Here are things that are reasonable to include in an email signature block:
- Your name.
- Your title (1 line max; more than that and you have a megalomania problem).
- Your company name and possibly a *small* logo.
- Your address (3 lines max; I don’t need to know the name of your building).
- Your phone number (1 line; no one uses a fax machine; join the 21st century! And no one uses TTY – learn to send/receive video relay).
- Your company’s website and possibly one or two other social media sites (e.g. Twitter).
Things that are not OK and just end up making any email chain a total pain in the ass to scroll through:
- Your email address. You’re emailing me, you dork! I have your email address.
- Giant, complex, byte-hungry logos.
- Assertions that the content is privileged, confidential, top secret, need-to-know basis only, destroy after reading. The circumstances and participants will determine this; not magic words.
- Long-winded ass-covering language that the email does not contain legal advice unless it does and it really doesn’t contain tax advice unless it does.
- Delusional requests to delete the email if you are not the intended recipient.
- Lectures on thinking about the environment before printing the email. These always make me want to print 100 copies of it and then burn them to generate additional greenhouse gases.
- Anything that moves.
The grumpy old woman email goddess has spoken. Any questions?
