Honestly, I get why you're mad but sometimes you have to pick your battles. That six hour deep dive sounds like overkill for a non-profit's signup form. Most people can see the placeholder text just fine and it looks cleaner without all the extra labels. Spending that much time on a tiny part of the site that maybe one person uses with a screen reader seems like a bad use of a dev's time. Tbh, perfect accessibility can wait when you have bigger problems to fix.

Serious question? Come on, you just found free money. That target date fund was probably doing fine on autopilot. Starting over makes it sound like it was wasted, but it was just quietly growing. You just changed the recipe, you didn't burn the dinner.

Yeah, the certified mail thing... it's like they finally have to look at the envelope. I had to do that with a parking ticket once, and it got fixed in a week. Makes you wonder what else gets lost in the shuffle.

Totally get what you mean about the client's panic becoming your problem. What worked for me was putting my foot down with a simple sheet of paper. Now I have a prep and dry time checklist that I make the client sign before we even start. It lists each step and the minimum wait time, no matter what. I point to it and say, look, this is what keeps your floor from failing in a year. It turns the schedule from my opinion into a simple fact they agreed to. It doesn't stop the complaining, but it sure stops the arguing.

Honestly did you really miss that much? Views are nice but the time together is the main thing.