Shobna Gulati: What is the worst job you have ever had?

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.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

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.

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

Others on this question

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Sara Pascoe English comedian, presenter, writer

Cleaning toilets at McDonald’s when I was 16.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 July 2018 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 ↗

Tom Ellis Welsh actor

When I was 17, I worked in a warehouse in Rotherham doing an audit of truck parts. I counted nuts and bolts all day long.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 September 2021 source ↗

Leona Lewis

I quite enjoyed all my retail jobs (I worked in H&M and Gap), but the worst times were the sale periods. The summer sales – awful.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 December 2023 source ↗