> Sometimes they legitimately don't know. It's a good opportunity to help them understand how much work goes into what you do. In my experience, they definitel

> Sometimes they legitimately don't know. It's a good opportunity to help them understand how much work goes into what you do. In my experience, they definitely don't know. But no amount of explanation is going to do it for them; any explanation is going to be met with stuff like "well, there must be a simpler way", which is a hell of a statement when it comes from someone who has no idea what they're talking about. And oftentimes, at the point where you're making the estimate, you don't know how long "A, B, and C" are going to take. You might know how long they will take if the system underpinning "A, B, and C" do their jobs, but they inevitably won't do their jobs, and the extra time is usually working around the failings in systems that you have no choice but to use.