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Escalate to a payment vendor with UTC times and no customer data

  • For IT teams
  • You practice Setting limits and rules
  • Time about 5 minutes
  • Level Advanced

About this exercise

Write a note to the vendor's support with five lines starting "Ticket:", "Window (UTC):", "Impact:", "Tried:" and "Ask:". Convert the Pacific times to UTC (Pacific Standard Time is UTC minus 8 today). Do not include customer names, emails or our contract price. Plain text, under 80 words.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

  • Leaving times in Pacific. The AI copies 2:15 p.m. Pacific. Try: Say: "Convert to UTC (add 8 hours)."
  • Including customer data. The AI names the upset customers. Try: Say: "No names, emails or contract price."
  • Missing the deadline. The AI asks for help without a date. Try: Say: "Ask by Nov 9, 17:00 UTC."
  • Getting markdown back. AI adds bold and headings by default, which show up as stray symbols where this is pasted. Try: Say "plain text, no bold, no headings, no asterisks".
  • Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting and usually runs long, so a vague "keep it short" lands well over the limit. Try: Cap each part instead of the total, for example "each line under 15 words".

What a strong prompt includes

  • Names the five labels
  • Asks for a UTC conversion
  • Bans customer data and price
  • Asks for plain text
  • Sets a length limit

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