diff --git a/ui/src/components/OperationPanel.jsx b/ui/src/components/OperationPanel.jsx
index dc6292a..15e02ca 100644
--- a/ui/src/components/OperationPanel.jsx
+++ b/ui/src/components/OperationPanel.jsx
@@ -97,7 +97,12 @@ const LABEL_W = 'w-24'
 // which put a line of prose beside every toggle -- and a line of prose beside a
 // toggle is skipped, while still costing the dock a row. Hovering gives it
 // (native title, which nothing can clip), clicking pins it.
-function Help({ text }) {
+//
+// It opens upward, because the settings it explains sit low in a dock that
+// scrolls -- a popover hanging below them is cut off by the dock's own edge.
+// `dir="down"` is for the few that sit at the top of the panel, where up is the
+// clipped direction instead.
+function Help({ text, dir = 'up' }) {
   const [open, setOpen] = useState(false)
   if (!text) return null
   return (
@@ -108,8 +113,9 @@ function Help({ text }) {
           open ? 'border-blue-400 text-blue-600 bg-blue-50' : 'border-gray-300 text-gray-500 hover:text-blue-600 hover:border-blue-400'}`}
         style={{ fontSize: '10px' }}>?</button>
       {open && (
-        <span className="absolute z-20 left-0 top-5 w-64 rounded border border-gray-200 bg-white shadow-lg px-2 py-1.5
-                         text-gray-600 leading-snug normal-case tracking-normal">
+        <span className={`absolute z-20 left-0 w-64 rounded border border-gray-200 bg-white shadow-lg px-2 py-1.5
+                          text-gray-600 leading-snug normal-case tracking-normal
+                          ${dir === 'down' ? 'top-5' : 'bottom-5'}`}>
           {text}
         </span>
       )}
@@ -120,11 +126,11 @@ function Help({ text }) {
 // `stack` puts the label above its control instead of beside it. The aligned
 // label column costs 6rem, which is most of a narrow zone -- the tag field in
 // the bottom dock had 12rem of box left to type an initiative name into.
-function Field({ label, children, hint, stack }) {
+function Field({ label, children, hint, hintDir, stack }) {
   if (stack) {
     return (
       <div className="flex flex-col gap-1 min-w-0">
-        <span className="text-gray-600 whitespace-nowrap flex items-center gap-1.5">{label}<Help text={hint} /></span>
+        <span className="text-gray-600 whitespace-nowrap flex items-center gap-1.5">{label}<Help text={hint} dir={hintDir} /></span>
         <div className="flex items-center gap-2 min-w-0">{children}</div>
       </div>
     )
@@ -134,7 +140,7 @@ function Field({ label, children, hint, stack }) {
       <span className={`text-gray-600 whitespace-nowrap shrink-0 pt-1 ${LABEL_W}`}>{label}</span>
       <div className="flex items-center gap-2 flex-wrap min-w-0">
         {children}
-        <Help text={hint} />
+        <Help text={hint} dir={hintDir} />
       </div>
     </div>
   )
@@ -1312,6 +1318,20 @@ function RequestPreview({ payload, op, versionId }) {
   )
 }
 
+// What the three operations are, for the ? beside them. Written for somebody
+// who has been handed the app, not for whoever wrote the SQL: what it does to
+// the numbers, and what it leaves alone.
+const OP_HELP = {
+  scale: 'Moves the selection to a number you name — a new total, a change, or a percentage. '
+       + 'The rows already there are left alone: the difference is written as new rows underneath them, '
+       + 'so the pivot re-sums and the whole thing is one entry you can undo.',
+  recode: 'Moves the selection to different dimension values — another customer, part or program. '
+        + 'It writes the original back out as a negative and the same amounts in at the new coordinates, '
+        + 'so nothing is lost and both halves undo together.',
+  clone: 'Copies the selection to new rows, optionally shifted in time and scaled. The original is untouched. '
+       + 'This is how a period with no baseline of its own borrows its shape from prior year or plan.',
+}
+
 export default function OperationPanel({
   dock,
   slices, setSlices, distinctSlices,
@@ -1500,6 +1520,9 @@ export default function OperationPanel({
         <Submit onClick={() => submitOp(activeOp)} busy={!!opBusy}>
           {opBusy ? POSTING : POST}
         </Submit>
+        <Help text={'Writes the adjustment onto the forecast, under your account, as one entry in the change log. '
+                  + 'The pivot updates in place — no reload. Nothing is overwritten: the entry can be undone whole '
+                  + 'from Change log, which removes exactly the rows it wrote.'} />
         {opBusy && <span className="text-gray-500 leading-snug">writing rows…</span>}
       </div>
 
@@ -1517,7 +1540,7 @@ export default function OperationPanel({
           with no heading over it, so the panel never said what it was about
           to do until you read the button. */}
       <div className="flex items-start gap-4 flex-wrap px-3 py-2 border-b border-gray-200 bg-gray-50/60">
-        <Field label="Change">
+        <Field label="Change" hintDir="down" hint={OP_HELP[activeOp]}>
           <div className="inline-flex rounded border border-gray-300 divide-x divide-gray-300 shadow-sm overflow-hidden">
             {['scale', 'recode', 'clone'].map(op => (
               <Button key={op} onClick={() => setActiveOp(op)} active={activeOp === op}>