The phishing meme, and the three tells in one sentence

Three claims arrive together and each one is doing a job. Urgent removes the pause in which you would have checked. From your boss borrows an authority you are reluctant to question. And needs gift cards is the part that should end the conversation, because it is a request for money in a form that cannot be reversed or traced.

That last detail is the reliable one. Gift card requests are a documented staple of business email compromise, and the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center has published warnings about the pattern for years: the cards are bought, the codes are photographed, and the money is gone the moment the codes are sent. No refund exists because nothing was stolen in a way a bank can reverse.

What defeats it is a habit rather than a filter. Verify any request for money or credentials on a channel you already had: a number you already know, in person, or a reply typed to an address you looked up yourself rather than one you hit reply to. Agreeing that in advance matters more than spotting the message, because the message is designed to be spotted late.

And slowing down is not a personal failing to be trained out of people. Deadline pressure is the technique; removing the deadline defeats it.