How the estimate works
The calculator multiplies three things you already know roughly: how many repetitive asks land on the team in a week, how long each one really takes once you count the context switch, and what an hour of the answering person's time costs. It deliberately ignores the second-order costs (the queue while they are on holiday, the deal that waited on a policy answer) so the number you get is a floor, not a pitch.
Why interruptions cost more than minutes
The research on task switching is consistent: recovering focus after an interruption takes far longer than the interruption itself. A two-minute answer in the middle of deep work is not a two-minute cost. That is why the same question answered by an AI employee is cheaper even when the human answer would have been quick: the human never leaves what they were doing.
What to do with the number
If it is small, close the tab; you do not have this problem yet. If it is a salary fraction, look at where the asks concentrate: one channel, one person, one topic. That concentration is what an Internal Answers employee absorbs first, and it is why teams start with one employee in one channel rather than an everything bot.