Spit-boy

Deep in the heart of any castle is the main kitchen: a hot, sweaty, permanently busy and stressful place where dishes are prepared for the family. Some of these kitchens employ more than 200 people. Your job as spit-boy is to slowly turn the massive spit which is used to roast meat over the hot coals at one end of the kitchen. The heat alone makes this job highly sweaty and uncomfortable (you’re not much further from the fire than the meat itself!), but even worse is the boredom: for hour after hour, day after day, you have to sit cross-legged on the stone floor turning the spit round and round and round and round…work starts at 4am when you start the fire, and doesn’t finish until late at night. No toilet breaks are allowed: we don’t want that meat burning, do we?