Esther Rantzen: What is the worst job you have ever had?

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.

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

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.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 February 2024 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 230 →

Noel Clarke English actor and filmmaker

Cleaning the changing rooms at Kensington leisure centre from the age of 16.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 April 2021 source ↗

Kathy Lette Australian-British author

Bedpan emptier in a hospital.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 June 2024 source ↗

Tim Rice English lyricist and author

I worked in a petrol station on the A1 one summer. I enjoyed it except when I was on latrine duty.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 March 2017 source ↗

Rory Kinnear English actor

It’s a toss-up between organising a new filing system at Hammersmith & Fulham social services and relying on tips in the least popular restaurant in London to get through drama school.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 August 2017 source ↗

More from Esther Rantzen

View profile →

Question If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change? Failure & regret

Maybe I should have agreed to take the job of controller of BBC One when Bill Cotton offered it to me. I do feel a wimp; I would have been the first woman in the job.What do you consider your greatest achievement? I don’t really claim credit, I hope, for helping to launch Childline and the Silver Line and Silver Stories. It is an achievement that they all exist, but that is down to their amazing teams.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 February 2024 source ↗