Jo Nesbø: What is the worst job you have done?

What is the worst job you have done?

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.

Recorded Jo Nesbø said elsewhere, not written here

I worked on a trawler and I was seasick the whole time.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 April 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 229 →

Elaine Paige English singer and actress

Maybe That’s Your Problem, a musical about premature ejaculation. It closed after only 18 performances.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 September 2016 source ↗

Terence Conran British restaurateur and designer

When I was 19, I washed up in the basement of a Paris restaurant that stank of rotted food. I did it for six months, until I was promoted to vegetable boy.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 August 2016 source ↗

Jack Davenport

Bicycle courier: it was literally dicing with death on a minute-to-minute basis for 12 hours a day. It was terrifying and exhausting.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 March 2024 source ↗

Julien Macdonald Welsh fashion designer

Working in a betting office on Grand National day. I was 17 and my hair was scrunched like Mick Hucknall’s.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 October 2016 source ↗