Carrying out Idiot Duty
I frequently perform "idiot duty" for my expert wife. She prepares authors’ manuscripts for printing and binding using an Adobe program called “Indesign” which, as of 2026, is the industry standard for producing printed materials. It controls formatting and layout to advanced levels.
Indesign is very versatile, but is a deep program which means it has many options buried deep in menus, and a long learning curve. It does not produce computer code but a list of complex instructions, complex enough that on the occasions when there is a glitch, it can be bafflingly hard to track down.
I don’t know the details of Indesign and could not use it, but I find that when my wife gets stuck she will call on me to simply stand near her work station, or perhaps she will try to explain to me in rather incomprehensible terms what the problem is. Surprisingly often, while l am just standing there she will suddenly solve her own problem. I have only functioned as an idiot, but in an almost magical way it helps. I call this “idiot duty” and it is one of the easiest tasks I have!
In about the year 1900, a researcher called Trippett found this effect. He noted that cyclists performed better if another cyclist was alongside.
This effect is well known from the early days of computer programming and was called “rubber duck debugging” in which a programmer literally described the problem to a child’s rubber duck. It helped lots. Similarly, even a teddy bear instead of a rubber duck will do.
Some psychologists recommend trying to explain the problem to a five-year-old; describing the problem in simplified form can help lots.
Sometimes an “ignorant” person can function as a useful idiot when writers have got stuck. Idiot duty works least well if the programmer or problem solver is already poor at solving problems, and works best if the solver is usually good at solving problems.
If rubber ducks and teddies can help with problem-solving what about God? He’s always on idiot duty.