SP
Cleaning toilets in a hotel in Croydon when I was 16. A guest once gave me a half-eaten bag of pistachios as a tip, so there were perks.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 October 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 →
Russell Howard
British comedian and presenter
Once, I was MC at a Christmas gig in Romford and a woman threw a dildo at my face.
Looking after the flowerbed on my windowsill.
John Waters
American filmmaker
I worked in a unisex clothes store for three days. Girls would say, 'Do I look fat in this?' I'd say, 'Yes.' I was fired.
Joanna Scanlan
British actress and writer
At the BBC, in the old days, a piece of paper was sent to various households for them to report on what they’d watched that week. In my early 20s, I collated the data. It was deeply boring.
More from Sue Perkins
View profile →An eye surgeon. I had an operation on my cornea when I was little, and remember being deeply enamoured with the team who looked after me. Subsequently, I was very disappointed to learn that a degree of scientific aptitude was required for the job, which ruled me out.
Anna dared me to jump off a cliff in Menorca on holiday a couple of years ago. I did. I fell 30m through the air, hit the water at an odd angle and shattered my coccyx.
In my 20s, touring small arts centres with my best mate, performing sketch comedy to a handful of people.
Not accepting every dare.
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
Rosanna Arquette, Robert Carlyle, Adrian Edmondson, Brendan Gleeson, Ralf Little, Jenna Coleman
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