I didn't realise art people went through this as well, although now that I think about it it makes sense. It's always felt like a writer thing to me because that's what I do but, of course, the thing that you are the best at and most focussed on is the thing that always takes you out, whether it's writing or art or music or even, I'm guessing, coding.
My plan for the beginning of the game, before I got hit by the last-minute unsolvable bug that made me change what I was doing, was a lot more randomised (but with some choice by the player), which would have resulted in the unbillable hour count being a lot more varied and completely unpredictable. (I think it always works out now to 12 hours but that wasn't the plan - I was fully expecting some people to end up with a much higher count, which is even more true to life.)
I'm glad you all enjoyed making the story. Thank you for playing around with it!