Are your emails killing the planet? Are they much longer than they need to be, thereby wasting unnecessary amounts of electricity and storage space. I'm referring (of course) to the signatures which some individuals and companies insist on adding to the bottom of all their emails. Whilst some signatures are small and appropriate, others are great hulking textual beasts far longer than the email to which they are attached. If left unchecked, signatures build up in thick ugly layers at the foot of email conversations, down where nobody usually bothers to read. But try printing out a long corporate email and you'll almost certainly waste the last sheet of paper on unnecessary signature stodge.
So I though I'd start a campaign to 'out' the worst signature offenders in an attempt to save the Earth before it's too late.
1) Corporate signatures: You can't just write your name at the bottom of a business email any more. Expect an automatic 10-line corporate signature to kick in, complete with your full job title, postal address, telephone number (with international dialling code), email address (I mean, like, what is the point?) and official company strapline. It's all about consistency, and promoting brand image, and presenting stakeholders with key information in a coherent style. But it also looks bloody stupid tacked onto the end of 99% of work emails - those internal gossipy conversations that nobody ever admits to sending. 53 BigTower London EC1A 5XQ, United Kingdom, Europe, The World Tel: +44 3268 4782916 43107 extension 9381 and ask for Janet Globalcorp is an ISO 9000 compliant community corporation Developing growth through customer-facing system efficiency
2) Corporate legal signatures: Never trust your employees. Who knows what business secret or litigious scandal they might accidentally let slip in a careless email. Today's corporate lawyers therefore insist that a lengthy legal disclaimer be added to every email exiting the office, pointing out that each message's contents might in fact be complete rubbish. And that the email might have been sent to the wrong address, in which case please (please!) delete it without reading the contents. These verbose signatures are essentially desperate begging measures, but they clog up business communications with extreme effectiveness. This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of Globalcorp unless specifically stated. If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system and notify the sender immediately. Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in reliance on it.
3) Promotional signatures: Certain email services insist on adding a little advert at the bottom of all your emails. It may be only tiny, but it always looks highly inappropriate beneath a brief message proclaiming that you've got a new job, or announcing the death of your cat. Still, that's 'free' email for you. How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos. Get Yahoo! Photos!
4) Self-promoting signatures: Some people love to pollute the end of their emails with little adverts of their own, for themselves. I have no serious problem with a one-liner, say for your own website, because that says who you are. But insisting on listing more than one of your pet web projects to everybody you communicate with is perhaps excessive, and shamelessly plugging your entire online repertoire to all and sundry is verging on the egocentric. I am an angel: iknitsocksforthehomeless.org I have a book out: pleasebuymybookplease.co.uk I am so very talented: myblogisaworkofgenius.com
5) Witty signatures: We've all seen them. Some hilarious Star Trek quote, or a line lifted from your favourite 18th century social economist, tagged on to the end of an email as an open window into the soul of the sender. Alas the message being transmitted isn't "see how erudite I am", it's "I am a tosser". Sorry to have to be the one to tell you. "If The Flintstones has taught us anything, it's that pelicans can be used to mix cement." (Homer Simpson)
So please join me in my campaign to eradicate over-long email signatures from the internet. We don't want to read it, so please don't write it. With a little thought and consideration for others you can easily slim down the verbal spam you attach to the bottom of every email you send, or even eradicate it altogether. Come on, every kilobyte of memory you can free up will help to save the planet. Who's with me?
