Don't be a Human Keyboard

"Humans are creatures of habit. If you reinforce a behavior, it will persist, and even spread to othercoworkers or users. You don't want to become the company-wide interface to answering the "is mysql down" question."

I think that was well said.

I believe it's one of the keys to be able to have fun working in a big company.

I don't think things are as simple as he states. The ideal company with an intranet that is easily browsable/searchable, completely documents all procedures and remains up-to-date may exist, but I haven't seen it.

Because of that, 'bothering' collleagues with (in your eyes) simple questions can be an essential way of keeping the knowledge of your employees up-to-date ('Is mySQL down?' => 'do you know about the new SMS feature in our dashboard?'

Because of that, I would both give colleagues who ask simple questions fish and teach them where I got it from.

But I guess the optimum strategy depends heavily on one's personality and the environment one works in. For example, in some environments, politely answering every "where is the any key?" question, but reporting to your boss that those questions take a day a week might be the best way to handle this.

This is what made me a heavy user of lmgtfy.com in my daily office routine.

That small amount of shame when receiving a lmgtfy-link from me in response to a question greatly helped reducing the amount of stupid questions I get asked.

I fight against this all the time.

The bad thing is that I keep freeing up too much time and that can create its own problems.