Monday, September 28, 2009

Appropriate email signatures

If you have a job in an office, and that job involves emailing people you don't know, ever, then your email signature should have the following information only: your name, title, relevant appropriate contact information, company-required/sanctioned branding as relevant, and any legal disclaimers required. That's it.

No, for real, that's it.

If there's a quote, it should be related to your company--like, for example, a positive statement from an article (which of course falls under branding as indicated above).

You know what is unacceptable under any circumstance? ANYTHING ELSE. You can put whatever you please at the end of your personal emails to your friends. Fine. I'll judge, but if we're friends presumably I'll either find it funny/apt or forgive you the inanity because of your shining personality.

I don't want a work email to advise me that the shortest distance between two people is actually a smile, or to include a pun on minds and matter, or anything else in that vein. It's not just that I'm a super judgy person, it's also that email doesn't convey tone or intent and you never know how someone you don't know is going to react to your pithy quote. Including, of course, that judgy a-holes like me will make some potentially inaccurate assumptions about you.

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