Sandi Toksvig: 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.

Sandi Toksvig

Danish and British broadcaster, comedian and writer

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Working on an assembly line in a plastics factory.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 March 2018 source ↗

Others on this question

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Edith Bowman Scottish radio DJ and television presenter

When I was a kid I was a chambermaid in my family’s hotel, and I once found a strap-on that someone had left behind.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 February 2021 source ↗

Pauline Black

Giving barium enemas. I used to be a radiographer in Coventry.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 April 2025 source ↗

Dominic Cooper English actor

I used to clean the ovens in a bakery. Brillo pad and poison.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 August 2017 source ↗

Greg James British author, broadcaster, comedian, and presenter

When I was at school, I had a summer job where I had to buff blocks of plastic for a display unit. The factory only remembered to give us masks on day three.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 March 2019 source ↗

More from Sandi Toksvig

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Question Excluding property, what is the most expensive thing you have ever bought? Money & investment

My five-litre Ford Mustang.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 March 2018 source ↗

Question What most recently moved you to tears? Identity & self

When I read the story of a blind, bisexual goose called Thomas who had died in New Zealand after a lifetime of love for a swan called Henry. It sounds ridiculous but is entirely true.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 March 2018 source ↗