Bernadine Evaristo
English author and academic
On a cosmetics production line. I walked out after half a day.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
What scares you about getting older?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Caddying for really rich people at this country club in Connecticut when I was a teenager. They would talk like I wasn’t there so I would hear all about their lives, their affairs and their stupidity, and yet I couldn’t say anything.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 February 2024 source ↗
Others on this question
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Omid Djalili
British stand-up comedian and actor
Selling low-grade cookery books in west London office buildings.
Barack Obama
44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008
Scooping ice cream is tougher than it looks. … Rows and rows of rock-hard ice cream can be brutal on the wrists. … I was less interested in what the job meant for my future and more concerned about what it meant for my jump shot.
Recorded
LinkedIn, 'Here's the Scoop: Why My First Job Mattered', The Associated Press, 25 February 2016
source ↗
Julian Lennon
English musician, photographer, and philanthropist
I was a waiter with my old friend Justin Clayton; we would sneak in too many drinks and were fired after spilling soup too many times on customers.
More from Peter Sarsgaard
View profile →The Middle East crisis.
When I was first acting, in college, a relative came and saw me in Hedda Gabler and she said: “Look in the mirror, you’re not an actor. An actor looks like Mel Gibson.”
Nurturing, musical, uncompromising.
To tell the truth.
Losing my mind.
Not finishing things.
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