Pauline Black: What is the worst job you have done?

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 Pauline Black said elsewhere, not written here

Giving barium enemas. I used to be a radiographer in Coventry.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 April 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 229 →

Erin Doherty

I was the PE technician at my old secondary school, so I had to pump up all the balls, wash all the kits and get the form notes in before morning registration every day.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 March 2025 source ↗

Rachel Whiteread English artist

Serving tea in an insurance office to people who seemed to despise me at the age of 16 was pretty unpleasant.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 December 2017 source ↗

Martin Clunes English actor

A kitchen porter at some big telecom office in Wimbledon. I was also a kitchen porter at L’Escargot and, while I was there, a model for Gilbert and George. It was a quick £15 and they were terribly nice.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 September 2018 source ↗

Malcolm Gladwell Staff writer at The New Yorker; author of The Tipping Point and Outliers