TA
I once had to sit on a sleigh and pretend to be Bing Crosby for a corporate party. I had to mime to White Christmas over and over again.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 November 2023 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.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Others on this question
View all 230 →When I started as a researcher in the BBC, I was working for an editor who was a self-confessed misogynist. He used to practise shooting by aiming his air gun at an aerosol can balanced just over my head. I made it a matter of pride not to flinch as the pellets whizzed by.
Adrian Edmondson
English actor, comedian, musician and writer
I worked in the largest pork pie factory in Europe. I had a plastic mushroom-shaped thing and had to tamp down the meat into the pie base. It was a conveyor belt of pies from nine to five. The worst thing was the crackly AM radio, which was played loudly through the tinny tannoy system. I still can’t listen to I’m Not In Love by 10cc without thinking of raw minced pork.
Katharine Hamnett
English fashion designer
Hop-picking in Kent when I was 13. The smell was dreadful, and put me off beer for life.
Working in McDonald’s when I was 16. It was about 90p an hour. Because I was always late, they made me “trash walk” the length of Kentish Town high street and pick up the McDonald’s rubbish.
More from Tom Allen
View profile →The fear of nightmares.
On holiday in Spain with my family about 20 years ago. Sad, but true.
Not understanding myself until I was in my 30s.
I did a corporate gig early in my career, and they opened the buffet in the middle of my set and everybody left.
The greatest athlete we never knew we had.
Never save anything for best.
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