A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work at 9 A.M. and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 P.M. to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished molehill man will often have his mountain finished even before lunch.

Allen’s “molehill man” is a caricature of the executive who manufactures crises to justify his position. The joke hinges on a reversal of genuine accomplishment: instead of solving problems, the pseudo-busy manager inflates trivial issues (“molehills”) into major emergencies (“mountains”) within the span of a workday. The detail that a truly “accomplished” molehill man can finish before lunch sharpens the satire—this is not accidental inefficiency but a practiced skill in dramatizing the insignificant. The quote critiques corporate cultures that reward visible agitation, meetings, and urgency over quiet competence and real results.