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 Edith Bowman said elsewhere, not written here
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.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 February 2021 source ↗

Others on this question

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Martin Freeman English actor
The Wimpy in Kingston when I was 16. I’d recently become vegetarian, and there weren’t many veggie burgers in 1988.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 January 2019 source ↗
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.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 May 2025 source ↗
Elaine Paige English singer and actress
Maybe That’s Your Problem, a musical about premature ejaculation. It closed after only 18 performances.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 September 2016 source ↗
Adrian Edmondson English actor, comedian, musician and writer
I worked in the largest pork pie factory in Europe. I had a plastic mushroom-shaped thing and had to tamp down the meat into the pie base. It was a conveyor belt of pies from nine to five. The worst thing was the crackly AM radio, which was played loudly through the tinny tannoy system. I still can’t listen to I’m Not In Love by 10cc without thinking of raw minced pork.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 July 2018 source ↗

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