Don't take your client's description of the problem at face value

Had a client recently. Came with a very minor request. I knew it could be done in about 10 lines of LotusScript code so I quoted an hour.

Then, the databases came across, ready to be scanned. They were huge but that was ok. But the problem turned out to be different to the tune of about 5 hours of work.

Luckily the client saw the fact that this was a bigger problem than originally described and was happy with the work regardless but it made the point again to me to be careful about quotes without seeing anything. I must also make the point that this wasn't a written quote. This was a "well, it will take about 1 hour" type quote so I didn't have to stick by it as if it had been written. But then again, I wouldn't have written it down without seeing it.

Anyway, the point is that by saying about an hour, I set low expectations and by doing it without seeing the actual data, could have caused some problems. So be careful out there.