Ok, here is what we’ll use to start the fire du jour:
“If I have to scroll to read your sigfile it is TOO DAMNED BIG, PERIOD!”
You need to FIX IT!
No one reading an email needs to know your street address and suite number. If they want to send you snail mail, they can look it up on your website. Your email address pops up when they hit reply; don’t list it below, too. That makes you look just plain dumb.
If your company name is there, link it to your site. Do not list it separately as www.technicallychallenged.com.
How in the hell do I comply with THIS statement?! I have to read it to know it’s not for me:
“If you are not the addressee or the intended recipient, do not read this e-mail.”
Attorneys might say it has some kind of meaning, and maybe it does, but to me it seems about as useful as a mattress/pillow tag.
Finally, no one cares about that crap about it being private; it means nothing. And when you decide to argue otherwise, do not start typing until you have reviewed the license agreement of every piece of software that you own…and then also review all the software you use and don’t own. Then, when you DO make that argument, remember this same sigfile goes on those lists of funnies you send like the dog licking the back of your screen and the pumpkin carved like a guy puking his guts.
There ARE services that send the email equivalent of a registered letter. Use those when you need or want some kind of security. Don’t annoy the rest of the world with your self-absorbed BS of announcing that I am supposed to actually call your phone number and clean my servers when you send me the recipe for Chocolate Cake in a Coffee Cup that I am not supposed to have.
I am not picking on any single person here. I have just spent the morning looking at lots of old emails and seeing a LOT of chaff in the wheat. If I go back far enough, I can even find mine back in the day when we all had our personal mottos and statements at the end.
Let’s say the rule ought to be that sigfiles have no more characters than an SMS message. I may have to go work on my own now.
One final note: make it horizontal all the way across the page and not more than three lines. This will look funny five years from now when we all have everyone’s info planted in our brains.