Jon Sopel: What is the worst job you have ever had?

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.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Children’s underwear department at Marks & Spencer, Oxford Circus. I was 16 years old, earning money in my summer holidays.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 October 2024 source ↗

Others on this question

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Kerry Godliman

Bar and buffet at Top Ten Bingo in Greenford. A lot of the old people were quite bigoted.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 September 2023 source ↗

Jodie Whittaker English actress

Working in a soap factory in Huddersfield. I was in my late teens, so I was basically hungover every day.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 September 2018 source ↗

PP Arnold

I worked in a Helms Bakery assembly line that separated egg whites from the yolks and from time to time a box of rotten eggs would come through. Need I say more?

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 October 2023 source ↗

Charles Collingwood

Standing outside a pub in Acton on a freezing February day in a threadbare overcoat doing market research.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 March 2025 source ↗