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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.

Others on this question

View all 230 →
Julien Macdonald Welsh fashion designer
Working in a betting office on Grand National day. I was 17 and my hair was scrunched like Mick Hucknall’s.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 October 2016 source ↗
Maya Jama British television and radio presenter
I did work in retail while I was getting into presenting and the hours were long and you were always on your feet. It was good vibes, though.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 June 2023 source ↗
Tess Daly English television presenter
Serving bar snacks in a pub in my teens. Once I spilled an entire family’s Sunday lunch into the dad’s lap.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 December 2016 source ↗
David Gandy British model
I worked for a company that stripped an office, including the furniture, over one weekend – so I worked for 48 hours straight.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 April 2020 source ↗

More from John Simpson

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Question Who deserves an apology from you, and for what? Failure & regret
I’d like to say sorry to my mother. I had to choose between my parents, and I chose my father because he didn’t have any other kids. (My mother was a war widow and had two children from her first marriage.) I thought, in a childish way, that one had to be fair. It was very difficult for my mother and me, and we never really got over it.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 December 2016 source ↗

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Malcolm Gladwell, Gloria Steinem, Barack Obama, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Robert Peston, Caroline Lucas

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