In any career people develop unintended bonus skills that are not a part of the job description but are still a very important aspect of what you do. Teachers learn to listen to (and understand) multiple people talking at the same time, bartenders learn to read lips so they can still take drink orders when the music is loud, retail workers learn to quickly calculate percentages in their heads so they know exactly how much an item will cost after their employee discount.

Performers have their own specific set of bonus skills too. Performers are able to:

  • drive and follow directions/read a map to a place they have never been before
  • drive five hours or more without a break
  • walk into almost anywhere, unquestioned, and without a pass/ticket/escort
  • make small talk with complete strangers
  • fake their way through even the most obvious on-stage catastrophes and make them look like part of the show
  • change their sleep schedule multiple times in a week
  • drive and do all kinds of things you shouldn’t be doing while driving: eating, getting better directions than the ones that got you lost, changing your shirt/shoes/pants, taking pictures of crazy stuff that your friends won’t believe you saw without a picture to prove it