At WPI, I was the tympani player for the brass band. A tympani is a big drum, and the ones at the school had a brass shell, so I was able to infiltrate the group, completely undetected.
It's pretty uncommon for non-brass players to be a part of a brass band, so not every song we played had music for me to play. In most bands, that means that you just sit there quietly while the rest of the group does their thing.
But our conductor was different!
Since I was the only musician in the band who would regularly not have songs to play, at rehearsal he would put all my music up in front, and then excuse me when all my parts were done.
It was an incredibly thoughtful gesture. This conductor gave, literally, days of my life back to me. And with time being our most valuable resource, I was always happy to return the favor whenever he needed a percussionist elsewhere.