[yannis]

At its core is better "selling skills" In my last job I noticed how much better people that did jobs like waitressing before were more likeable by Clients. Small things like saying at the end "John thanks for your time..." Put the name first, people like that. But in the end you might have done well and failed you on salary requirements...

[_swfb]

I used to be a lecturer and I did notice that that really helped my public speaking; I tend to talk really fast and being a lecturer forced me to learn how to speak slower, so it wouldn't surprise me that being a waiter or waitress would be helpful for this stuff.

I've always found it very irritating when I felt people were trying to force saying my name in a conversation, but I think you're probably right and I'm just a weird case.

Salary requirements are a valid point; in this most recent example my salary requirements were smack in the middle of the listed range so I don't think it was an issue for this particular one but it's possible that they feel I'm too expensive.