Helen George: 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 Helen George said elsewhere, not written here

Waitressing. I was so bad. I smashed things. I once mistakenly ordered a very expensive bottle of wine for a table. They thought they were ordering a very average bottle of wine, and I ordered them an £800 bottle and they drank it. I got the sack a few weeks later.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 January 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

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Peter Sarsgaard

Caddying for really rich people at this country club in Connecticut when I was a teenager. They would talk like I wasn’t there so I would hear all about their lives, their affairs and their stupidity, and yet I couldn’t say anything.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 February 2024 source ↗

Rick Astley Singer, songwriter and radio presenter

I haven’t really had a job. I used to work at my dad’s garden centre in my late teens, but it was just messing around.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 October 2018 source ↗

Martin Sheen American actor

That would have to be a film called Pickup On 101. It was a very interesting story, about a wandering musician and an old guy on his way back to his home town to spend his last days, but they made it into a pile of dishonest trash.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 March 2017 source ↗

Tim Rice English lyricist and author

I worked in a petrol station on the A1 one summer. I enjoyed it except when I was on latrine duty.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 March 2017 source ↗