Skip to content
Craft & work

What is the worst job you have ever had?

230 answers answered between 2008 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A

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.

Claim your address

On the record

Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Read by field Everyone Arts and letters 205 Politics and public life 10 Business and finance 6 Technology 1 Sport 8
Read by age Any age Before thirty 3 In their thirties 48 In their forties 49 In their fifties 54 In their sixties 47 Seventy and beyond 27
Order Earliest first Most recent Surprise me
Erin O'Connor English model
Shooting hosiery on top of an iceberg and getting my backside stuck to it.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 March 2008 source ↗
Cybill Shepherd American actress and former model
A movie called The Return that was about cows from outer space.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 June 2008 source ↗
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.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 September 2008 source ↗
Joseph Fiennes English actor
Several: cutting the local vicar's lawn, shovelling shit from a stable, waiting tables, picking up and washing actors' smelly pants and socks.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 October 2008 source ↗
Omid Djalili British stand-up comedian and actor
Selling low-grade cookery books in west London office buildings.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 August 2010 source ↗
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 ↗
Melanie Chisholm British pop singer
Working in a chip shop when I was 16. I gave my friends massive portions, but the smell was gross.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 October 2016 source ↗
Bill Bailey Comedian and musician
Telesales. I refused to wear a tie, but my argument that “They can’t see what we’re wearing” didn’t wash with the manager and I lasted a week.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 October 2016 source ↗
Ronald Harwood South African playwright and novelist
Unpacking scenery from a pantechnicon for the Carl Rosa Opera Company.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 November 2016 source ↗
Tess Daly English television presenter
Serving bar snacks in a pub in my teens. Once I spilled an entire family’s Sunday lunch into the dad’s lap.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 December 2016 source ↗
Emeli Sandé British singer
I was a perfume girl at a department store in Aberdeen. I was so bad at it, I didn’t make it to the end of the day.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 January 2017 source ↗
Shappi Khorsandi Iranian-born British comedian
Life modelling for a woman who made me recite Shakespeare as I posed. I had a hangover, and it was all a bit much.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 February 2017 source ↗

0 answers from members

Nobody has answered this one yet.

More on craft & work