Spoken from a place of regulatory scheduled hours and normal work weeks. I've worked both and the reality is that sometimes jobs go long things happen and again the little guy isn't financially viable. I always give a number to people even for small jobs and you know the reaction I get? Customers throw a fit over the number which reeks of entitlement to me, but that's the number we can do the job for without losing money. On the side of communication, a lot of times it's a mom and pop shop working insane hours who can't afford to hire an office worker to take calls and emails. All of that said, this isn't true for every company out there and being in trades I 100% agree that there are definitely scum bags. But the majority are just hard working small operations, lower your expectations we aren't amazon.