Lo and behold
@beyondmachines1 There's a University in the US (forgot which one), where the tech support people at the computing center (this was a time of mainframes, no PCs yet) had a stuffed bear at a prominent place. The students coming with a help request were required to explain their problem to the stuffed bear first. Only if they didn't realize how to solve it as a result, they were allowed to bother a human.