I'm a uni tutor and I would say yes to both those student requests you mention. I can be a bit scatty myself, so I'm willing to cut students some slack if they forget instructions or are late now and then. They're only human after all.
On the other hand, over the many years I've been teaching, I've seen students become increasingly demanding/entitled. Not all students, far from it, but an increasing number of them. I'm sure it does have to do with the increasing commodification of university education, and students seeing themselves as consumers.
My uni has a cumbersome system where we have to arrange seminar meeting times with small groups of students each term. Even though the groups aren't large, it can still be hard to find a time that fits into everyone's different timetables. I had a student email me this week (a day or two before our first class) to inform me that I needed to change the time of our class because he realised he had a lecture conflict. I said no, because all the timetables had been finalised the week beforehand, and he had had ample opportunity to check his timetable and verify that there were no conflicts. The uni makes it very clear that it is students' responsibility to check the lecture list and let their tutor know their availability. When I was an undergrad myself, I never would have dreamed of asking my tutor and a whole group of fellow students to change a class time at the last minute, because I had made a mistake! Also, this student didn't ask me, he informed me that I would need to change the time of the class. Sigh.
I'm friendly and approachable, but I don't like my generosity to be taken for granted; no one does. I also think that it matters whether a student oversight is a one-off, or a pattern. If it's a pattern, they need to be called out on it. If they don't submit their work in the correct format, for example, the first time I give them a polite reminder and mark it anyway. If they do it again, I politely tell them I can't mark the work.
In general, I've become firmer about setting boundaries with students over the course of my career. I try to be firm but kind. And I also spend more time than ever before dealing with pastoral issues. Since the onset of Covid I've seen a noticeable decline in students' mental health.
For the most part, I found that if I treat students like adults, they respond like adults. A very small minority take the piss: for instance,
in one case, I made all sorts of accommodations for a student with complex issues (ADHD, mental health disorders); I rescheduled tutorials and accepted late and incomplete work. Unfortunately, the problem only got worse and the student refused to engage with the (expensive) one-on-one help the uni had arranged for her with disability services. At that point I drew some boundaries (having put in many unpaid extra hours) and the student was so indignant they complained about me to the university, which fortunately had my back.
So cases like that have made me tougher. Some students have issues so complex that frankly, it's beyond my remit to deal with them; I can only point them toward other sources of support.
I've also realised that being a uni tutor, especially in Covid times, is bloody exhausting, and we need to take care of ourselves too, so that we won't crash and burn out.