Six short missions to master core Copilot skills — before Admiral Analogue drags the office back to the fax era.
FROM: Admiral Analogue
TO: All staff (please print and circulate)
It has come to my attention that “prompts” are being typed. This is to remind everyone that the fax machine has served us since 1987 and will continue to do so, once the toner arrives.
Attachments: 400 pages (appendix), 1 carbon copy of this memo, 1 carbon copy of the carbon copy.
VILLAIN ALERT — Admiral Analogue has been spotted photocopying the same memo 400 times.
Threat level: BeigeEvery card shows the Admiral’s way in sepia and the Captain’s way in full colour. Hover to let the Captain take over.
47 clicks, 3 faxes, 1 lunch break.
One prompt.
Type “help” into the search box. Sigh audibly. Ring IT.
Goal, context, source, expectations — the four-part prompt that gets results first time.
Print the web page. Highlight it. Lose it under a plant.
Work data vs the web, follow-up questions, and when to ask “show me your sources”.
Retype the 40-page report from the photocopy. Twice.
Draft, rewrite, summarise — and rescue a 40-page report from the Admiral’s Fog of Paperwork.
Add up the column with a calculator. Get two different answers.
Ask questions of your data, add formula columns, chart it in seconds.
97 acetates and an overhead projector with one bulb left.
Turn a document into a deck; defuse the Admiral’s 97-slide overhead-projector monstrosity.
Reply All. Then Reply All to apologise for the Reply All.
Summarise threads, draft replies, catch up on meetings you heroically missed.
Two personalities. One office. Only one of them owns a stapler cannon.
Three bright ideas. None of them require toner.
Goal, context, source, expectations. Say all four and Copilot stops guessing.
/Type / and pick the document — Copilot reads that file, not the whole filing cabinet.
“Put that in a table with columns for owner, date and status.” Instant structure.
Points for missions, badges and prompts that did not begin with “erm”.