Bill Bailey
Comedian and musician
Telesales. I refused to wear a tie, but my argument that “They can’t see what we’re wearing” didn’t wash with the manager and I lasted a week.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
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.
I worked a janitorial job, cleaning university dormitories after students had gone home for the summer. You can’t imagine the condition some of those rooms were in. They could have doubled as sets for a slasher film.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗
Others on this question
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Alison Moyet
English singer
A 12-hour nightshift at a toy factory in Southend.
Clearing up someone’s sick – it was on police duty.
Living in a campervan for a week with Timmy Mallett for a children’s TV show about 40 years ago.
More from Harlan Coben
View profile →A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.
We are too often advised to live life to the fullest. That’s too much pressure. The key is to find joy and poignancy in the quiet and mundane. Life is lived between the so-called big moments.
I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
I was followed by a mob of fans when I was doing a photoshoot in Paris. When I signed autographs for them during a break, one remarked: “Who the fuck is Harlan Coben? I told you it wasn’t Bruce Willis.”
I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.
With a wistful smile.
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