Let me google that for you

I am tired of colleagues who do not do their own research and ask me questions they could have answered themselves in less time than it took to make a coffee..

The lazy question has a cost

Every "quick question" is an interruption. The asker saves thirty seconds. I lose twenty minutes — fifteen of which are spent rebuilding the mental context I had before they tapped me on the shoulder. Multiply that across a team and "just asking" becomes one of the most expensive habits in the building.

There's a difference between stuck and lazy

I will happily drop everything for someone who is genuinely stuck. Stuck looks like: they read the error, they searched, they tried two things, they brought the context, and they hit a wall that needs a second brain. That's collaboration and I love it.

Lazy looks like: they haven't read the error message, haven't opened the README, haven't typed a single word into a search box. They've decided your time is cheaper than theirs.

How I handle it now

• The magic question: "What have you tried?" It instantly sorts stuck from lazy.

• Point at the docs. Don't read them aloud.

• Rubber-duck them. Ask what they think the answer is — they usually know.

AI removed the last excuse

There is now an infinitely patient expert sitting in everyone's editor. Paste the error into it. Ask it the dumb question you were going to ask me. If you still can't get there, then come and find me — and bring what the model said so we start from the same place. That's not lazy. That's doing your homework.

Asking is fine. Asking instead of thinking is not.