accept them, but I did have to kind
of set a bar somewhere and it becomes this huge gray area.
The second you let people that, you know, as you can see, it's not, I'm not, you know,
I'm not policing people necessarily, but it's, it's, it's kind of a way to discourage those
who aren't vegan from joining.
I mean, yes, you're right, because your audience are vegans.
It's different, you know, even my podcast.
I'm speaking to vegans, not non-vegans.
And there are expectations with that kind of audience.
So it's different than an organization that is doing outreach to the public in mass.
Because I, you know, if I invite someone who's not vegan, it's because I think that that
person could bring something more to the conversation to fellow vegans, which is rare, you know,
but but it's a different audience, you know, it's a different mission and you're talking
to different people.
So I understand that eagerness to truly filter out the non-vegan employers, because that's
the expectation of, you know, a job seeker, a vegan job seeker who is visiting your website.
Right.
Yeah.
And I've seen, and the interesting thing is I've noticed that what I've worked, you know,
at 10 years, maybe after being vegan, working for organizations like a festival, when you
have fresh vegans come in that are newly vegan, you're reminded of the way they, how you first
saw the world and how you've maybe become slightly jaded or something.
But they bring this fresh energy and there's something that maybe even hiring people who
are newly vegan will have a new perspective or a perspective you may be lost over time
as a longer vegan.
If you're the owner of a company and yeah, they're not as misentropic as the rest of
us.
Right, right.
Something else we should mention is this is open to people from all around the world.
This is not something for, you know, only you're based in the US, but this is not something
only for people in the US or in North America or even in the Western world.
There are opportunities of vegan jobs and being a vegan volunteer all around the world.
And with, I guess, the advent of remote work, you can easily choose a job that is vegan,
that aligns with your values, but is somewhere else.
So can you speak to that?
Yeah, there's, I love seeing jobs that pop up in, say, Croatia.
There's a new vegan restaurant that's popping up and, or, you know, of course it's, there's
quite a few companies.
I'm trying to recall some offhand, but Germany is really huge.
And of course the UK, but there'll be little countries that I maybe even hadn't heard of,
and, you know, there's a vegan restaurant popping up there or a local animal rights
group that's even better to see.
And so yeah, it's absolutely, absolutely everywhere.
It's always, it's also neat when I see a job local in Tucson up here, there was, there's
a sanctuary that recently posted a job and I happened to know them from the past and
I was like, hey, it's me.
And I've, what I've thought about too is there was one in Hawaii early on when I was running
the site and I was like, wow, if I ever wanted to visit Hawaii, now I've got a connection
there.
I can reach out to them, but there's, yeah, there's, it's so great to see.
I was just reaching everywhere and it's, there's, there's probably some challenge where I could
make the site.
I think a lot of people do use translation services if they need, but some people there's
there's a ProVeg will post there.
They're based in Germany, I believe, not fully, but primarily, and they'll post jobs in German
and English and yeah, they've got quite a lot going on.
They're one of the larger groups that have, that have, yeah, there's a lot going on and
they've, they've, they've hired for a lot of positions and yeah, so it's, it's prevalent
for sure.
And it's great to see that people there's, there's for example, Croatia, I think obviously
they would can maybe find someone local, but when they post on the website, there there's
opportunity for like a vegan chef to go travel and work from there.
And they'll, they'll discuss that some of the travel arrangements that would be provided
and how wonderful it is to live on the beach here and that sort of thing.
And so there's, I think it's one of the bigger jobs that opens up travel opportunities.
And then, yeah, of course there's a lot of remote jobs, especially after COVID.
I saw a huge drop in jobs immediately and then they just came roaring back and most
in a lot of the, or a lot of remote positions.
And then in that case, you can work from anywhere as long as someone will specify that they
prefer you to be in their time zone.
And I give a little tip on that when you, you post a job where you, you list remote,
but if you want the person to be in the UK along with you, you put in UK in parentheses
afterwards or wherever the region is.
But some are open to wherever, because it's maybe not necessarily a time constraint thing
or time of day thing for them.
It's if they're doing some sort of work that's just behind the scenes, but.
And I share your enthusiasm at witnessing that veganism becoming more and more global
because it's a universal message of compassion.
Every culture can relate to the vegan message, I believe.
And it is inspiring to see vegan initiatives in places where there is, where the state
of animal rights is truly horrendous.
I interviewed Whispers Red, who opened a sanctuary in Serbia of all places.
And I thought, yeah, genius.
We have enough initiatives in the West and Western world.
We need to do some outreach in places where they never heard about veganism, where animal
exploitation is just normal and never questioned.
Yeah, it's definitely a culture shock when you see examples of, say, like a wet market
and things like that, where to us it's so hidden at our grocery stores where it's wrapped
in saran wrap and there's a little happy piglet on the front or something, an idyllic
farm and people don't give it a second thought.
But then where there's exploitation directly in front of people, they see animals crammed
in little cages and you can just pick it up and bring it home and pluck it and butcher
it yourself.
And it is a fascinating thing to me that it's so in their face and ingrained in their culture.
There's certainly maybe a different approach to how, in a way, I guess, it's always, well,
I'm being reminded of a great documentary, Peaceable Kingdom.
I don't know if you've seen that one, but it's about people who grew up in four-age
clubs and farming communities and befriended animals, became their best buddies living
on the farm.
And later they were expected to, of course, slaughter these animals or turn them over
to slaughter.
And I wonder if it opens up opportunities for people to see animals in some cases, as
there might be a good angle, as they can see the personality of some of these animals that
they're using and make that jump to maybe they're not quite so different or exactly
the same as companion animals, as are the dogs and cats we love.
And yeah, it's interesting.
I like to discuss companion animals, dogs, and when I talk to non-vegans and it's part
of my explanations of why I'm vegan.
And I guess in some countries, dogs aren't quite seen as the same.
And it must be interesting to start a group in places like that.
I will have to listen to that interview.
Yeah, I mean, she provides some shocking details on how they look at animals and even the caretakers
of the sanctuary, because she's not there herself, but she's part of the board of trustees.
And I think she's the president of the organization.
But even the caretakers, they have a different attitude.
They're not treating the dog like a vegan Westerner would treat the dog.
There's a nuance.
There's a lack of sensitivity toward the feelings of the dog or the cat or the animal that is
welcomed.
And this impression of you're going too far when you care for an animal and you're spending
money on their health, healthcare, for instance, or things like that, that foreigners, people
in cultures where veganism is not rooted, would think, no, this is too much or you're
too extreme in your compassion.
Yeah, well, that's interesting for sure.
You got my head spinning a little bit on how they can approach that and cut through that.
The paradigm is the pendulum is definitely swung a lot more in that direction there or
towards just seeing animals as something we can use.
It sounds like, or just as others, I guess.
And yeah.
Well, I like using the word presence.
Before becoming vegan, yes, I cared for non-human animals, but they did not have presence in
my life.
It was part of the decor.
It was decoration or I would not turn my head to pay attention to their feelings or they
did not matter.
They did not stop me from going from A to B or something like that.
It was just like, oh, birds in the sky.
It's same as a cloud kind of attitude.
But then becoming vegan and as years went by, I started to pay more attention to them
as if they were people, which they are.
But yeah, that's the shift of attitude I experienced.
That's interesting.
You mentioned like birds, the story of how I went vegan.
I had not even been vegetarian.
Although I had a cousin growing up who was always vegetarian and I never gave it much
second thought as to why.
I guess I knew why, but I never thought very deep on it.
And one day, yeah, about 17 years ago, in my home, a morning dove crashed into my picture
window and I suddenly felt he was definitely injured and couldn't move or barely could
move.
And I felt this sense of responsibility suddenly that I just realized, well, he had no idea.
Instead of thinking maybe stupid, Barry, how did you do this?
I thought, the poor guy thought he could just fly right through as if it was a frame.
He saw the reflection back and had no idea that we directed this modern day creation
called Glass here or Window.
And I had this thought, it'd be like me running along the desert here in Arizona and an alien
ship maybe was hundreds of yards that way and put up a force field and I just come running
into it and alien is like, look at this idiot.
He has no idea what he's doing.
And so to us, it's like they're living in our world.
And God, there's a lot of, speaking of, there's a lot of birds that die just running into
buildings, right?
But I was suddenly faced with this kind of predicament where I was looking at this bird
and I was like, I guess I should hop online.
I found a local wildlife group and they were all the way across town.
And I was like, well, I really should do this.
This is really an inconvenience to my day, but I can't just let him die here.
And I could tell you, it wasn't something I could just nurse him back myself.
So I spent the better half of the day going over to this wildlife rescue center and driving
back in traffic.
And I get home and I was cooking my regional chicken breast for dinner on the frying pan.
And I was just like, holy crap.
I'm like, I just spent all this time shaving this one bird.
And I kind of saw him as having a personhood and as an individual.
And here I am staring at this other bird in the pan and I thought, what kind of life did
this one live and how did he die?
And I was like, well, that's why people are vegetarian.
Oh, yeah, they kind of think about these guys too.
And I hadn't had a, I grew up with a dog, but I don't think, I hadn't had my 15, no,
15 year old dog yet.
But I definitely had a great friendship with a dog growing up.
And so I knew animals certainly had emotions and could feel pain and that sort of thing.
And so I hopped online, I was like, well, that's why people are vegetarian.
And I was Googling stuff and I came across some member of PETA articles and videos and
it was quite shocking to me.
And I'm glad I came across that material particularly, I think, rather than something softer because
it did kind of wake me up.
And I don't know why, but I had this, I got really angry and I had a switch kind of go
off where I just almost overnight went vegan.
And I'm not sure if I would have gone on for years without thinking much on it or, but
I think that bird, that poor bird, I don't know if he survived.
And seeing him as an individual.
And so I wonder what, sometimes think about that and examine what exactly, to me it was
so clear and easy at the time.
And I just thought my friends and family would jump on board too, as soon as I showed them
a video, for example, or documentary.
But for them, it couldn't break through that cognitive dissonance, right?
And it's quite fascinating how I never would have thought I'd become vegan, but I did pretty
quickly after having this epiphany, I guess.
And so how do we recreate that, if it's possible?
Or just the one-off thing, but yeah.
Well, it was when I first started this podcast, it was a recurring question.
I would ask it a lot to guests.
Do you think you were born vegan or do you think you became vegan in the sense of, do
you think you were born with certain feelings, a certain form of compassion, a level of empathy
that made you receptive to the vegan message?
So yeah, that question, I ask that question a lot.
And what comes back again and again is that you're born vegan, that you're born with
a certain level of empathy, compassion, and maybe even sensitivity.
And then you encounter that message and it resonates with you.
It confirms maybe some feelings or experiences you had throughout your life.
And then it triggers a change.
But it's just my opinion of things.
What do you think?
Yeah, that's interesting.
I have seen studies where even people's political views are maybe influenced by how compassionate
they are or the level of empathy they have.
And yeah, I really hope most people could come around eventually if they had the right
experiences.
That's why I love the example of, so many people love their animals, their companion
animals.
Some people don't fully, they have maybe a different relationship than others where they
like having a dog, but they're not as compassionate towards that animal or see it as suffering
when they just stick it out back all night in the cold and hope it does okay in the doghouse,
that sort of thing.
And yeah, that's an interesting thing to think about.
Because then it begs another question, which is if veganism depends on a certain level
of compassion and empathy ingrained in people from birth, then is the solution to criminalize
animal exploitation?
Yeah, right.
That's the direction you have to go eventually.
Because those that can see the reality have to force it upon others to a degree or set
certain societal rules and laws up just like we do with other things.
To get us closer to that reality, we need to take action.
And you're someone who decided not just to be vegan, but to be active and join all sorts
of initiatives.
How did that happen?
When did you decide to truly take action and not just be, I guess, passively vegan?
Yeah, early on when I went vegan, yeah, because it was, I think it was 2007, I didn't know
any vegans.
And I turned to podcasts, which were absolutely wonderful.
It was like a true respite for my brain to hear others and their experiences and learn
how they're navigating this world, living in a non-vegan world.
I bought a couple of books, I think all the books I could find at the time.
Now you couldn't read through them all probably.
But anyway, I found a local meetup group.
There was a vegetarian and vegan meetup group.
And there's probably maybe 50-50 with vegetarian and vegan.
And as I was learning, I would meet other vegans or vegetarians down there and share
the tools I had found, like podcasts.
I'd point them to specific episodes that we're discussing, maybe something that came up at
the meetup dinner.
And I had this whole email set up where I would send people, like, let me send you an
email.
And I had breakdown of different things.
And listen to this episode and check out, here's a section from this book I read that
just perfectly explains how to look at dealing with your old leather belts, for example,
or something.
And so I think my activism came a little bit just wanting to help others along the way.
And also I love trying to convince maybe vegetarians to go vegan and friends and family.
I quickly learned I should just focus on others, not friends and family, because you can do
a little bit, but you do too much.
And you just come across as overzealous.
But you have to kind of let people plant some seeds and let people maybe find their way.
So I ended up starting because I was sharing podcasts and recommending to people.
I started a website as a web developer.
I thought, well, I'll use my skills to put something out there.
And I created veganfeed.com.
And it was a pretty neat little site back then.
I hand coded everything.
It was before I even worked with WordPress, some of these content management systems that
make life a lot easier.
But I obsessed over building this website that aggregated RSS feeds of all the vegan
podcasts I could find.
And as new ones came around, inevitably, back then, if you Googled vegan podcasts, it was
like the first site that turned up.
Now it's buried.
But people would have me add their podcasts.
And I love being able to introduce people that were visiting my site to their podcasts.
That maybe was a way to help jumpstart their podcast, getting at least a couple of listeners
going.
And I like to think I was helping out a little there.
And the site never quite got thousands of hits per day, but it got a few hundred.
And I think of real people, not just bots and search engine crawlers.
And from there, I shared blogs I also followed.
So I aggregated blogs and little synopsis, our first few hundred characters of the blog
post.
And you could click to read more.
And so I tried to create a little resource where people could read food blogs and animal
rights philosophy blogs and find podcasts.
And I introduced myself to the podcasters.
Often, I'd email them about my website and hope maybe they'll throw up a link somewhere
or just to let them know what I was working on.
And through that, I made some connections.
Inevitably someone would be, I would even point out an error in their RSS feed I just
noticed because it wasn't refreshing on my site.
And I would help them troubleshoot that.
And I got hired on as one of the first vegan podcasts, Our Hen House with Jasmine Singer
and Marion Sullivan.
They hired me on as a webmaster early on.
And to this day, it's been about, I want to say 15 years now maybe that I've been their
webmaster and web developer.
But through an interview they did early on about the vegan feed site, I met then a local
philanthropist in Tucson who was a fan of their show.
And I learned that I never would have met.
And she just wanted to meet and discuss things because she was putting on symposiums in town
with the Forks and the Eyes crew, Dr. Esselstyn and Rip Esselstyn, the firefighter guy.
And there's Dr. Greger and all those guys, T. Colin Campbell.
And they would, she was also a big benefactor to some vegan organizations.
And she formed a little group, put on these symposiums and had a meeting with me wondering
if there's any way we could work together.
And I think just hearing about my vegan feed podcast and my meetup experience, and I pitched
the idea of showing movies in town, screening documentaries, because I found them, I loved
vegan documentaries.
I thought they were potential vegan makers for a lot of people.
And so she financed this whole operation where I'd run out of theater, 500 seat theater,
she helped me pay for fires to be printed.
And I would use my meetup group and just me driving around town, hanging them at Starbucks,
poster boards, and posting on every possible event list online and in local papers.
And if you stop short of putting up billboards, which she actually did for her symposiums.
And those she charged for, but the theaters were prepaid and it was free for everyone
to come see this documentary.
And we actually filled all 500 seats a few times, so much that we had a second showing.
But that got me involved in kind of organizing events.
And I ended up with helping with some festivals later.
And so I just kind of had this natural progression by just, I guess, wanting to maybe help others
early on.
And I think as being vegan and having this huge enthusiasm for it, it all came very easy
to me.
I ended up actually overextending myself to a degree and maybe not focusing on things
that would maybe make me money.
But in hindsight, I'm glad I did it.
It opened up some opportunities that even like, I think the vegan jobs website I launched,
it was easier launching that having connections I did with bloggers.
They helped me get some links early on.
And that of course helped with search results and that sort of thing.
And I think a couple of podcasts maybe mentioned it.
And even through that process, I did occasionally see like I'd be on an email list with Dr.
Gregor is looking for, I think, a video editor.
And that would just get passed through an email chain of people I knew.
And I had owned this domain name, veganjobs.com.
I grabbed a few early on and thinking that they would have potential eventually.
And I was like, it might be about time to start that.
And that's kind of what maybe pushed it a little bit other than it was probably the
best of the names I had.
And I love having, they call it like the category killer domain.
It's the one that helps with branding and people remembering the name and search engine
optimization at least back then.
And so I'm not sure if I didn't own that name.
What I've focused on, maybe a site about vegan dogs or something.
So yeah, so that's kind of my story as how I kind of progressed.
And yeah, even through the festivals I helped with, I'd see plenty of job opportunities
pop up where we had to hire people for and that sort of thing.
Well, yeah, in preparation for this interview, I tried different searches on Google.
I tried animal rights job, animal welfare job, putting my, being through the perspective
of a job seeker who's vegan and who wants a job in an animal rights organization.
And what pops up first is jobs related to the animal industry.
You know, like farmers that need people who care for their cows and things like that.
So I'm truly, truly happy that this initiative exists and that it's a tool people can use
to look for, again, a job, like I said in my intro, that is more meaningful.
Yeah, that's good.
That's great to hear.
Yeah, another, you reminded me of early on when I would Google vegan jobs on like Indeed
or even just Google, I guess, any of the job websites, there was maybe a page or so of
jobs that just mentioned vegan option for the employees in the description somewhere.
And that would of course turn it up in the results.
And that made it clear to me that it would be beneficial to have a site listing just
vegan jobs, exclusively vegan jobs.
And or it would be like, I'm trying to remember other examples, but it was fascinating how
many jobs would come up that weren't vegan, but happen to mention vegan somewhere.
Even if they said, even one said not a good job for vegans, it was like a butcher or something,
or some kind of meat related industry.
And just the fact that it said not for vegans, it turned up.
But there was, yeah, somehow that word would come up.
Just people mentioning they, yeah, I think that they would something about vegan options
at the company.
But yeah, I don't recall the ways it would turn up.
It was fascinating though, how many it would.
Well, famously there was this WeWork initiative of offering vegan options that way back then.
And that started like a little trend of corporations offering vegan options.
I think Apple have only vegan options at their headquarters, maybe.
But yeah, but it's not what we're looking for.
We're looking for, and if you don't know the names of the organizations out there who are
fighting for animal rights, then how are you going to find these opportunities?
And it's also beneficial for those organizations that want to reach vegans.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, there's, and there's so many organizations now that, but like you said earlier too, you
don't always know who's vegan for the right reasons.
And maybe just on the face there, they're kind of pitching that.
But yeah, it's definitely, definitely exploded.
And there's, it's just maybe created more noise in some ways, although there's more
selection but more noise.
Yeah, that's very true.
To end the conversation, I want to ask you, you know, this, the whole philosophy, the
reason why I started this podcast is to encourage people to take action.
So what would you say to vegans who want to take action or are on the fence of taking
action?
Why should they consider, you know, going out, being open about their veganism and putting
efforts in advancing the animal rights cause?
Yeah, I guess we could use, we can use everyone we can, we can get.
Because it's still, even though there's a lot of vegans now, a lot more than there used
to be, it's, I think there's definitely big hurdles out there.
And you may be touched on some of them.
And with when it comes to the empathy of others.
But I've, I like how I approached it where I kind of used the skills I had and that still
got into areas where I had no idea what I was doing necessarily.
But then kind of learned as it went along.
And I think if people, whatever they might have, maybe a natural inclination to, to pursuing
just even in their own, as a hobby even, there might be opportunities there they could explore.
I guess, I guess it's, it's the example of courses like online, you know, developing
something to help reach people there.
But even just volunteering locally is a good start.
It might get the ball rolling and being around others that are, that are involved in the
community.
And yeah, the, I think it's, it's easy to feel like, like you're just a drop in the
bucket.
But at the end of the day, we know it's going to take, you know, get enough drops and it
fills the bucket, I guess.
But it's just like voting, I guess.
That's like one of those things where you feel like you're just this tiny insignificant
thing compared to all the millions of votes for, for an election.
But without everyone getting together, it doesn't, it doesn't work.
So yeah, I think if, if you, there's certainly a lot of ways that people, if you're a graphic
designer or a, I'm trying to think, I should have a lot more examples on off the cuff here.
But there's almost, there's, because now the vegan world, it kind of spans all sectors
and, and every little thing that there's, there's probably something with your specialty
out there that someone might be hiring for.
So if you do want to work for a vegan organization or company, there's, there's a chance that
you'll find a fit out there.
Or if not today, maybe, you know, years from now, but there's, it's amazing what, you know,
it's every little thing you can think of from legal assistance to, there's even some healthcare
clinics that have sought vegan, like nurses.
There's you know, ecotourism type jobs and a lot of hospitality jobs, of course.
But there's, you know, data analysts and food scientists, and it's just endless, endless
list of potential jobs that are needed or going to be needed, I think.
And so whether it's becomes your job or just maybe volunteering your skills, or just if
you don't have, if you don't feel like you have any that currently fit, just going out
there and diving in and sure enough, you'll, you know, a lot of, almost all of us have
that imposter syndrome, perhaps in the beginning when we do anything and just kind of push
through that and get involved because it's really rewarding, especially I found volunteering
really rewarding.
And yeah.
Well, Ben, that's a great message to end the conversation.
Thank you so much, Ben, for having accepted my invitation for your initiative and sharing
your thoughts with listeners.
I'm all about, you know, veteran vegans who have been vegans for as long as you have,
you know, to share their wisdom with people.
So thank you.
Thank you so much for your time.
Oh, excellent.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
It's been great.
Thank you everyone for listening.
I kindly invite you to share this podcast with the vegans you know.
Let's encourage more people to take action.
Again, thank you so much for caring and I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.