A public service announcement
JUST FUCKING
ASK YOUR
AGENT.
That’s it. That’s the whole fucking trick. Into the agent. Not into Slack.
You have a question. You have an agent. It’s on your phone, in your browser, probably in your fridge by now. And you still texted Dave “quick question?” and then typed for nine straight minutes.
Let’s fix that01 / The fucking point
You could’ve asked it
by now.
Your “quick questions” this week
how do I make a pivot table
→ Dave from Finance. Dave has muted you.does this email sound passive-aggressive?
→ Your work bestie, 4th time today. It does. So did the last three.what does ‘mildly elevated ALT’ mean, am I dying
→ Your one friend who’s a nurse. She’s on a 12-hour shift. She’s always on a 12-hour shift.what’s an ETF and why won’t anyone shut up about it
→ Your uncle. He’s still talking. It’s been 40 minutes. He mentioned gold.what can I make with 2 eggs, half an onion and rice
→ Your mom. She sent a voice note. It’s six minutes long. The recipe starts at 4:50.how do I tell my roommate his girlfriend basically lives here now
→ Reddit. 1.2k comments. Top one is a pun.how do I exit vim
→ The senior dev. Audible sigh. Over Zoom. While on mute, somehow.what does our company actually do
→ Nobody. You’ve worked there eight months. It’s too late to ask a human now.
Eight questions. Eight humans with jobs, kids, and problems of their own. Eight answers ranging from “idk” to a six-minute voice note. Total time spent staring at “Dave is typing…”: most of your week.
Meanwhile, the thing that would’ve answered all eight — instantly, at 2am, without sighing — is sitting right there on your phone. You’ve used it twice: once to write a birthday message for your aunt, and once to ask if it’s secretly alive.
And by “agent” we mean whatever you’ve got. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, the one in your terminal, the one your company bought and announced at an all-hands with the word “transformation.” That one. Ask the fucking thing.
Dave doesn’t know either.
Dave asked his agent and pasted you the answer.
That’s why his reply started with “Great question!” Dave has never said “great question” in his life.
02 / Meanwhile, at 2am
Everywhere except
the obvious place.
Your left eye has been twitching for three days. Let’s see how tonight goes.
- 21:04Searched it. Top result: an ad for magnesium gummies. Second: a forum where every reply is either “stress lol” or “brain tumor.”
- 21:15WebMD. You now have nine conditions. Two of them are tropical. You have never left the country.
- 21:31Asked the group chat. Two “lol”s, one “mine does that too,” a frog sticker, and Jess sharing an article about blue light from 2018.
- 21:48TikTok. A man in a parked car says it’s seed oils. 1.2M likes. He sells a course. The course is also about seed oils.
- 22:20Reddit. 140 replies. One verified doctor, answering someone else’s question. You read it anyway.
- 23:05Called your mom. She says it’s because you don’t wear a jacket. You can’t prove she’s wrong.
- 00:12Drafted your will in the Notes app. Left the PS5 to Dave.
- 00:14Asked your agent. It asked how much you’d slept (four hours), how much coffee you’d had (five cups) and your screen time (yes). Said it’s very likely the boring trio — stress, caffeine, no sleep — listed the actual signs that mean “see a doctor,” and told you to go to bed. You did not go to bed. But you could have.
You didn’t need nine opinions and a Notes-app will. You needed to type one sentence into the app that’s been on your home screen since 2023, right between the meditation app you never open and the language app with the threatening owl.
03 / Not just for nerds
It’s not just for
fucking code.
You think it’s for programmers and cover letters. It’s for the entire pile of shit you’ve been avoiding since March.
Work The 9-to-5 hostage situation
- “Summarize this 94-message thread I got tagged in on message 93.”
- “Turn my unhinged rant into an email HR would frame.”
- “What did my manager mean by ‘let’s take this offline’? Am I fired?”
- “Write my self-review so it sounds like I did things.”
Money & paperwork Adulting, unfortunately
- “Explain this lease before I sign it. I’m signing it Thursday.”
- “Find every subscription on this statement I forgot I’m paying for.”
- “Write a complaint to the airline. Polite, but with lawyer energy.”
- “Is this ‘free trial’ going to charge me $89 on Tuesday?”
Health Not a doctor. Better than TikTok.
- “Translate my blood test results out of hieroglyphics.”
- “What should I ask in my seven-minute doctor’s appointment?”
- “Make a workout plan for someone whose cardio is walking to the fridge.”
- “Is this a ‘sleep it off’ thing or a ‘see someone’ thing?”
Learning Without a $400 course
- “Explain inflation like I’m 5. Now like I’m 15. Now like my uncle is in the room.”
- “Quiz me until I actually get it. Don’t be nice about it.”
- “Teach me enough Spanish to order food without pointing.”
- “Summarize the book I’m pretending I read for book club.”
Life & advice Cheaper than therapy, worse than therapy
- “How do I tell my roommate his girlfriend now technically lives here?”
- “Help me reply to ‘we need to talk’ without passing out.”
- “Am I the asshole? Be honest. Not Reddit honest.”
- “What do I cook with two eggs, half an onion and despair?”
Tech support For you, and your dad
- “Walk my dad through fixing the printer. Slowly. He’s on speaker.”
- “Write the Excel formula that does the thing.”
- “Why does my laptop sound like it’s about to take off?”
- “How do I exit vim.” (No question mark. You’re past that.)
Rule of thumb: if you were about to open thirty tabs, ask the group chat, or text your one friend who’s a nurse — that was an agent-shaped question.
04 / The advanced workflow
Type a fucking sentence.
No secret prompts. No “Act as a world-class Harvard-educated McKinsey CEO, my grandma will die if you fail.” Describe what you need like you’re asking a smart friend who has zero context about your life. Because it has zero context about your life.
Help me write an email to [who] about [the thing]. I want them to [the outcome I need]. Tone: [polite / firm / “per my last email”]. Under 120 words. No corporate filler, and don’t start with “I hope this email finds you well.” Here’s the context: [paste the thread or my notes].
That’s a prompt. You can now unfollow the guy selling “1,000 ChatGPT Prompts That Will 10× Your Life” for $49. He’s filming in a rented Lambo. It’s not his.
05 / Give it something to work with
It can’t read your
fucking mind.
You typed “make it better” and expected magic. Better how, Sherlock? Shorter? Nicer? Less likely to get you fired? You wouldn’t walk into a doctor’s office and just say “ow.”
Vague request: make this email better
Useful request: Rewrite this email to my landlord about the broken heater. Firm but polite. Mention I first reported it on March 3. Under 120 words.
Vague request: am i dying
Useful request: Headache behind my left eye for 3 days, worse at night. I sleep 5 hours and drink 4 coffees. Likely causes? What signs mean I should see a doctor today?
Vague request: fix it. no mistakes.
Useful request: The menu overlaps the logo on phones. Fix the mobile layout, keep desktop the same, check both.
Tell it what you want, what you’ve got, what to leave alone, and what “done” looks like. Give it the actual thing — the email thread, the PDF, the full error message — not a blurry photo of your monitor taken at a 45° angle with your thumb in it.
And if it asks you a clarifying question, answer it. That’s not it being difficult. That’s it already being better at this than Dave.
06 / Congratulations on your new hobby
You’ve done everything
except ask it.
You watched a three-hour podcast about AGI. You bought “1,000 Mega Prompts” from a LinkedIn guy whose banner says “Helping founders 10× with AI.” You have ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and a Chrome extension called “GeniusAI Pro Max” that is definitely reading your email. You built a Notion dashboard to compare them.
And you, in the back, with fourteen MCP servers and a 900-line AGENTS.md that opens with “You are a senior engineer who NEVER makes mistakes.” It makes mistakes. It read line one and skimmed the other 899. Same as you.
Pick one. Give it one real task. Today. Add the fancy shit when you can name the exact problem it fixes. “I saw a thread” is not a problem.
07 / The objection department
Yes, but—
oh my fucking god.
Pick the thing you were about to say.
“But I don’t want to bother it.”
It’s a computer, you sweet summer child. It has no calendar. It doesn’t sigh. It won’t leave you on read, and it will never once say “per my last message.”
You bother Dave eleven times a day, and Dave has a family. Ask the robot the same dumb question forty times. It’ll answer the fortieth like it’s the first, and it won’t bring it up at lunch.
“But it makes stuff up.”
Sometimes, yes, with the confidence of a man explaining your own job to you. So does your uncle, and you still let him do crypto at Christmas dinner.
Ask for sources. Click them. Double-check anything involving money, medicine, law, or your boss. “It sounded really sure” is not evidence. It wasn’t for your uncle either.
“But it’s not a doctor.”
Correct! Neither is the guy on TikTok, and you bought his sea moss.
Use it to translate the jargon, prep questions for your seven-minute appointment, and figure out whether this is “drink water and sleep” or “go get that looked at.” Don’t use it for dosing decisions or instead of the actual doctor. And if it’s chest pain, trouble breathing, or anything that feels like an emergency: close this tab and call emergency services. That part isn’t a bit.
“But I’ll get dumber.”
You haven’t memorized a phone number since 2009, and you can’t find north without a blue dot. That ship has sailed, Magellan.
Use it to learn, not to skip learning. Ask it to explain, then quiz you, then grade your answer. Make it the annoying tutor, not the kid who lets you copy their homework.
“But it’ll take my job.”
It just recommended a restaurant that closed in 2019. With total confidence. Your job is fine.
The real threat is the coworker who asks it things, finishes by four, and goes home. That guy is fucking dangerous.
“But which one is the best?”
The one you already have open. Seriously. There’ll be a new “best” one next Tuesday, announced with a chart that has no y-axis.
You’re writing an email, not picking a religion.
“But my stuff is private.”
Fair, and good instinct. Don’t paste passwords, your company’s secret sauce, or your entire medical history into whatever has a shiny input box. Check what your work allows, and use that.
(Concern noted from the person who gave their face to an aging-filter app in 2019.)
“But it writes like a LinkedIn post.”
Then tell it not to. “Write like a tired human. Short sentences. No ‘delve.’ No ‘I hope this finds you well.’ No ‘It’s not just X — it’s Y.’” It’ll listen. Mostly.
It’s not the agent’s fault you never mentioned you hate fun.
“But I tried it once and it sucked.”
You typed “write something good” in 2023 and got something mid. Garbage in, LinkedIn post out.
Try a real task with real context. If it still wastes your time, stop using it. You don’t have to defend a chatbot on the internet. Incredible perk of being an adult.
“But I like doing things myself.”
Then do it yourself. Seriously. Enjoying the work is a perfectly good reason.
This page is for the person on their ninth tab of “how to write a resignation letter that sounds chill.” If you’re happily doing the thing, you’ve already beaten this website.
08 / Keep your brain switched on
Ask your agent.
Read the fucking answer.
Copy, paste, send is not a workflow. It’s a hostage situation with extra steps. Play along at home:
- “You’re absolutely right!”(you were not)
- “Great question!”(it was not)
- Used “delve” unprompted
- 14 bullet points for a yes/no question
- “I hope this email finds you well”free space
- Cited a source that 404s
- “It’s not just an email — it’s a statement.”
- “Fixed it ✅”(it had not)
- Told you to “consult a professional” about boiling an egg
Read it before you send it. Open the sources before you quote them in a meeting. Check the numbers before they go in the board deck. And never, ever send your CEO an email that begins “Certainly! Here’s a professional email:”. It has happened. It will happen again. Don’t be the screenshot.
Delegate the typing. Keep the judgment. “My agent said so” is the new “I saw it on Facebook.” Nobody respected that one either.
09 / Spread the fucking word
Know someone who
needs this? Of course you do.
The coworker who opens every DM with “hey” and then nothing for six minutes. Your dad and the printer. The friend who’s asked you to explain crypto four times. The group chat. You, three hours ago.
They’ll see their name, your name, and their own question being typed into an agent in real time. Let Me Google That For You, but for this decade. Friendships may end. Productivity will not.
10 / Meanwhile, elsewhere on the internet
Everyone has a
fucking opinion.
Use HTML. Use React. Use CSS. Use Postgres. Use cron. Use your brain. Stop already.
Somewhere, two developers are writing rival manifestos about how to render a rectangle. Both rectangles work. Neither developer has gone outside.
Ask your agent. Use your brain. They’re not mutually exclusive, Kevin.
Visit the entire dysfunctional familyYou have reached the end of the procrastination. Dave still hasn’t replied.
THE TASK IS
STILL FUCKING
THERE.
Close this tab. Open your agent. Type the sentence. Read what it says.
Fine. Give me the prompt.Yes, an agent built this website.
Then a human told it “make it funnier,” which is exactly
the kind of prompt this page tells you not to write.
It worked anyway. Don’t get cocky.