On a cosmetics production line. I walked out after half a day.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 July 2020 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
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Julian Sands
British actor
Father Christmas at a department store. The plaintive sadness of the children’s unrealistic requests was almost unbearable.
I was a secret shopper and had to do a lot of bookies – Coral and William Hill – all around London. For 18-year-old me looking all fab it was quite scary going in and saying: “Hiya, can I put £4 on No 7 horse, please?” But you got to keep the money when you won.
I got sacked from TK Maxx for falling asleep under the coats.
Helen George
English actress
Waitressing. I was so bad. I smashed things. I once mistakenly ordered a very expensive bottle of wine for a table. They thought they were ordering a very average bottle of wine, and I ordered them an £800 bottle and they drank it. I got the sack a few weeks later.
More from Bernadine Evaristo
View profile →A pair of Russell & Bromley boots with studs. I have had them for eight years and wear them all the time.
The people I never thanked for what they selflessly gave me in my career; when I was younger I just took it for granted.
Travelling Europe with a friend, when I was 29. She was driving and the brakes went, on one of those vertiginous Italian mountains. It was terrifying for the 20 minutes it took to coast down the mountain.
When I met my husband, David, in 2006, on Dating Direct.
Disappear by Beyoncé.
I cried after I won the Booker.
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