I’ve never had a terrible job. I’ve been a cook, waitress, bookseller, teacher, freelance writer. I know what the bad jobs are and I haven’t done them.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 April 2017 source ↗
The question
What is the worst job you have ever had?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.
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Others on this question
View all 230 →
Marc Almond
English singer
In the school holidays, I worked at a soft drinks factory in Southport.
Tom Ellis
Welsh actor
When I was 17, I worked in a warehouse in Rotherham doing an audit of truck parts. I counted nuts and bolts all day long.
Irvine Welsh
Scottish novelist
Laying down slabs for the council.
Cressida Cowell
British writer
I was a terrible secretary in a publishing company (clumsy, disorganised, hid letters behind the filing cabinet because I was supposed to have done something with them and I wasn’t sure what).
More from Ann Patchett
View profile →Before email was invented.
A writer. Always.
A friend named Charles Strobel, who runs the Campus for Human Development in Nashville. It’s a homeless shelter. He lives a life of pure kindness, and he’s a funny guy.
Pulling yourself out of a wild ocean and on to a life raft.
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