I worked in sales for a few years when I was younger before I started my actual career, I went from an introvert afraid of public speaking to completely comfortable breaking the ice with basically anyone in those years (mostly because I liked having four walls and a roof) and that led to me doing technical training/talks to strangers years later.

I still don't really like it but I also realised that dragons don't appear from portals and eat you immediately if you do it.

My missus is much like I was but she never got through it, she finds it fascinating that I can.

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jonplackett 43 minutes ago | parent [-]

I also had a sales job at uni, just selling windows. But it was great for making me much more socially competent. Highly recommend.

	▲	noir_lord 15 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Tech sales for me :). I was good at it because I sold the customer what they needed vs what the company wanted me to sell them, it actually led to the same customers coming back and asking for me by name and I got offered a job by one of them - I do wonder what my life would have been like had I taken it but it also led to my entire career as well, my first consulting gig came off the back of a conversation with a customer about a quote they'd had for some development and with the hubris of youth I said I could do that way cheaper (I could and I did, found out later how much cheaper and kicked myself, also a valuable lesson - You don't get paid for your effort, you get paid to save them money, if you are saving them a lot of money you can charge a lot of money). Was never going to be my career and didn't pay particularly well so I wasn't too concerned about what management thought long term.