I just saw my first email, where in the bottom of the signature, it contained the following, in green italicized text:
P Please consider the environment before printing this email.
At first, I thought it was cool. But then, the more I thought about it, I thought it was silly. I mean, I understand that they're concerned about the environment. I am too. After all, I print double sided in "econo-mode", I take public transit, I use CFL bulbs, I recycle, etc. But, is this something that should be put in an email? Do you really want to tell the world how they should behave? The antagonist in me wanted to print the email, just because I could.
Then I thought about it further. What happens when the email does get printed, whether or not it should be? Isn't putting that string of text causing more ink to be used? Isn't that exactly what you don't want? Using more ink to print the email means consuming more resources, which is hard on the environment, isn't it? Now, don't get me started on signatures that are several lines long, complete with images, and the garbage "this email is proprietary" crap.
Now some people get offended by email signatures. Take this guy for example. He figures you might as well add your religious or political beliefs to the signature as well. Why stop there? Why not tell people what they should eat, drink, where they should shop, or who they should marry? After all, it's all the same, right? Personally, I have thicker skin than that. To each their own I guess.
Back when I created my very first email signature, I had an awesome signature. I think I'll bring that back. Not in my personal signature. No, that's too hard core to be changed out right now. Instead, I'll add it to my professional signature that I use within the company. I'll italicize it, complete with green text, and even add an image of a green leaf next to it. Something like this:
This message was created with 100% recycled electrons.
What do you think?
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