GMTV star was fired for not squeezing oranges fast enough

Apr 20 2008 By Heather Greenaway

Exclusive

GMTV weathergirl Andrea McLean has revealed she was once fired from a job for not squeezing oranges fast enough.

The Glasgow-born presenter was working in a pavement cafe in Australia when her boss sacked her for not being quick enough juicing the fruit.

Mum-of-two Andrea, 38, was on a gap year in Cairns when she took the job to pay for her travels. She said: "I had been working in the cafe for two weeks.

"Every day, the manager would give me a 2ft high net of oranges to squeeze.

"I would go into the back room and juice away for hours at a time. I was really careful to squeeze them just right.

"When the fortnight was up, the boss told me I was a really nice girl but I just wasn't a good squeezer and she was going to have to let me go."

Andrea, who hosts lunchtime show Loose Women, was so upset that she ran back to her room and cried. She said: "I was mortified. I had never been fired in my life.

"I felt humiliated and embarrassed and did not know how I was going to tell my parents.

"Eventually, I told myself it was not a bad thing to get sacked and it was not a great job anyway.

"That night, I went out with friends to a bar and was offered a job there.

So, it worked out all right in the end."

The presenter, engaged to builder Steve Toms, 36, says she knows what it feels like to be fired on BBC's hit show The Apprentice.

She said: "I'm too soft to ever go on a show like that. But I sympathise with the contestants when Sir Alan says 'You're fired', as I've been there, too."