Agree 100% here. People treat you a lot better if you’re polite, and it costs nothing.

More, it gives you the ability to stop being polite without actually getting angry. If you’ve been all please and thank you and then move to “I don’t think this is fair to me,” people will respond much better than if you started rude and moved to shouting.

In 1999 I was on a radio show on Bondi Radio in Sydney, and the DJ introducing me said, “I’d like to introduce a gentleman, in fact, a real gentleman from New York”. I have always treasured that remark. (Hah, and thanks to the miracle of the Internet, here’s the show.)