Tom Allen: 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 Tom Allen said elsewhere, not written here

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.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 November 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

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Lupita Nyong'o Actress

I waited tables for one night at the turn of the century. They were being fussy about how I put the food on the plates, and I couldn’t have cared less.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 October 2019 source ↗

Arlene Phillips

In a Dagenham factory at 6am, picking soldiers’ greatcoats from wars around the world to sell at the market in Chelsea. I smelled like mothballs, and no one would come near me.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 June 2025 source ↗

Anne Enright Novelist and short-story writer

When I was 17 I took on a class of six-year-olds for a week. When the Angelus rang at noon, they stood up in silence and I realised I was supposed to recite the prayer, which I did not know. I said: “There will be no Angelus today because of that child fidgeting at the back.”

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 September 2024 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 ↗