Hard to say if it is normal or not but I'm not surprised that you ran into a shop like that. I work with an engine shop that does excellent work at very fair prices but I'm familiar with other shops in the local area that don't do great work even though they charge a lot more. I also deal with a local chassis shop who can build a complete race car in just a few weeks for a very fair price but I've heard stories about other shops who took months to build crap that all had to be cut back out of the car. So there are good shops and there are bad shops. You just have to figure out how to find the good ones and avoid the bad ones.