When I worked at a dog food company shovelling the exterminated rats.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
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What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
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What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
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.
Double-glazing sales when I was about 16 – on the phone, cold calling. Horrendous.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 July 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 229 →
Tim Rice
English lyricist and author
I worked in a petrol station on the A1 one summer. I enjoyed it except when I was on latrine duty.
Cressida Cowell
British writer
I was a terrible secretary in a publishing company (clumsy, disorganised, hid letters behind the filing cabinet because I was supposed to have done something with them and I wasn’t sure what).
Krishnan Guru-Murthy
British journalist
I did a terrible job of fixing the downstairs loo once.
More from Naga Munchetty
View profile →Worry about the things you can control and don’t worry about the things you can’t.
It would be a racist comment.
Self-flagellation.
I was 17 and about to go on a first date with my first boyfriend. I was so desperate for my mum not to meet him that I was trying to get to the door before she did. I ran down the stairs as she opened it, and slid down the last five steps on my arse.
Being able to cram the quality of eight hours’ sleep into four.
By my friends and loved ones as someone who loved ferociously and always had their back.
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