And, to add to the fun, there are paints that go on as one color, and dry to something _completely_ different. Woe be unto you if the customer sees the wet paint going on.
The specific paint I recall went on as a *BRIGHT* saffron yellow, but dried to a subdued fern green. If I (customer) hadn't been on-site, and observed the color shifting _as_ it dried, I would -not- have believed that somebody did _not_ go in there and repainted the 'right' color.
Got forcibly reminded of this, when, some 25 year later, I had to do some repair work on one of the walls in that room. Go down to the basement and, yup, there is the carefully squirreled-away remanents of the various paints used, labeled by which room, color name, and drips/smears on the outside of the can. The right green smears on the outside, and bright yellow inside. The touch-up work Looked even gaudier against the green background than originally (over white primer). The next morning, you couldn't tell where the repairs had been made.
I suspect a 'cookie-cutter' developer, with the admin fee designed to cover the costs of riding herd on the 'deviation' from the "standard plan". In that scenario, there is a 'production' issue of "pay attention, this is *DIFFERENT* on _this_ job". if there were a a whole group of modifications bundled to gether, a single instance of the admin fee makes sense. If there was _only_ the -one- change that was something other than a selection between 'standard' options, it make sense to waive the fee.
I'll give a contractor the opportunity to re-bid, _when_ it is obvious they have 'missed something' on the submission. Doesn't happen very often, but I do want 'apples-to-apples' comparison of what they believe is needed. Usually, when I got something 'out-of-line' low, it was that bidder wasn't including something that the others -were-. Discussion would usually establish that they didn't believe that -that- item needed work/replacement, whereupon I'd ask for a quote as an 'add-on' in case I wanted it done 'anyway'.
Had a really funny situation in this respect a number of years ago -- Needed to replace 'a furnace' in the house, it had failed during an extremely cold spell in the winter. Now, as it happened, the house had two complete heating/cooling systems, one each for two separate 'zones' (an artifact of a _major_ add-on, some years previous).
Did have to make it clear to the companies that this was _NOT_ an 'emergency' situation, that we were soliciting competing bids, _and_ that they could/should schedule this job _after_ any 'emergency' calls. (We figured out, 'after the fact', that the furnace in question had probably died a good two weeks before we placed the initial service call. Took a while to 'penetrate consciousness' that the 'other furnace' was running almost constantly.)
Got quotes from several reputable firms, sat down to review them, and 'make a decision' -- ended up calling *all* the bidders back and asking "why are quoting a unit over 2-1/2 times the size of the one that is being replaced?"" None of the estimators had noticed the 'other furnace' on the other side of the basement, _or_ checked the 'plate' on the dead unit. "Assumed" it did the whole house, and sized by eyeball, accordingly. (The estimators were =good=, the units they quoted were very close to the combined capacity of both the existing units.)
Second round of bids came in with _much_ lower numbers.
Turned out they _couldn't_ quote the 'same size 'unit as the one being replaced -- *nobody* made one that _small_ any more -- but could get something rated only about 20% larger.
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