What occupations have good short-term memory?

[FatOtt]

I was driving somewhere recently and realized that every time I drive and someone else is giving directions, I have to ask them where I'm going next at least three times. It's as if I ask what the next turn is and decide to ignore the next thing they say. Then I realized that I feel exactly the same way when I learn someone's name for the first time.

I've never had a taxi driver ask me to repeat where I'm going (other than if he* didn't understand me the first time). I wonder if they're also good at remembering names. I was trying to think of other occupations that might have above-average short-term memories. Bartenders? Barbers?



*I was wondering if I should type he/she, but then I realized that I don't think I've ever had a female taxi driver. Weird.

[housenuts]

porno stars

[diebitter]

Bartenders for sure, and shopkeepers where you buy lotsa small things (sweetie shops).

[tolbiny]

Its pretty easy to improve your short term memory if you want to. Just use it regularly. Learn to play chess, you don't have to play very well to improve it if you are actually trying 2 hours a week. Heck just remembering your golf score without using a card will help.

Servers

Uh, what was the question again?

[tonypaladino]

Fat,

If you have to use your short term memory for a certain type of information over and over again as a Cab Driver, you will get used to it fairly quickly.

Regards,
Tony P

[Spaded]

A court reporter.
A translator.
A signer for the deaf.
They have to remember what the person is saying, then repeat it flawlessly.

[Blarg]

Bartenders was a good one, waiters and waitresses even better.

Poker dealers have to have pretty good short-term memory, too, or it's hard to keep track of the table and resolve disputes. Players will claim anything that gets them the pot, and sometimes their friends will chime in too to help them out, or people will just remember falsely. A poker dealer with a bad short-term memory can take a lot of well-deserved crap from players.

Any lawyers who actually try cases have to have good short-term memory, because their whole cases can rely on one or two tiny facts brought out in live testimony. If they don't remember something, they can screw their client pretty bad.

[mason55]

Ok, everyone keeps saying servers (ie waiters/waitresses). I know there was a study done awhile ago about the ability for experienced servers to remember your order exactly and then the second they give it to you it's gone from their brain forever. Does anyone know the name of this phenomenon? I've been searching for a bit now and can't find a single reference to it. I used to know the name and it's driving me crazy.