EB
When I was a kid I was a chambermaid in my family’s hotel, and I once found a strap-on that someone had left behind.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 February 2021 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 →
Jodie Whittaker
English actress
Working in a soap factory in Huddersfield. I was in my late teens, so I was basically hungover every day.
Melanie Blatt
English singer
Horrible gigs at the beginning, when no one’s interested.
Michael Flatley
American step dancer
Digging foundations in the freezing-cold Chicago winters.
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 ↗
More from Edith Bowman
View profile →A pair of Balenciaga boots. They were extortionate, but that has to be at least 10 years ago and I still wear them.
I had a car crash not long after passing my test, driving mates to a club on a Saturday night. Thankfully, everyone was OK – as was my dad about his car, which was a write-off.
As a nice person who always put others before myself. I’d also like my own posthumous tartan.
Something that you can’t describe or put in a box. It changes daily and surprises you when you least expect.
Martin Scorsese. I was, let’s say, slightly tactile with him during a Q&A; I was more nervous than I’ve been about anything. I kept tapping his knee, it might even have been bruised by the end.
Not having my own chatshow. Yet!
More on craft & work
- What accomplishment matters most to you? 192 answers
- How do you tell when a piece of work is done? 67 answers
- What do you do when you feel creatively stuck? 63 answers
- How does a new piece of work usually begin for you? 60 answers
- How much rewriting or revision do you typically do? 46 answers
- What part of your job would surprise outsiders because it takes up so much of your time? 41 answers
Also answered this
Cressida Cowell, Adrian Edmondson, Louis Theroux, Rosanna Arquette, Robert Carlyle, Tim Rice
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All craft & work questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject