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 Lupita Nyong'o said elsewhere, not written here
I waited tables for one night at the turn of the century. They were being fussy about how I put the food on the plates, and I couldn’t have cared less.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 October 2019 source ↗

Others on this question

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Erin Doherty
I was the PE technician at my old secondary school, so I had to pump up all the balls, wash all the kits and get the form notes in before morning registration every day.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 March 2025 source ↗

Shobna Gulati
When I was younger, I signed up to a job agency and thought I would be doing secretarial work, but they assigned me to clean toilets in a factory in Oldham.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 October 2025 source ↗

Mo Gilligan British comedian
Handing out leaflets for a dry cleaner’s, because no one wanted them and, if people did take them, they just threw them on the floor.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 November 2021 source ↗

Douglas Stuart Scottish fashion designer and novelist
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.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 April 2023 source ↗

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