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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.

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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
Simone Biles United States artistic gymnast
Picking up dog poop at home: my sister and I used to take turns.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 February 2017 source ↗
Victoria Pendleton British cyclist
Six weeks in my dad’s office doing admin was enough to persuade me to pursue a career in sport.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 July 2017 source ↗
Chris Hoy British track cyclist, 1994–2013
Delivering papers in the freezing cold for my granny. I got paid in Panini football stickers, so it wasn’t all bad.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 February 2018 source ↗
Chris Bonington
I left the army and got a job with Unilever in Northern Ireland. They were very strict and you had to have a hat, and when you went into a shop you had to raise your hat to the shopkeeper and then sell your wares. I was selling margarine.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 March 2025 source ↗

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