> If you end up saying, "Well, that was just an estimate. It actually took 200 hours, so you owe me $30,000," they might pay, but they won't hire you again

This bears repeating. Has anyone else noticed how the business world has redefined "estimate" into exactly the opposite meaning? Now it means, more often than not, an exact number etched in concrete for the beancounters to lock in their costs. In my previous job at a financial software consulting company, we developers learned to fear any call for an estimate. We even frequently had conversations from management that went "give me an estimate for this development, and the client has already approved a ten day work order so your estimate needs to be exactly ten days."