DMGClever
This is why I put tremendous effort into making code simple:
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." --Brian Kernighan
Of course, what I call the "Mark Twain" effect also applies here. Twain (maybe) said something that may have been misunderstood as:
I'm sorry for the length of this letter. If I'd had more time, I'd have written you a shorter one.
Put it all together: brief, simple code takes time. And that time is not spent programming, but rather understanding deeply the task at hand.
And if you do it right, it all looks really easy, which will be totally unimpressive to your boss, who will naturally draw the conclusion that the task simply wasn't that hard to begin with, and would have been done much more quickly if you had just started coding sooner.