I worked in a paper factory at five o’clock on a Saturday morning when I was in my early 20s. I’d go out raving the night before, get an hour’s sleep and then go to the factory. I was covered in paper cuts and used to think I heard people talking to me; they gave me a lot of breaks because they thought I was going mad.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
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.
Pressing uniforms in a laundry. I was 14. I lied about my age and said I was 16, even though I probably looked about 12.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 February 2020 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 240 →
Peyton Manning
American football quarterback
it was my first job.
Joanne Froggatt
English actress
Scraping plates in a fish and chip cafe in Whitby.
In South Africa I washed cars, I danced in parking lots and shopping malls, and was a children’s entertainer.
More from Paterson Joseph
View profile →When my son was about three years old and I was working at the National Theatre. I remember cycling from Twickenham, and thinking, “This is the golden age: I’ll never be happier or more content than this.”
A private detective.
I wouldn’t live so long in France. After eight years, I came back to London.
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