I find it interesting that this 50 something no-longer musician who doesn't like the circus has roughly the same advice as Derek.

Particularly the "put yourself in the other person's shoes." This works with a lot of other points here. Let's say you work in computer service and you are frustrated that your customer keeps calling you to ask when the system will be back up? I guarantee you it is because her boss or her internal customers are calling her and she needs to have an answer for them.