The XY Problem: How to spot it, stop it, and ask...

A client emails you on a Friday afternoon. "Quick one. How do I change the font size on just one word in the footer?" Simple enough. You point them to the editor, explain inline styling, and move on. Half an hour later, another email: "Great, and how do I make it bold and red?" Then another: "Can I add a link to just that word?" So you get on a call. Turns out they're trying to add a legal disclaimer to the footer. They didn't ask about that because they'd already decided the best approach was t