That probably depends a lot of the environment.
I often help colleagues by just listening to them explaining their problem - the mere act of having to explain the problem out loud to someone else is surprisingly efficient.
Often they only get half way through the description when they go "Ahh, ok, I see the solution now. Thanks!", and all I did was to act like the teddy bear and listen.
The same thing often happens when I explain a problem to my colleagues, of course.
The difference to phone- and cable companies is that their automated menu trees does not make you explain your problem "out loud" unlike the teddy bear; another flaw in the analogy is that usually when you call them, _they_ have to fix something, when you have a programming problem _you_ (often) have to fix something.
]]>