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.
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.
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