Pilot fish is a couple months into his new job when he's given the task of "re-skinning" an existing e-commerce site for a client.

"I was given a mockup by the designer and that was about it," says fish. "No problem, I figured, I'll just contact the client, get their existing template and get to work.

"That's when I learned the client was expecting a complete replacement of their current e-commerce system, not just a re-skin. My boss confirmed that's what our company's owner promised."

That's not scope creep -- it's more like scope leap. And it's only the beginning, as the owner keeps making increasingly extravagant promises to the client.

One day fish is told he won't need to migrate any existing data. The next day, the owner mocks him for even thinking there might be data they don't need to migrate.

Researching and choosing a new shopping cart is dropped into fish's lap, with the directive that it has to be open source because there's no budget for software licenses. Days are spent writing code to migrate the data, which the owner -- who has stepped in after firing the project manager -- says is a waste of time, telling fish to just "copy and paste it."

"By the time the project reached its third month, I convinced the owner that large projects like this were generally paid for in installments and based on written specifications, not just a mockup," fish says. "I wrote formal specs, and scheduled a conference call to get the customer's agreement to them.

"Most of the call went great. By the end of my pitch, the client agreed to pay for the work already done and sign the project specifications. Any changes not in the written specs would be priced and scheduled separately."

That's when the owner steps in. He tells the client not to write a check until several new items the owner has just dreamed up are ready. After the call, he chews fish out for "daring to ask a client to pay for an unfinished product."

Fish estimates the new tasks at about 40 hours of extra development, instantly putting him a week behind schedule. He gives the owner the estimate and immediately gets to work.

Next day, fish is called into the owner's office to be chewed out for the "missed deadline." It seems the owner called the client back and promised the 40 hours of new development would be delivered the next business day -- though he never told fish about the new deadline.

"Immediately after I left his office, I called the recruiting agency that got me the job," says fish.

"A month later I was working elsewhere."

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