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.
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
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On the record
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Working in a betting office on Grand National day. I was 17 and my hair was scrunched like Mick Hucknall’s.
Hop-picking in Kent when I was 13. The smell was dreadful, and put me off beer for life.
Washing up in the Ford factory canteen in Dagenham.
When I was about 18, I worked on the chicken counter in a large supermarket, and every morning I had to pierce 64 birds on to industrial skewers to load up the rotisserie. That was very grim.
I had to clean up the sump pump [toilet system] in my house because my sister and I flushed things we shouldn’t have.
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