I was 15 working in Boots on Barnet High Street and it was terrifying. At coffee break you had to know whose cup was whose, and taking the wrong cup was a crime. I’ve met bitches, but I tell you they started out in Boots in Barnet.
What is the worst job you have done?
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What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
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What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
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What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
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What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
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When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
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.
Working in a very busy bar in the West End when I was trying to pay my way through drama school. I had to dance in a cage in a vest and cycling shorts to Venus by Bananarama, Greased Lightnin’ and Y.M.C.A. every night. It was excruciating.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 March 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 230 →
Gemma Chan
British Chinese actress
When I was a teenager I worked as a lifeguard, and one of our duties was to clean the showers. It essentially involved cleaning people’s pubes from the drain.
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.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
English actor
At King’s College hospital when I was 16; the job was putting hundreds of pieces of A4 paper into A4 transparent envelopes. I lasted one day.
More from John Simm
View profile →Live in the moment. Enjoy life because time cruelly speeds up as you get older and becomes scarily finite.
Arrogance, bullying, meanness – just try to be kind, it’s not difficult.
A couple of years ago we moved to East Sussex – I had been living in London for 35 years – and couldn’t work out why I kept waking up and thinking, what’s that sound? It was actually silence.
Professionally, becoming a relative success in a job that I love; and personally, helping to raise two wonderful children.
Outliving my kids – and rats.
After the birth of both my children, although Manchester United winning the treble in 1999 came pretty close.
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