I just got a phone call from my boss. “So with everybody else I should multiply their estimates by four, but with yours I should divide them by four?”
How did this happen? He had called me a bit earlier and said that they’d changed their mind about postponing a “PCR” (probem report) that had been assigned to me, and wanted to know how long it would take to fix it. Since I hadn’t really had a good look at it before they’d postponed it, I said “Maybe four hours.” “Can you have it before you leave for the day?”, he asked. I said that I’d do my best. I looked, and found that 90% of what I needed had already been done elsewhere, so I needed to cut and paste some code, do a tiny bit of tweaking, and Bob’s your uncle. I did a very rudimentary test, and it worked, so I checked it in and marked the PCR as “Resolved” about an hour after I’d given him the four hour estimate.
As Scotty said, “how else would I keep my reputation as a Miracle Worker?”