Johannes Radebe: 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.

Johannes Radebe

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

In South Africa I washed cars, I danced in parking lots and shopping malls, and was a children’s entertainer.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 March 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

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du Beke English dancer and TV presenter

I was a door-to-door carpet-cleaning salesman. I thought my life was going to end, so I binned that after a day.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 December 2019 source ↗

Rory Kinnear English actor

It’s a toss-up between organising a new filing system at Hammersmith & Fulham social services and relying on tips in the least popular restaurant in London to get through drama school.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 August 2017 source ↗

Martin Kemp English musician and actor

Gary and I worked in a greengrocer’s on Saturdays and in the holidays. One of my jobs was cooking beetroot – it used to make me gag.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 July 2018 source ↗

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 ↗