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 Ann Patchett said elsewhere, not written here
I’ve never had a terrible job. I’ve been a cook, waitress, bookseller, teacher, freelance writer. I know what the bad jobs are and I haven’t done them.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 April 2017 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 229 →
Bruno Tonioli Italian choreographer
I had to choreograph dancing cows for a commercial. I had to superimpose footage of dancing legs – some were mine – on to the cow. It was bonkers.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2023 source ↗

Ann Dowd American actress
Trying to sell frozen food over the phone for a company called American Frozen Foods. It lasted about half an hour. I found myself telling people not to buy too much of it because it could go bad, and my supervisor said, “This job is probably not for you.”

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 January 2022 source ↗

When I was a teenager, I worked in a vegetable shop on Saturdays, and the guy had a rotation of 10 pretty teenagers working for him and was really sleazy. I only went twice because the second time he made me go up to his flat above the shop and clean his toilet, and he was watching me.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 September 2023 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 ↗

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