Paul Whitehouse: 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.

Paul Whitehouse

Welsh comedian

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

I was what I call a “nut lifter” in a factory in Enfield. I had to get nuts and bolts from the production line into big tins.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 June 2018 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 230 →

Terence Conran British restaurateur and designer

When I was 19, I washed up in the basement of a Paris restaurant that stank of rotted food. I did it for six months, until I was promoted to vegetable boy.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 August 2016 source ↗

Siri Hustvedt American novelist, essayist, poet

I was a floor model briefly at Bloomingdale’s in New York in 1979. I hated it. When no one was watching, I would lock myself in the toilet and read.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 August 2017 source ↗

Keir Starmer

Leader of the opposition. I worked with the police service in Northern Ireland and then ran the Crown Prosecution Service. In each of those jobs, if something needed fixing, I could fix it. As leader of the opposition, you are not in power and it’s the most frustrating job I’ve ever had, and a job I hope I don’t have for much longer.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 August 2023 source ↗

Bryn Terfel Welsh bass-baritone singer