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.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
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What does love feel like?
Relationships
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Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
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 shucked oysters for a day without the proper knife or gloves. I had to go to hospital as I’d ripped my hands up. I can’t recommend it as a career option.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 January 2019 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 229 →
Ralf Little
English actor, writer, former semi-professional footballer
For two weeks I worked behind the players’ bar at Bolton Wanderers football club – footballers don’t tip.
Living in a campervan for a week with Timmy Mallett for a children’s TV show about 40 years ago.
Bryn Terfel
Welsh bass-baritone singer
I cleaned the toilets at the local pub every Saturday morning.
More from Melissa McCarthy
View profile →I wanted to make women’s clothing. I also said that I wanted to be an artist; I don’t think I ever said I wanted to be an actress, but I remember thinking that would be fun.
That I have strong, happy girls.
That in 2019 we’re still dealing with people hating people or people wanting to keep women down. That we haven’t evolved past that is a huge disappointment.
There is an ease to it. It’s not all butterflies and sky rockets, it’s more like absolute comfort.
Gloria Steinem, because her whole life has been spent trying to help people.
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- What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or stuck? 66 answers
- How does a new work begin for you? 61 answers
- How much rewriting or revision do you do? 46 answers
- What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job? 40 answers
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Adeel Akhtar, Adjoa Andoh, Adrian Dunbar, Adrian Edmondson, Aidan Gillen, Alison Steadman
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