Sarah Hadland: 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.

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Magician’s assistant on a cruise ship for two weeks when I was 19. When I was meant to be being levitated, I was silently crying while pretending to be unconscious as I hung limply off a metal pole. It was bleak.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 December 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

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Michelle Collins

Working in McDonald’s when I was 16. It was about 90p an hour. Because I was always late, they made me “trash walk” the length of Kentish Town high street and pick up the McDonald’s rubbish.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 April 2024 source ↗

Bernadine Evaristo English author and academic

On a cosmetics production line. I walked out after half a day.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 July 2020 source ↗

Harlan Coben American author

I worked a janitorial job, cleaning university dormitories after students had gone home for the summer. You can’t imagine the condition some of those rooms were in. They could have doubled as sets for a slasher film.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗

Naga Munchetty

Double-glazing sales when I was about 16 – on the phone, cold calling. Horrendous.

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