What is the worst job you have done?

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 Mike Skinner said elsewhere, not written here
Cleaning toilets in a motorway service station.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 January 2009 source ↗

Others on this question

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When I was younger, I signed up to a job agency and thought I would be doing secretarial work, but they assigned me to clean toilets in a factory in Oldham.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 October 2025 source ↗
Noah Harari Israeli historian and philosopher
When I was 16, at the beginning of the summer vacation, I worked in a factory that made industrial valves and I was a much worse industrial valve producer than historian.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 October 2021 source ↗
Julie Hesmondhalgh English actress and narrator
I cleaned for a very posh lady in Knightsbridge who made me handwash her knickers. I’d advertised myself in The Lady as a dog walker, so I’m not sure how I ended up there.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 February 2018 source ↗

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