Have you ever gotten something extraordinary simply by asking nicely?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A while back a Doper told the story of how, back in the day, they and their family happened to be on tour at the Vatican on a day that the Pope happened to be holding public audiences. The Doper’s mom asked a Swiss Guardsman really nicely if His Holiness would brook an audience with a random family, and soon enough, the family met the Pope!

Nothing that extraordinary has ever happened to me, but I did once get to test drive a sought-after car, that I had no intention of buying, simply by asking the dealer - at my city’s high-end car importer no less - if I could pretty please take it for a spin. He was very gracious, gave me the keys, told me to take it for a spin, and when I was done he thanked me for my time and told me I knew where to find him if I changed my mind.

Another extraordinary thing I got wasn’t so much the result of asking nicely as it was just being nice. Mrs. H and I were checking in for our flight from St. Louis to Orlando, and we could tell from snippets of conversation that the flight was overbooked. The passenger in front of us was raising hell and being a Karen. When it was my turn, I just told the agent to do her best, we weren’t going to walk to Orlando, and if she had to put us on a later flight it wouldn’t be the end of the world. A few minutes later she called my name and gave us our tickets: first class!!! AND, before the crew closed the door, the agent came on board, looked at us, smiled, and gave the thumbs up!

So, what have you achieved simply by using your manners?

2

My senior year in college, I got a large dorm room, that I didn’t have to share with anyone, with its own bathroom. Apparently I was the only one who asked for it. I didn’t think I’d get it, but why not ask?

3

Nothing extraordinary, but I often get little things (early hotel check-ins, extra snacks on flights) by just being friendly and not asking for special treatment. It’s funny how frequently concierges “suddenly find” a room for early check-in if you hang out and chat for a bit after being told nothing is ready.

Service industry work can really suck because customers really suck; being friendly and chill goes an awful long way.

4

For flights, we had a similar experience. Weather stalled our landing and everyone missed their connections. Some were very upset and the line was long. We heard a lot of yelling.

We went up to the lounge instead, where there was a shorter line. Asked the agent whether they could help us with an overnight hotel, calmly explained that it was my partner’s first time flying in a long time and how traumatizing it all was. The agent clickety clacked at the keyboard for a bit, then asked us if we had any status with the airline. No. Flying business or first class? No. Refundable economy? No.

She looked at us, thought about it for a second, then said, “You know what, we typically don’t do this for weather delays, but you’re the only two people who have been nice to us this whole day. Here’s a hotel and food voucher, and I’ve rebooked you for a flight tomorrow morning!”

Similarly, another time at a hotel, my mom flew in on an 18 hour flight and was eager to check in and get some rest. But at the front desk, they said they have no record of our reservation. I pulled up the email receipt I got. Hmm. Apparently I had booked through Expedia, but the hotel never actually received the reservation. Fax issues or something.

Um, okay, I said. That’s too bad, but not your fault. You never got it. Can I just pay for another room? Nope, all booked up. What about any partner hotels? Big conference in town, zero availability anywhere.

My mom was sitting nearby, barely able to keep her eyes open.

Sorry, everything was full. I asked to borrow her phone (I think this was before cell phones) and called Expedia.

Waited on hold for half an hour. Explained what happened to the agent. The agent asked to speak to the hotel, they talked for a few minutes, then back to me. So sorry for the mixup, we’ll give you a full refund. Well, okay, but what about a room? Where will she sleep tonight? Sorry, can’t help with you that. Good luck.

Needless to say, that was my last time booking through Expedia.

I went back to the front desk with tired, pleading eyes. I know this isn’t your fault since you never even got the reservation, but we’re in a bind. Do you have any advice for us at all? What should we do?

She already had an answer ready. “You know, you’re the only people who’ve been calm and reasonable this whole day, even after that phone call. It’s been a crazy day with the conference and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been yelled at today. Thank you for being so nice. Tell you what, we have a suite that we normally can’t rent out because the TV is broken, but you can have it for half price. Would that work?”

Hell yes. It ended up being a really nice room, and she even let us in the pool after hours as long as we stayed quiet.

In both situations, it never even occurred to me to scream or yell at anyone. What good could that possibly have done?

I’m so sorry that people in hospitality have to deal with bullshit like that, ever.

Growing up, my dad was quite the Karen himself and constantly enraged at everyone around him. Once at a restaurant he threw my Gameboy across the room and smashed the table like the Hulk. The entire restaurant fell silent. The waiters were terrified. My mom was crying. We left in shame, and I guess I must’ve vowed to myself to never be like him.

Be nice to people in service. Their jobs are hard enough as it is, and what little discretionary power they do have will far more likely be spent on people who aren’t assholes…

5

Not me asking but a roommate. I was on an Alaskan cruise, and it was only the second such cruise for our ship after the pandemic. I was travelling with a large group, and had been placed with another guy in the group, so we could both save some money vs. booking rooms as single people.

But the ship was only at about half capacity, so on the first day at sea, my roommate asked the steward if he could move to one of the empty rooms, and the steward said yes. So we both got private rooms for the trip, at no extra cost.

6

Not extraordinary, but the one that always comes to mind.

I’d been running errands on the university campus, where I had a permit so I didn’t have to pay the university parking meters. Then I went to lunch, and forgot to pay for the city parking meter.

As I was eating, I saw a parking officer come and look at my meter, and immediately knew what had happened. I went outside, and in a friendly and apologetic way tried to explain what I said in the previous paragraph. She said if I could put some money in the meter, she’d let it go. I added a few quarters, and went back to lunch.

As soon as I sat down to eat, I saw the parking officer across the street writing another ticket, and a guy with her yelling and waving his arms around. She finished the ticket, stuck it under his windshield wiper, and walked off.

Only saved me $30, but also maybe reminded the parking officer that not everyone is an asshole.

7

I’m a bit chemo brained this morning so memories aren’t coming as fast as I would like, but on one occasion I got to sit in the cockpit of an Apache helicopter. They wouldn’t let me fly it, of course, but they’re pretty amazing on the inside.

8

Not “extraordinary” by the standards of some of the posts here, but many years ago the spouse and I were at an Alan Parsons Live Project concert. Some of the folks connected to it were wearing these cool DTS jackets - it was like a sports jacket with a black wool body, black leatherette sleeves, and the DTS logo and slogan stitched on the back in metallic gold and electric blue.

I decided I wanted one, so I waited until after the concert, found one of the guys, and asked him if there was a place I could buy a jacket like his because I thought it was cool. I figured if I was lucky, he’d point me at a website somewhere.

He told me they weren’t for sale, but asked me to give him my size and address. I did, figuring nothing would ever come of it but I appreciated the thought. I thanked him, left, and thought no more of it.

Several weeks later a box arrived, containing my very own version of the exact same jacket! It even had a silky-smooth black satin lining. And best of all, it fit perfectly! I was delighted.

I still have it, and I still wear it often because it’s super comfortable. And I never would have gotten it if I hadn’t been brave enough to ask about it.

I found a pic online of the same jacket: https://images.craigslist.org/00K0K_azKUnECBzD1_04205n_600x450.jpg

9

Well, it was a combination of nice and chutzpah. In grad school, they decided to build an additional floor on the engineering building for a state of the art (for the 70’s) microelectronics lab. There were going to be areas for common tools and separate bays for specific research groups. The only problem was that there were about eight research groups and only 6 bays. And my research group was one of the tiniest groups.

So one day, well before any construction, I popped into the lab managers office and we shot the shit for a while, then at some point I wandered over to the layout of the new lab he had covering most of one wall and said “which bay will we be in?” He peered at the drawing, pointed, and said “How about this one?” I immediately said “Looks good to me”, and that’s how my group go it’s bay, no battling professors (because I knew we’d lose any formal process).

10

I’m not sure if would qualify as “extraordinary”, but I saw a really cool metallic rainbow trout pin at an art exhibition and asked the artist if she had one for sale. She said no, but gave the pin to me for free…and declined any kind of payment.

It turned out she had some stuff for sale at a shop just down the street so I bought a butterfly pin for a friend there.

11

I wrote a letter (like on actual paper) to the office of Archbishop Tutu while he was in residence at Emory University. Let’s just call it a gushing fan letter.

I got a letter back from his secretary saying that if I were to come to such and such place at such and such date and time, I might be able to speak to His Grace briefly either alone or with a small group. But that I should keep in mind that his calendar was fluid and it may not happen.

I was there, I was the only one there, and he did indeed meet with me for a few minutes. I don’t know how much was me being star struck and how much was his presence, but the man positively radiated equanimity.

It’s been over 25 years, and I still get tingly.

My wife thought I was insane to take a day off from work for this. Later she was also to become one of his admirers.

12

Back in the 90s, we went to Italy at Easter, camping. We rolled up at a site on the mainland near Venice at around 4 pm, and there was an Italian couple in reception having a major dispute. My limited grasp of the language was enough to tell me that the site wasn’t open, the couple were not at all happy and were taking it out on the hapless receptionist.

When they left, I could see that the young woman was near tears, so, having established that she spoke English, I explained that we were looking for a campsite, and since they were closed, could she suggest an alternative

I’m sure my plea was assisted by our three-year-old, beautiful, blonde daughter, who was half asleep in my arms, but we ended up in a chalet, on condition that we didn’t need bedding or kitchenware. There was no charge.

13

After more than 30 years of business travel, I can give a lot of examples of airline employees grateful for a little kindness. Just recently we were on a flight back from DFW to Boston with our adult son, we adults in premium and my son back in economy. We were delayed more than six hours (past midnight) due to thunderstorms, with increasingly angry passengers complaining to the desk agents (why? because people are assholes). When I go to the front of the line, I apologized and told her I knew she was busy, I just wanted to check on how much it would cost to upgrade my son to premium, and she got his name, checked, printed the new boarding pass, and sent me on my way for free.

14

Several years ago the dojo I practice at organized a multi-dojo public demonstration and I was tasked with designing a poster to advertise the event. I wanted to use a drawing from a well-regarded book about the particular martial art, so I contacted the author/artist to ask for permission. Not only did he agree, but he sent an original ink and pastel drawing as well! I was tempted to keep the drawing, but instead had it framed and it still hangs in the dojo.

15

Me and some friends of mine once asked some folks for a ride to the ski slopes because we were having car trouble on a ski trip. They didn’t give us a ride. They did, however, loan us a car for the day!

16

A few years ago I asked to change departments at my company when I heard there was a vacancy. It had a much better schedule (many more days off), but I requested no change in my salary. That was a bit ballsy, but I figured all they could do was say no.

To my amazement, they agreed! I got a much better job with a much better schedule and made the same money, which was in effect a raise. Word got around and a few weeks later I ran into a co-worker at an event who asked me incredulously, “How did you swing that?!”

I replied simply, “I asked.”

17

In 1994, I had some business in the licensing office at Paramount Studios. The licensing office negotiates licensing deals with vendors who want to make products based on Paramount properties. Vendors often send samples of their previous products to the licensing office to evaluate the quality of their work.

While I was there, they opened a package from a t-shirt vendor containing the most awesome t-shirt, silk-screened with a giant face of Jimi Hendrix. Think of the famous psychedelic black light poster of Jimi from the 1960’s; it was gorgeous. The licensing person was not so impressed (too young?), and dismissed it saying, “They send us this crap all the time; anybody want this?” I immediately chirped, “Yes please!”, and he tossed it across the office to me. I’ve had it ever since.

18

I had worked at a retail art supply store for three years, a prominent local chain, when I got married. I realized paychecks landed at the very end of our honeymoon, meaning we broke-ass kids wouldn’t have spending money.

I worked up the courage to ask my boss’s boss for an advance. Bold move, even if I knew everyone up to the aged owners on a first-name basis.

Instead of an advance, he gave me a bonus for basically the same amount.

19

My friend shared a urinal with him at a concert - not the newer single user, one of the old-school big sheet of steel with a ditch running down the bottom.

(He said he felt blessed, even though he is an atheist… but that might have been the beer talking)

20

When I was in my 20s I missed out on a trip to Europe with a couple of friends due to a job commitment. They had a great time and were there when The Wall started coming down. A couple years later, still desiring that trip to Europe, I talked to my boss about what I wanted to do and when, and left the job on good terms for a 6+ week solo trip, not expecting to have a job when I returned. After I got back, just on a whim, I called my boss and asked nicely if they needed any help, and I was hired back to my same role and salary, as if I had never left. 6 week unpaid vacation. Many of my coworkers were incredulous, as none of them were willing to take a chance like that for something they really wanted. But as they say, “no risk, no reward.” All I really did was ask.