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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

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A holiday job as a chambermaid at the Scratchwood Travelodge on the M1. The state some people leave their rooms in was a revelation.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 April 2024 source ↗
Gemma Chan British Chinese actress
When I was a teenager I worked as a lifeguard, and one of our duties was to clean the showers. It essentially involved cleaning people’s pubes from the drain.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 August 2018 source ↗
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.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 October 2023 source ↗
In a Dagenham factory at 6am, picking soldiers’ greatcoats from wars around the world to sell at the market in Chelsea. I smelled like mothballs, and no one would come near me.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 June 2025 source ↗

More from Simone Biles

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Question What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should they ignore? Time & hindsight
Yeah, I say put mental health first because if you don't, then you're not going to enjoy your sport and you're not going to succeed as much as you want to. So it's okay sometimes to even sit out the big competitions to focus on yourself because it shows how strong of a competitor and person that you really are rather than just battle through it.
Recorded Post-competition press conference, Ariake Gymnastics Centre, Tokyo Olympics, Rev, 27 July 2021 source ↗

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