PM
I was a Harrods store detective for a day. I was so bad at it, one of the other detectives thought I looked suspicious and reported me.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 January 2023 source ↗
The question
What is the worst job you have ever had?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.
Others on this question
View all 230 →
Sheryl Crow
American singer-songwriter
I’ve been lucky. When I was a kid, I babysat and was a lifeguard, which I didn’t hate; and then I was a teacher, which I liked.
Double-glazing sales when I was about 16 – on the phone, cold calling. Horrendous.
I quite enjoyed all my retail jobs (I worked in H&M and Gap), but the worst times were the sale periods. The summer sales – awful.
Steve Pemberton
British actor and comedian
Collecting glasses in a Lancashire pub. Try to take a pint glass with a millimetre of foam still in it, and you get a lit cigarette on the back of your hand.
More from Paul McKenna
View profile →I was in Kensington Gardens and this couple stopped me and said: “Hey, could we get a picture? I said: “Sure.” I put my arms around their shoulders, and they looked at me and said: “No, can you take a picture of us?”
Pleasure is a glass of champagne, happiness is when you are living your values. I get up each morning and I’m excited by the day, and I have good health. This is the happiest that I’ve ever been.
“Oh, he’s all about money.” I’ve never charged anyone in all the years I’ve been doing one-to-one work. That’s my gift to the world.
My wife dying. I wouldn’t know how to go on.
In the Sultan of Brunei’s will.
Impatience. My dad said I was born in a hurry.
More on craft & work
- What accomplishment matters most to you? 192 answers
- How do you tell when a piece of work is done? 67 answers
- What do you do when you feel creatively stuck? 63 answers
- How does a new piece of work usually begin for you? 60 answers
- How much rewriting or revision do you typically do? 46 answers
- What part of your job would surprise outsiders because it takes up so much of your time? 41 answers
Also answered this
David Arquette, David Vélez, Mo Farah, Adrian Dunbar, Melanie Blatt, Victoria Derbyshire
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All craft & work questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject