Chris Bonington: 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

I left the army and got a job with Unilever in Northern Ireland. They were very strict and you had to have a hat, and when you went into a shop you had to raise your hat to the shopkeeper and then sell your wares. I was selling margarine.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 March 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

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Meera Syal British writer and actress

Having to clean out my daughter’s digs at university. The memory of the state of that toilet still lives with me.

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

Mark Radcliffe

Working in a bottle factory, which lasted one day, and the Radio 1 breakfast show.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 August 2025 source ↗

Robert Glenister English actor

The back end of a horse in panto in Newcastle in 1979.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 July 2022 source ↗

Tom Ellis Welsh actor

When I was 17, I worked in a warehouse in Rotherham doing an audit of truck parts. I counted nuts and bolts all day long.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 September 2021 source ↗

More from Chris Bonington

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Question What accomplishment matters most to you? Craft & work

Everest the hard way in 1975: leading the expedition that succeeded where so many people had tried and failed. That was the most complex mountaineering challenge I ever faced. I spent hours at night in a little tent thinking about what the next problem would be and how to solve it.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 March 2025 source ↗