PW
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 ↗
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.
Others on this question
View all 230 →
Laura Kenny
English cyclist
I’ve never had a job.
Mo Gilligan
British comedian
Handing out leaflets for a dry cleaner’s, because no one wanted them and, if people did take them, they just threw them on the floor.
Kim Wilde
English pop singer
I’ve always enjoyed all my jobs, whether it was cleaning the stairs for my piano teacher or working at Lister hospital one summer.
Neil Gaiman
Author of fiction, comics and screenplays
The only job I quit was, aged about 23, subediting a “men’s” magazine. My job was typing out readers’ pornographic fantasies. I started wishing people would reproduce by splitting down the middle.
More from Paul Whitehouse
View profile →The eradication of poverty would be nice, but at the moment, a double macchiato.
When I came round after being seriously ill. I’d had a dose of morphine, the sun was shining and I thought, “Ah yes, I live!”
When my dad died this year.
A professional footballer.
More on craft & work
- What accomplishment matters most to you? 192 answers
- How do you tell when a piece of work is done? 67 answers
- What do you do when you feel creatively stuck? 63 answers
- How does a new piece of work usually begin for you? 60 answers
- How much rewriting or revision do you typically do? 46 answers
- What part of your job would surprise outsiders because it takes up so much of your time? 41 answers
Also answered this
Romola Garai, Jon Sopel, Kate Humble, Jack Davenport, Laura Kenny, Esther Rantzen
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All craft & work questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject