Estimated a project would take 30h. Ended up working 110h.

So I used to do some freelancing in web development last year, nothing too fancy just some simple PHP websites. Comes the worst meeting in my life. So I am from India and we have a lot of long lasting business here being passed on over generations. TL;DR the guy was the owner of a very old business which was actually very huge and the guy was educated too, so I assumed that he'll be sensible as compared to other people.

The meeting was in an expensive cafe and he paid for it, he even told me upfront that meeting is on him. Great, right? So we sit down, order some coffee and then start discussing what he needed.
The guy needed an ecommerce website built with backend and logistics system integrated. We discussed possible designs for the website and stuff too and so far the deal looked promising to both of us.
I explained him the cost estimate and told him that I would email him the final quote from myself once we discussed server cost and shit.
So now comes the bargaining part where he asked me to give him server and domain for free.
At this point, I suspected that he didn't know that servers and domains are not something that you make. You have to purchase and renew them periodically.
So I told that guy that he didn't understand the cost estimation and explained to him that X is the cost of making this fucking thing and Y is its monthly maintenance cost, if he wanted annually could be done too. And this Y did not include server and domain costing.
Now came the fucking tide, the guy straight up turned to his shit and told me I am lying and trying to con him. So I gently asked him if he had ever gotten any website made. To which, he said No, but he knows how the costing works.
I was like "Bitch?". So I calmly tried to explain that that's not how websites are done, delivered and maintained.
He didn't seemed to be understanding and kept on fucking repeating that he knows his shit and blah blah.
At this point, I was like "Okay. Fuck this dude then. I can find another project. " and then I told him that he'll need to find someone according to his needs.
Interestingly enough, the guy called someone and then walked out of the cafe while talking on phone. I waited for 5 minutes and he didn't come back so I decided I would pay for my coffee and leave. Turns out the guy had paid his bill before my arrival and ditched me with the excuse of the call.

But oh well, I think working with such an idiot would have been much worse than paying for that coffee.

pm: why this things are getting late in development.
me: no, I'm not late, on track, this will be done by end of the next week.
pm: but my estimation was for today EOD.
me: you never asked me for the estimation..
pm: we are here for that.
me: then do this yourself..*asshole*

Hardest thing about software development to me is estimation of time needed to complete. There should be an algorithm that knows to estimate better than me, shouldn't it? Like google maps navigation knows precisely in advance when I will arrive somewhere taking a car or a train, perhaps they could do my development estimates for me?

Customer calls
Talking about some new feature he haven't totally thought about. so i tell him to think about it.
Talking about a bug, but can't reproduce it.
Talking about another enormous new feature but halt it after hearing the initial estimation.
Total time waster = 1.5 hours for every day.
DON'T LET CUSTOMERS WASTE YOUR DEVELOPMENT TIME.

instead of talking - use project tracking software (i.e. JIRA)

Programming Lesson #7
TLDR: Beating deadlines is difficult
Long version:
There is no easy way to give an estimation or deadline for a particular development task. Sometimes it takes a lot less or often a lot more time to finish a task than estimated deadlines and that's totally fine. Just make sure you have a manager/senior mentor who is well aware of this fact and doesn't scrutinize you regularly for missing deadlines.
I am going to make sure that when I get into a senior management position, I would show understanding and empathy towards my juniors similar to how my seniors show to me currently when I miss deadlines.

Time estimation of software development should be a product of observation of historical evidence, and many factors that come with it, like:
- What was the language used?
- How many developers worked on it
- How many years each developer has in experience in programming?
- IQ of each developer
- How many kids they have
- The weather
- ...etc
Analyzed by data scientist.

TL;DR
Not something you get by asking developers and interrupting their work, because many are people with superior complexity who often overestimate their capability of solving given problems.
Don't trust them to estimate!

Well I'm back on this stupid project with this stupid Product Owner and I really hate this, it really demotivates me.

I was assigned to this project (data analytics) for like 6 months, working alone with this stupid PO that knows nothing about team management or project management.

The guy had a "methodology" where he established all task to be done daily and would not tell me what we have to do in the entire project but instead would tell me day by day all the tasks to be done in each day. This means that HE was the one making the time estimation which is plain wrong!.

Anyways, I talked to him and told him that I need to have a wide overview of the project in order to be able to make a good time estimation, and it kind of worked.

But the guy is a pain in the ass, calls me every 4 hours to "talk" about the project and texts me every hour to check "how are we doing?".

This project was killing me, I had no motivation to work on it, I hated every minute of it, I didn't like it at all to the point my boss (not him) talked to me and asked me what was wrong with me. I told him: This is not the project for me. He told me: Ok let's try to move you to another project.

After six months of agony, the project was stale (customer approval, paperwork, blah, blah) I was assigned to two other projects that I liked, more software architecture and development, not data analytics.

And last week my boss came back to me with "well, the project was approved so we need you back at it".

WHAT PART OF I'M NOT THE RIGHT GUY FOR THIS PROJECT DIDN'T YOU GET?

Now I'm again with this dude, calling me, texting me, sending me infinite emails, asking for minutely updates...

I really don't want to be working on this project.