There's no substitute for luck. There's never a reason not to be courteous. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly. It just happens to be very selective about who it decides to make friends with.
Ignorance is bliss.
Stupidity is its own reward. Typically it's the things that you didn't do that you regret. It's never done that before. It worked yesterday. It must be a hardware problem.