...mostly all people need is someone to sit there and listen while they talk it out and solve the problems themselves....
This is what the system architect on my product at work calls the "rubber chicken" phenomenon (or worse, depending on his mood) - you could be talking it out with anything, including a rubber chicken, the key thing is you are talking it out.
Of course, it isn't strictly true, because you would monologue at a rubber chicken (if you talked to it at all) in a way that didn't lead you down the same paths presenting it to a colleague will. But it's close. And I get an internal chuckle every time I do it, because I'm thinking of that chicken. (Which is much better than the way I used to react, by feeling guilty for "wasting" the coworker's time!)
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This is what the system architect on my product at work calls the "rubber chicken" phenomenon (or worse, depending on his mood) - you could be talking it out with anything, including a rubber chicken, the key thing is you are talking it out.
Of course, it isn't strictly true, because you would monologue at a rubber chicken (if you talked to it at all) in a way that didn't lead you down the same paths presenting it to a colleague will. But it's close. And I get an internal chuckle every time I do it, because I'm thinking of that chicken. (Which is much better than the way I used to react, by feeling guilty for "wasting" the coworker's time!)