Yeah, the stuff get stuck now and then.
There are also times when something is wrong with the mechanism itself - it turns the wrong way, keeping the item where it was, instead of pushing it out of the shelf. I've seen something like this few times. Interestingly, all other mechanisms worked fine, just the one for this item was broken.

I've never got help from strangers with the vending machine, but there were times someone helped me or were really nice. Last time was when someone opened the door for me when I was returning home from shopping, with my both hands full, barerly walking. It's something really trivial, but it was still very nice.

I've met more bad guys than good ones in my life, though. So I usually keep my guard up.

Aw, that's nice of her!

Not so much help, but more just something nice from a stranger: I signed up for a secret santa for the first time this year. I got my giftee a really nice gift. I put a lot of thought, and time, and effort into it, and I spent way more than the minimum amount. And my santa never got me anything or said a word to me. But I got a rematch santa. A rematch santa is someone who signs up to the secret santa exchange AND they also sign up to give (but not get!) an additional gift for someone who was shafted by their original santa. So that's really nice of them right off the bat. And my rematch santa spent more than the minimum too. Same thing happened with my partner too. He signed up for the first time, nothing and no word from his original santa, got assigned a rematcher, rematcher came through and spent more than the minimum.

That was really nice of her.

Man I hate when my stuff gets stuck in the vending machine. I usually only get stuff out of vending machines when I'm super hungry so it's extra irritating.

I have had people help me shake my stuff out of the machine before. I appreciated it a lot. lol.