Stuffed Animal Tech Support
February 3, 2012 1:49 PM Subscribe
Is there a term for the use of an inanimate object (eg. a stuffed animal) as the first line of tech support?
I've seen this at a few workplaces, especially where devs are supporting other devs and support tends to be informal and face-to-face. People have a tendency to just walk up and start asking questions without thinking about them enough, so the "first line" of support is a stuffed animal or some other inanimate (but generally anthropomorphized) object, and the questioner starts by talking with it about their problem. The idea is that in the majority of cases, simply stating the question in a clear way makes the answer obvious.
I wanted to send a reference to this practice to somebody, but I can't find anything about it online. I suspect I'm not asking the question in the right way (oh, the irony!) but the sock monkey on my desk hasn't helped me on this one.
I've seen this at a few workplaces, especially where devs are supporting other devs and support tends to be informal and face-to-face. People have a tendency to just walk up and start asking questions without thinking about them enough, so the "first line" of support is a stuffed animal or some other inanimate (but generally anthropomorphized) object, and the questioner starts by talking with it about their problem. The idea is that in the majority of cases, simply stating the question in a clear way makes the answer obvious.
I wanted to send a reference to this practice to somebody, but I can't find anything about it online. I suspect I'm not asking the question in the right way (oh, the irony!) but the sock monkey on my desk hasn't helped me on this one.
BTW: Found those links at this Stack Overflow question. There's an anecdote further down about a teddy bear from Kernighan and Pike's The Practice of Programming.
posted by kindall at 1:59 PM on February 3, 2012
posted by kindall at 1:59 PM on February 3, 2012
We called that Wilson-ing, ala the volleyball from Tom Hank's Castaway.
posted by unixrat at 2:11 PM on February 3, 2012
posted by unixrat at 2:11 PM on February 3, 2012
A former workplace had Kitty, a, well, big stuffed cat. If you where whining about a problem you got 'Kitty Time'.
posted by pupdog at 2:16 PM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by pupdog at 2:16 PM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]
I've seen it called it the Polish Cleaning Lady technique, or Rubber Ducking.
posted by russm at 2:30 PM on February 3, 2012
posted by russm at 2:30 PM on February 3, 2012
Response by poster: Rubber ducking perfectly describes what I was looking for. Wow, I even read The Pragmatic Programmer not too long ago and didn't recall that part at all.
posted by bjrubble at 2:33 PM on February 3, 2012
posted by bjrubble at 2:33 PM on February 3, 2012
The C2 link in the first comment also refers to it as "confessional debugging", which I like a lot.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 5:46 PM on February 3, 2012
posted by spaceman_spiff at 5:46 PM on February 3, 2012
kindall: "Rubber duck debugging"
For which you can earn a patch!
posted by Deathalicious at 10:52 PM on February 3, 2012
For which you can earn a patch!
posted by Deathalicious at 10:52 PM on February 3, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by kindall at 1:56 PM on February 3, 2012 [7 favorites]