People Will Do You Favors When You Are Friendly and Nice

Published 11/8/07 (Modified 3/9/11)
By MoneyBlueBook

This might be sort of corny, but I've been told that I can be rather charming. When I talk to people I like to get to know them. It doesn't matter who the person is - they could be a janitor or receptionist, I still like to make some light hearted chit chat and humor them with some of my random jokes. I guess some people find it endearing but I just see it as being pleasant.

It is true that people tend to gravitate towards those who are friendly and optimistic. Because positive association is such an appealing quality, people are much more inclined to perform favors for those with sunny dispositions.

Just a few examples will demonstrate to you know what I mean. Most of the time, these situations happen in the most routine, mundane places, but it really comes in handy.

Getting My Bigger Scoop At Sbarro's Pizza

Today at work for lunch, I went to my usual underground eatery and chose to eat at Sbarro's. When it was my turn to order, I turned to the young sales lady and told her what I wanted - spaghetti with meatballs. Now as you know, many of these places tend to give standard portion sizes for both men and women. Now I'm not that big, but I can eat. So as she was filling up the bowl with the standard portion, I flashed a smile and asked politely if she could do me a nice favor and give me a little bit extra. I guess I gave a very friendly and perhaps even hungry enough impression because she smiled back and immediately scooped me a massive bowl of spaghetti - it was a lot! Even the woman next to me in line was impressed and jokingly hoped that I won't fall asleep after eating all that. When I got my wonderfully filled bowl I thanked her and joking quipped, "Next time I'm coming back to you!"

Hotel Discounts

Here's another one. I was on one of my usual road trips a few weeks ago and had to stay at a hotel. I did not have reservations so I walked up to the Comfort Inn desk and inquired about room vacancy. Price was $110 a night the woman replied. I asked politely if there were any discounts or promotions she could apply to lower the price. She responded that AAA discount was the only one available and asked if I was a AAA member - I was not. But I didn't give up. I chatted with her nicely for a bit about the area and about where I was headed and about my experiences at other hotels. After we had talked for a while and as she was typing my information into the computer, she turned to me and suggested that perhaps she could offer me a discount after all - and she chuckled to herself and gave me the senior citizen rate (which is kind of funny since I'm only in my late 20's).

I'm telling you, you really can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar - the flies being freebies and honey being pleasantry. And no, it wasn't just because these two happened to be women. It also works with other guys too. Of course I do it differently - usually we just quickly bond by talking about sports or something like that.