I know many professors like that. It is extremely tempting to adopt that attitude after 10 years of hearing every excuse in the book - some valid, some sooooo obviously not. However, even those professors are human. Many of them tell the whole class there are no exceptions, but if you speak to the prof alone and explain the situation, he or she may bend those rules. I tell my students NO EXCEPTIONS - but I always make exceptions anyway. I just don't do it in front of lots of other students who will then come up with more excuses....