Manager: We (meaning you) need to do task A. How long will it take?
Me: Task A will take X days to do.
Manager: That seems awful long.
Me: How long do you think it should take?
Manager: It surely could not take any longer than Y days.
Me: Ok, it seems you have an answer to your question then.
Later:
Manager: It’s been Y days, why isn’t task A done yet?
Brb, hiring more wifes so our baby takes less than nine months to come
Luckily software development is not pregnancy.
It’s a reference to The Mythical Man Month and (I believe) one of the parables told inside:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month
Yes, but not all time related problems are man power limited. Bottle necks come in many shapes and sizes
And manglement causes many of those.