RA
Picking tiny bits of glass out of long grass for Haringey council, 45 years ago.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 June 2017 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 →
Adeel Akhtar
British actor
In Brooklyn, I was a dishwasher in a sandwich shop.
Joan Jett
American singer, songwriter and guitarist
I had a cafeteria job, serving food, and some people were really nasty. There was a stack of nice, cool plates, and a stack of hotter plates that had just come out of the kitchen. So, if a person was an arsehole, I’d hand them a hot plate with a smile and watch them deal with it.
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 ↗
Ann Patchett
American author
I’ve never had a terrible job. I’ve been a cook, waitress, bookseller, teacher, freelance writer. I know what the bad jobs are and I haven’t done them.
More from Roger Allam
View profile →Just remembered, really.
Not being active in my own desires.
The third or fourth glass of wine.
Reading aloud the last two pages of a book about Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell. It was about his relationship with his cat, and a letter to a friend whose dog had died. It’s about letting the unexpected happen to you, and how that can really be what life is about.
I was very proud of doing Falstaff, because it seemed to go well.
When I was a child, it was a bus driver or engine driver; then, when I was a teenager, I went to the theatre and wanted to be an actor.
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