You know what really grinds my gears?!

[G.Irish]

Maybe just another sales-related gripe here, but when people ask you to build an integrated, visualized component that doesn't technically exist yet into a custom software platform that was already built for them by another company. And then are anxious about the time it takes to scope / price it, and then aren't willing to share what budget they can allocate to it. Really? So you're going to ask a company to build something that isn't an off the shelf product, and you aren't willing to at least offer up a range that you can invest in it so that time is not mutually wasted on both sides (with sales, engineering teams, client side, etc.)? I have a feeling Gerald feels me on this per some of the conversations we have had in the past.

I mean come on, I get holding your cards a little close to your chest if you're negotiating on a used car lot or something but we are talking about corporate budgets here. You know it's going to be expensive by nature and yet all you offer up is that you want to spend "as little as possible". It's an annoying part of the job when you have to go through a long song and dance for a customer that mostly likely will end up balking at the price anyway.

I usually don't run into this as much, but I do get the people who don't know what they don't know asking for estimates for things that they clearly cannot get greenlit. Or the opposite side of it, where I have people who tell the customer we can do XXX with the wrong tool for the job on a timescale that is not realistic. That probably causes me the most misery because that's how so many shitty and wasteful systems have gotten signed off on.