Jane Asher: 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 Jane Asher said elsewhere, not written here

Doing an episode of Doctors was a bit of a nadir.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

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Ben Okri

Looking after the flowerbed on my windowsill.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 July 2026 source ↗

Victoria Derbyshire British broadcaster

Working in a furniture factory in Warrington when I was 17. It was a summer job, and I had to cover the studs in the back of Chesterfield sofas with leather.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 September 2021 source ↗

Martin Compston Scottish actor

There was a period when I did four or five terrible films. My agent said: “Don’t do them.” But it was my month’s rent for a day’s work. One time, my green room was a lorry. It started snowing and it was just me and a plastic chair in the back of an open lorry. It was pretty grim.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 March 2022 source ↗

Stephen K Amos

I was a guard on the Orient Express – however, only when it was stationed at a railway siding in Vauxhall.

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