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When it "doesn't work": don't panic, don't guess
Four things go wrong over and over. None of them mean the tool is broken, and each has a calm, thirty-second fix.
- 1 · Four problems, four fixes
- 2 · Pick the fix
- 3 · Quick quiz
- 4 · One thing to remember
1 Four everyday problems, four calm fixes
Remember the new starter. When a keen new colleague gets something wrong, you don't conclude that people are broken. You work out what they were missing. Same here.
| What it feels like | What's actually happening | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| "It made something up." A date, a name, a decision nobody made. | It filled a gap you left. It wasn't in the meeting, so it invented a plausible meeting. | Give it the missing context. Paste the real notes and say: "Use only what's in these notes. If something isn't there, say so." |
| "It forgot what we said." It's back to the old title, the old structure, the thing you corrected ages ago. | Long conversations drift. Early instructions get buried under everything since. | Start fresh. New chat, one complete ask with the current version of everything. Thirty seconds, and the drift is gone. |
| "It's giving me nonsense." Odd totals, circular answers, confidently wrong. | It produced something that looks like the answer. It has no idea whether it's right. | Ask it to check itself. "Re-do this step by step and show your working." "Read your answer against the notes and list anything unsupported." Then verify the result yourself. |
| "It won't do the thing." It refuses, hedges or keeps steering away. | Sometimes the ask was unclear. Sometimes you've hit a boundary that's there for a reason (often a red line). | Ask a human. Rephrase once if it was unclear. If it still won't, or the topic is sensitive, stop and take it to a person: your manager, HR, legal, IT. |
Two habits that stop most of this before it starts
- One task, one chat. A new job gets a new conversation. Long, wandering chats are where forgetting happens.
- Say what to do when it doesn't know. Add one line to important asks: "If you're not sure or the information isn't here, say 'not in the notes' instead of guessing."
2 Mini-game · Pick the fix
Four short situations from a normal week. For each one, pick the fix you'd try and see what happens next. Wrong pick? You'll see what that would have led to, then try again.
3 Quick quiz
Six questions, 80% to pass (5 out of 6). Options shuffle every attempt. Nothing is recorded until you pass.
One thing to remember
It's not broken. Start fresh, give it what's missing, ask it to check itself, or ask a human. One of those four fixes nearly every "it doesn't work".
Pass the quiz to open the capstone.