"It always looks darkest just before it gets totally black.”

That Charlie Brown.
He was deeper than us little kids realized at the time.

It's really difficult to understand why people say they're going to do something in a certain time frame - and then when they're unable to meet their promised timeframe - they don't communicate that. At all. Whatsoever.

So what do you do? You chase them down for an update, because you may have scheduled other things to occur based upon the projected delivery time. And they still don't communicate well as to what the new slipped schedule time may be.

And because, these particular people may be in a position of power to determine the very path of your future, you can't be that direct. You have to be, ultra diplomatic and tactful -- not that one wouldn't be anyway - but potentially in a different type of scenario you may have the option to be more direct; the upper hand may lie with you rather than the other way around.

In a word:
AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHH.