I appreciate these concrete strategies! My family has always encouraged us to “just ask, the worst they can say is no” and not feel bound by existing conventions: for rush ordering/shipping, custom orders, venue or property access, flexibility of deadlines, etc. Some examples I’ve had success with:
getting customizations to costumes or art pieces- if the product is not advertised as customizable but already being custom made, this can be done pretty easily and sometimes without additional labor or parts. (Customization increases time, but I bet the production and shipping tips you provide could work well if some degree of urgency is still in place!)
Access to private property for birding, including residential and business. People are very flexible, especially if you make it clear what you want to look at! Folks with extensive birdfeeders setup especially love to show off their success at attracting wildlife to random strangers. (You’ll have to generalize this very specific example yourself.) Aaand if they aren’t sure, offering to buy them a beer goes a long ways (Literally going to get them a beer at a bar after, giving them a $20 and saying it’s for beer, or having a beer on hand. I theoretically comprehend why this method is so effective, but dang the stuff is foul.) DISCLAIMER: I live in the North US, and it’s pretty normal here for people to enter each other’s property. If you live in a location where entering a property with permission from one party that isn’t communicated to other parties on the same property will endanger you in any way, please reconsider!!! It is not worth your safety.
Regarding deadlines, I am a bit unorganized and perpetually cursed, so there are many many forms, requests, and assignments I have submitted late. This isn’t a good strategy to rely on, but in a pinch, if you see a deadline, ask yourself why it is in place! For standardized forms, almost all of them exist so that staff have a reasonable amount of time to complete processing of the forms before (whatever the next step is). Depending on the timeframe, squeezing in one more to process won’t change their workload significantly the way that moving back the official due date would, so they’re often happy to take your late forms even if the online portal or other standard submission method is now closed. (iirc procrastination statistics suggest around 90% of people overestimate their ability to complete a thing on time, resulting in bulk submissions on the last listed official day. This generally agrees with my experience managing anything with a deadline, with the exception of items people are genuinely internally motivated to complete (This is how I got into a habit of making humorous forms, which provide a small amount of additional motivation)).
All this being said, I haven’t had a ton of luck with production, so I’ll consider these strategies. Thanks!!!!!!!
Side note: being able to afford ten sofas at once would be great. I got mine third-hand for free and had to repair the supporting beams from a previous owner’s drunken bodyslam.
I appreciate these concrete strategies! My family has always encouraged us to “just ask, the worst they can say is no” and not feel bound by existing conventions: for rush ordering/shipping, custom orders, venue or property access, flexibility of deadlines, etc. Some examples I’ve had success with:
getting customizations to costumes or art pieces- if the product is not advertised as customizable but already being custom made, this can be done pretty easily and sometimes without additional labor or parts. (Customization increases time, but I bet the production and shipping tips you provide could work well if some degree of urgency is still in place!)
Access to private property for birding, including residential and business. People are very flexible, especially if you make it clear what you want to look at! Folks with extensive birdfeeders setup especially love to show off their success at attracting wildlife to random strangers. (You’ll have to generalize this very specific example yourself.) Aaand if they aren’t sure, offering to buy them a beer goes a long ways (Literally going to get them a beer at a bar after, giving them a $20 and saying it’s for beer, or having a beer on hand. I theoretically comprehend why this method is so effective, but dang the stuff is foul.) DISCLAIMER: I live in the North US, and it’s pretty normal here for people to enter each other’s property. If you live in a location where entering a property with permission from one party that isn’t communicated to other parties on the same property will endanger you in any way, please reconsider!!! It is not worth your safety.
Regarding deadlines, I am a bit unorganized and perpetually cursed, so there are many many forms, requests, and assignments I have submitted late. This isn’t a good strategy to rely on, but in a pinch, if you see a deadline, ask yourself why it is in place! For standardized forms, almost all of them exist so that staff have a reasonable amount of time to complete processing of the forms before (whatever the next step is). Depending on the timeframe, squeezing in one more to process won’t change their workload significantly the way that moving back the official due date would, so they’re often happy to take your late forms even if the online portal or other standard submission method is now closed. (iirc procrastination statistics suggest around 90% of people overestimate their ability to complete a thing on time, resulting in bulk submissions on the last listed official day. This generally agrees with my experience managing anything with a deadline, with the exception of items people are genuinely internally motivated to complete (This is how I got into a habit of making humorous forms, which provide a small amount of additional motivation)).
All this being said, I haven’t had a ton of luck with production, so I’ll consider these strategies. Thanks!!!!!!!
Side note: being able to afford ten sofas at once would be great. I got mine third-hand for free and had to repair the supporting beams from a previous owner’s drunken bodyslam.