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Australian PM once worked as toilet cleaner
Recalling his worst job experience, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he cleaned toilets and scrubbed floors on his way to country's top political job.
Recalling his worst job experience, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he cleaned toilets and scrubbed floors on his way to country's top political job.
In a pep-talk to Australians hit by the global recession, Rudd said he once worked as a toilet cleaner at a sawmill and scrubbed TV political journalist Laurie Oakes' floors, Sydney Morning Herald reported.
"There's a few realities out there," Rudd said.
"There's a global recession under way, collapsing economies around the world ... Therefore let's just adjust to it flexibly and that might mean right now you don't have a job that's your heart's desire; maybe it's a stepping stone to something else.
"And if it's good enough for the Prime Minister - it should be good enough for generation Y," Rudd said.
He told of his worst job experience today in support of Employment Participation Minister Mark Arbib's call on generation Y not to be too fussy about their first jobs.
He revealed that the jobs that paid his way after he left school included flipping hamburgers, working on hospital wards as well as in a supermarket and pulling beers in a pub. "What was the most difficult one? The job I once had as a cleaner at a sawmill, cleaning the loos," he told Fairfax Radio.
In an interview with former ABC journalist Maxine McKew in 2007, it was revealed that one of the young Rudd's jobs included scrubbing Laurie Oakes' floors.
