I’ve never had a terrible job. I’ve been a cook, waitress, bookseller, teacher, freelance writer. I know what the bad jobs are and I haven’t done them.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 April 2017 source ↗
The question
What is the worst job you have ever had?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.
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Others on this question
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Liam Gallagher
English singer-songwriter
Digging holes in Manchester in January.
Edith Bowman
Scottish radio DJ and television presenter
When I was a kid I was a chambermaid in my family’s hotel, and I once found a strap-on that someone had left behind.
Tom Allen
British comedian
I once had to sit on a sleigh and pretend to be Bing Crosby for a corporate party. I had to mime to White Christmas over and over again.
Working in McDonald’s when I was 16. It was about 90p an hour. Because I was always late, they made me “trash walk” the length of Kentish Town high street and pick up the McDonald’s rubbish.
More from Ann Patchett
View profile →A friend named Charles Strobel, who runs the Campus for Human Development in Nashville. It’s a homeless shelter. He lives a life of pure kindness, and he’s a funny guy.
Pulling yourself out of a wild ocean and on to a life raft.
Before email was invented.
A writer. Always.
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