Ben Kingsley: What is the worst job you have done?

The question

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.

Ben Kingsley

English actor

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

I don't have a treasured possession.

Rosanna Greenstreet, The Guardian, 9 November 2013 source ↗

Others on this question

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Sarah Hadland

Magician’s assistant on a cruise ship for two weeks when I was 19. When I was meant to be being levitated, I was silently crying while pretending to be unconscious as I hung limply off a metal pole. It was bleak.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 December 2025 source ↗

Ricky Wilson Singer; frontman of Kaiser Chiefs

There have been things within the Kaiser Chiefs I’ve hated – some corporate gigs that I didn’t feel good doing.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 February 2020 source ↗

Rick Astley Singer, songwriter and radio presenter

I haven’t really had a job. I used to work at my dad’s garden centre in my late teens, but it was just messing around.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 October 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 ↗