However, personally I found that it is incredibly useful to use these sort of things as opportunities. The main opportunity is learning: I’ll learn something about BSOD, and about our specific IT setup, maybe some troubleshooting or windows stuff, and all this knowledge builds into strong mental models and often comes in useful even if it’s years from now.
It’s also an opportunity to build relationship (with the asker, with the IT person). It’s a tiny interaction but it makes a difference, you are now seen as “helpful” (and if you didn’t know the person at all, you got from 0 to 1 which is huge).
It’s also an opportunity to help (sometimes): as a SWE I have a breadth of knowledge, maybe I can help the IT person to have a better config to avoid BSODs, maybe I can help the asker with their specific setup that the IT person is confused about…
There’s no question that a warm handoff can be a waste, absolutely. But do it a hundred times and you get so much back
That company had a really strict 'just help anyone' policy and I'm really glad I do not work there anymore.
Doesn't matter if my intention was just "I'm just being helpful" gesture. Doing it repeatedly becomes an expectation from others that people rely on. It will be assessed in your performance, and in the bad case, it will become a standard that your team (but not others) are held to.