AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

You know, it's probably fortunate that I work in a modern(ish) office building. Plasterboard walls are far less damaging to your forehead...

Consider this scenario:
Client has a site being developed. It has noise issues, we prepare a report, say "you need to do X to fix it", submit it to council. All good. So we thought.

We find out later that, actually, client wasn't intending to put in any noise mitigation measures at all, due to potential for neighbouring residences to be redeveloped as commercial in the near future.

Not good. Council unhappy. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues, during which our response is, essentially, "well, we already told you what to do to fix it".

Today, client sends email to say by the way, we're also going to do BLAH with the noise-producing plant. I'll spare you the details, but BLAH represents a non-favourable outcome for the control of noise emissions.

But it's not the end of the world - we've seen similar things before, so we say, "that's fine, just do ABC to make sure it doesn't become a problem". To which client says, "Oh, we need to have a meeting to sort this out before it becomes a major issue, please meet on site Thursday morning".

Did I mention that a site meeting involves three hours of driving?

And that when we get there, we'll probably just be looking at drawings that we could have looked at in the air conditioned comfort of the client's office on the south side of Brisbane?

Brick wall, meet forehead...