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Now that I've tamed my E-mail monkey (zero unopened messages and total messages in my inbox down 90% - whoo hoo!) I've got a new email demon to vanquish: the signature.
There are two parts to the email signature conundrum. First is the closing language and second is what, if any, additional information to include. I don't have a signature signature. News anchors and other TV hosts often have catch phrases they use to say goodbye like Dan Rather's "courage" and Downtown Julie Brown's "wubba wubba wubba." Lessons about formal letter writing teach school children to respectfully finish with the word "sincerely." The show Gossip Girl has introduced a renaissance of "xoxo" usage. Graduate school classmates had their personal signatures that branded them by consistent usage. The Swiss one used "love you madly," the other, a Brit, "Cheers." Another friend who is deeply religious subtly signals his faith with the closing "peace." But without a signature phrase that you use with everyone every time, you run the risk of offending with words the receiver perceives as to distant, too cold, too familiar or too inappropriate.
I debate what to use and change it up regularly. Often I'll mirror the correspondence. Best gets best. Best regards gets best regards. And so on and so on. Do I know you or do you seem like a friendly stranger or is the correspondence happy talk? Often in those types of emails I'll use cheers which has always put a smile on my face since I first saw my friend use it years ago. But deciding every time is tiring. I'm hoping that some day something will feel right and stick. Then I will program a signature that just adds it in automatically to my messages.
Which brings me to the other email signature decision. I've often changed up information in my email signature trying out various combinations of name, email, website, blogs, twitter, name, phone numbers and more. I have a new phone number so lately I've taken out all other information and have been shouting IN ALL CAPS the new number so folks will notice. Which is bad enough with people I know (and it's been freaking some out) but with new people or more formal correspondence it feels a bit abrupt so I modify.
Even if you have hit upon the perfect combination of terminology and information there is still the whole question of font, html or plain text, colors and even graphics. Some corporate people I know have elaborate signatures that mirror the rest of their company's branding with elaborate fonts and multiple colors. We've all received the lengthy disclaimers begging us to gouge our eyes out or wipe our hard drives if we've received some super-secret corporate communique by mistake because some bonehead mistakenly hit reply all, made a typo in the address bar or foolishly forwarded. Other disclaimers try to burnish the sender's green cred by asking us to consider the environment before printing.
After all that, it's a wonder we have time to actually write an email!
How do you sign your emails? Do you have a personal signature or catch phrase? If so, mind if I borrow it?
Related Reading:
Ruth McCann at the Washington Post: 'Best' for Last?
It feels like the 18th century all over again. All that daily correspondence, all those long hours spent hunched over a desk, composing some thoughtful missive about one's dowry or the Jacobite rebellions. Signed, "Yr humble servant."
Same deal now, basically, except (obviously) we're not clutching quills; we're writing a passel of e-mails and clicking send on ye olde BlackBerry until our fingers bleed. And something else isn't quite the same: Unlike the heroes and heroines of epistolary novels, we aren't blessed with time-tested formal guidance on the correct way to sign off.
BooMama and her BlogHer of the Week-winning post Needing Some Closure
For the last several years I haven’t actively practiced the Christian closing, mainly because I email so much that it just isn’t practical to type out an elaborate closing in every single email. And yes, I know that I could set up a signature in my email preferences, but for some reason I feel like if I do that then the next thing you know I’ll be giving myself some made-up title. And then the next thing you know I’ll be writing down “goals” and trying to “achieve some things.”
So basically what I guess I’m saying is that while I know what is widely regarded as professional, grown-up behavior,
