Several different deadlines run at once in any disagreement, set by different people for different reasons, and the earliest one is usually the least advertised.
The decision is usually made weeks before the conversation happens. What separates a clean parting from a lasting problem is entirely what was prepared beforehand.
The offer refused in month two is often better than the outcome reached in month fourteen, once somebody counts what the intervening year actually took out of them.
Spring brings the largest volume of home improvement work and the largest volume of arguments about it. Some of the effective routes are free and rarely used.
Classification is settled by how a working relationship actually operates, not by what either side agreed to call it. Several different agencies get a vote.