Francesca Martinez: What is the worst job you have done?

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 Francesca Martinez said elsewhere, not written here

I’ve liked all my jobs, amazingly.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 March 2020 source ↗

Others on this question

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Hayley Squires English actress and playwright

I worked in a call centre. I would go clubbing on a Saturday with my brother and my mates, get home for five or six in the morning, and then have to be at work at 8am.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 April 2020 source ↗

Cressida Cowell British writer

I was a terrible secretary in a publishing company (clumsy, disorganised, hid letters behind the filing cabinet because I was supposed to have done something with them and I wasn’t sure what).

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 September 2020 source ↗

Neil Gaiman Author of fiction, comics and screenplays

The only job I quit was, aged about 23, subediting a “men’s” magazine. My job was typing out readers’ pornographic fantasies. I started wishing people would reproduce by splitting down the middle.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 October 2023 source ↗

Adam Kay British comedy writer, author, youtuber, comedian and former physician

A comedy gig at an army barracks for thousands of angry, horny squaddies just back from six months in the desert. I was on straight after the stripper.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 June 2023 source ↗