Frank Bowling: What is the worst job you have done?

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 Frank Bowling said elsewhere, not written here

Picking up RAF pilots’ parachute packs and gear they dropped off in a pile.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 June 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

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Melanie Chisholm British pop singer

Working in a chip shop when I was 16. I gave my friends massive portions, but the smell was gross.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 October 2016 source ↗

Laura Kenny English cyclist

I’ve never had a job.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 January 2017 source ↗

Chris Bonington

I left the army and got a job with Unilever in Northern Ireland. They were very strict and you had to have a hat, and when you went into a shop you had to raise your hat to the shopkeeper and then sell your wares. I was selling margarine.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 March 2025 source ↗

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 ↗