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.
Clearing up someone’s sick – it was on police duty.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 September 2025 source ↗
When I was at school, I had a summer job where I had to buff blocks of plastic for a display unit. The factory only remembered to give us masks on day three.
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.
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.
A lot of awful gigs. You can’t become a successful comedian without dying on your arse more times than you can remember.
An English teacher said, “You’ll never make anything of yourself.”
Trusting someone and being let down.
The children. As a mother you are constantly worrying whether you’ve done the right thing.
I’m a bit of a hoarder.
It was reading out loud, but no longer. (I am dyslexic.) I was encouraged by my husband to do a speech for the Royal National Institute of Blind People, which helped me gain my confidence, and the fear disappeared.
In a different sense, I’ve helped to try to resuscitate a dead man.
Jared Harris, Peter Capaldi, Shane MacGowan, Tom Ellis, Jennifer Hudson, Lupita Nyong'o
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