This reminds me of the time when I was a young engineer, I would sometimes be summoned to the senior engineer's office for a "really quick project I need you to do". "This shouldn't take you more than a few minutes," he'd say. Those projects almost always took a lot more than a few minutes--sometimes many hours--and I'd often do much of the work on my own time since I didn't want to appear to be a slacker. Finally, I'd set the completed project on the senior engineer's desk (and enter just a few minutes for the project on my time sheet). I eventually came to realize that this was more of a genius ploy to either make sure I worked quickly or to get free labor, I'm not sure which. In either case, it worked!
