When did estimates turn into deadlines?

I learned something important early in my career: the first number you put out will be remembered.

Unfortunately it’s often true. People keep saying: "but didn’t you initially say X?"

"Sure I did, but I have new knowledge" won't always work.

A nasty side-effect is that people who are aware of this shy away from giving you numbers.

My method is take an educated guess multiply by 2 add 1 as extra buffer and then change it to the next unit, e.g. day->week, week->month, months->quarter. So for something that it should take 1 day I'd say 3 weeks. It seems a lot but at the end there's usually so much red tape, burocracy and and technical debt that it usually ends in the latter ballpark.