In South Africa I washed cars, I danced in parking lots and shopping malls, and was a children’s entertainer.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
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What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
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What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
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If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
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.
I worked a janitorial job, cleaning university dormitories after students had gone home for the summer. You can’t imagine the condition some of those rooms were in. They could have doubled as sets for a slasher film.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 229 →When I worked at a dog food company shovelling the exterminated rats.
Angela Hartnett
English chef
Washing up in the Ford factory canteen in Dagenham.
Michael Ball
English singer, presenter and actor
Handing out leaflets for a European coach trip wearing just lederhosen, in February and March in Surrey. It was freezing, and I got fired.
More from Harlan Coben
View profile →A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.
With a wistful smile.
I was followed by a mob of fans when I was doing a photoshoot in Paris. When I signed autographs for them during a break, one remarked: “Who the fuck is Harlan Coben? I told you it wasn’t Bruce Willis.”
We are too often advised to live life to the fullest. That’s too much pressure. The key is to find joy and poignancy in the quiet and mundane. Life is lived between the so-called big moments.
I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.
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