I had a coworker who would occasionally say something like, "I can't solve this problem. Would you play Wooden Indian for me?" (referring to the carved figures that used to stand outside cigar stores) His meaning was: I need to talk through this with a live person who will listen and ask appropriate questions, and I think I could see the solution myself at that point.
I often need this, too, as I process problems best aloud; but I don't want to run around asking coworkers to be "wooden Indians" as this seems racially insensitive. Is there another idiom for this role?
Best Answer
In software engineering, a person that agrees to listen for no purpose other than to allow a problem to be expressed verbally is commonly referred to as a "rubber duck" or "rubber ducky".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging