Been part of my email signature for years...
Posted by richie65@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 166 comments
If I am permitted to - I would like to add a small piece of levity (with two appropriate links) to today's flow in this subreddit...
Last week, the Treasurer called me laughing -
One of our overseas / Asian cohorts wanted to tell him - That my email was "not professional".
Specifically - The image that is part of my email signature got his attention...
As the post title says; I have been using this same image in my signature for YEARS... And No - I am not changing anything.
Here it is - I posted it to imgur: https://imgur.com/gallery/been-part-of-email-signature-years-YBzt5mY
The original is from the 'The System Is Down' HSR episode - THIS image includes transparencies for the tape, and the shadow.
As a corporate systems admin - This works well for me...
Here is the HSR episode - For the curious...
Life-Radio554@reddit
I can see clearly why there was a complaint regarding the lack of professional nature in that image.
Clearly, they means for you to straighten up the edges and make it a proper box instead of a peeled looking label :) You should redesign it all perfect rectangular looking and tell your boss, okay I fixed it and it's looks far more professional now :)
ThePuppetHead@reddit
The system Is down The system Is down
natefrogg1@reddit
Some people get really triggered by signatures in a corporate environment.
We had one short lived CFO that was super against any personalization in signatures. One of our longtime employees has her signature in pink comic-sans with a sparkly gif that says Thank You!, she has had that for at least a decade but it pissed this CFO off so much when he would see her emails. It became one of his missions to get everybody on the same standardized format for signatures. I explained that this currently needs to be done on the client level, every device, Mac, pc, iPhone, blah blah so rather than me going individually to each user and each device to do this manually, we would send instructions out to the users. He did not like that idea as the users could just change it whenever they wanted or just ignore it and not comply. We started discussing systems that could do this for us, about that time he was let go for totally unrelated reasons and that uniformed corporate signature project went away, his replacement and their boss thought it was a stupid waste of time with the whole endeavor.
As the sole IT person, I was glad to not have to care about this any longer, it didn’t impact business in any way and it made a few users happy to have a little something that is personalized the way they like it.
phalangepatella@reddit
Do you use Microsoft 365? Then there is no question CodeTwo Email Signatures is worth every cent of the $8 per user per YEAR.
Brand consistency instantly achieved. Data pulled form Entra / AD. That bored employee with not enough time to do their work, but enough time to tweak every desktop setting and generate obnoxious email signatures? Done.
I will never operate a multi user environment without CodeTwo or something like it.
dlongwing@reddit
Honestly I'm glad our environment doesn't have this. Signature standardization is all well and fine when it's for making a reasonable signature for every user, but my company's marketing department has it in their head to cover the bottom half of my email with stupid banners and they'd absolutely make it my problem to stick those into any kind of signature-standardization scheme.
I'll happily deal with the occasional stupid sparkling gif from full grown adults who know better, so long as I can "forget" to put marketing's dross at the bottom of my emails.
phalangepatella@reddit
As much as you may not like it (and I agree with what you are saying), the Marketing department is charged with the business's brand goal, guidelines, initiatives etc. If Marketing wants those there, then by default, the Company wants those there or should instruct Marketing to settle down.
It is similar to (but in no way equal) a legal department requiring certain footers, fine print, etc. to protect the company from a Legal perspective. So if Legal wants it there, also by default, the Company wants it there.
This is where find a lot of value in standardized signatures. Sure, reasonable adults can and should be trusted with many things. But not everyone is a reasonable adult... so you end up with Jim from Purchasing advertising his side business in his email signature, or Debra from Accounting that spent two days putting together a masterpiece of pink and teal, with her own fonts and whatever else her little heart desired. Or Ed in sales that made his own signature AND INCLUDEd 200 LINE BREAKS TO PUSH THE AUTOMATIC SIGNATURE WAY OFFT HE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN...
kirashi3@reddit
Funny story about those "this message is intended for X recipient, if you are not X, you must delete this email and report this immediately" footers... in my jurisdiction, these hold absolutely zero legal footing.
Someone I know may or may not have sent a list of hundreds data records containing other customers' Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to a single customer when handling this customer's dispute case.
Obviously, the customer can't violates federal or provincial laws with this data, but the legal team concluded they were under no obligation to delete the data as the email was _technically intended for them.
Thing is... a recipient has absolutely no way to verify whether or not they were intended to receive data sent to them, and once you send an email there's no way to recall that information. It's a weird situation.
To be clear, I don't agree with what the company's legal team found, but they were following our local laws. We need updated legislation and / or people to NOT send sensitive data via insecure means like email.
BrainWaveCC@reddit
They were conveniently interpreting those laws in the most favorable way for themselves.
kirashi3@reddit
Oh for sure - as I've seen time and time again, most (but not all) legal and HR teams put the company's best interests first because that's who signs their paycheques. Tis but one of many reasons I had to leave the corporate world and now enjoy working for a non-profit in the public service sector.
Faculties@reddit
Standard Windows Admin. Hates their users and wants complete control over them.
phalangepatella@reddit
I’m just curious how this comment contributes anything. I’m trying not to argue with idiots on the internet, but Reddit keeps making that difficult.
marcoevich@reddit
Hey fellow codetwo user! Good recommendation here, we've also been using it for a few years now. Solid solution for personal mailboxes.
How does it work for you with shared mailboxes? Can you get the user's name and address in it's signature?
phalangepatella@reddit
Off the top of my head, I don’t think we have any shared mailboxes sending with auto signatures enabled.
I know there is support for sending from shared mailboxes though:
https://www.codetwo.com/userguide/email-signatures-for-office-365/email-signatures-for-shared-mailboxes.htm
Spida81@reddit
We used Exclaimer for our signatures. It was ok, did the job but irritating. Moved to CodeTwo so long ago I can't even remember why we moved. I haven't tight twice about signatures in a shockingly long time.
It is such a silly little thing that can take an unreasonable amount of time without something like CodeTwo in place.
Absolutely wholeheartedly recommend.
DoubleD_2001@reddit
But how do you feel about the data security privacy side of this?? You are giving Code 2 MiTM to your outbound email path. I'd rather just use HTML and Exchange transport rules to pull data from AAD/Entra vs using a third party if you want a centralized approach.
marcoevich@reddit
CodeTwo is a certified solution, developed in close cooperation with Microsoft. They also undergo regular audits. I trust then wholeheartedly.
That's one system that you setup and it just works and gets the job done.
glueall215@reddit
We are looking at both these platforms. I’m honestly not any more worried about them over say Proofpoint.
DoubleD_2001@reddit
If your gonna take risks, they have to be worthwhile risks. Proofpoint provides an excellent suite of security products for email that provides enough benefit to my security posture to make the risk worthwhile. Adding a signature just isn't as important or at least not important enough for me to add another platform that would be considered a tier 1 risk provider to my risk management matrix. I like Code 2 products, used their on prem signature product for years but just didn't find the risk worthwhile to utilize the hosted product.
glueall215@reddit
While I completely agree business needs will soften security concerns to some extent.
These products architected to not retrain any of your information.
As a side note, proofpoint does offer a lot. We have used them for years but are in the process of moving to mimecast. Proofpoints product is just send mail with acquisitions bolted on haphazardly at this point. They are not a cloud native product and it shows in a lot of areas when you compare it to something with modern architecture.
DoubleD_2001@reddit
100% on Mimecast vs PP. Was Mimecast for years before switching jobs and am now on PP. Similar functionality from both but Mimecast is far better integrated management wise.
glueall215@reddit
Glad to hear the +1 for mimecast, it’s my push to replace PP. So my neck on the line lol.
vermyx@reddit
What you stated is no different. The liability is on you instead. From a business perspective I prefer not to have that liability and for me $8 a user is super cheap to not have that worry. They just added the feature that they can add signature to outlook mobile which makes my life easier as I can push outlook instead of ios mail.
Spida81@reddit
This is a perfectly reasonable question. For us, perfectly fine. For a bank, or other high-trust environment for example, I would expect this would be a question they would need to dive deeply into before addressing (and ultimately discarding as, per your point, it is something they could manage anyway).
We do already have another third party on both the inbound and outbound path, as we utilise ProofPoint for email screening as well. Transport rules are supposed to ensure nothing goes outbound excepting via ProofPoint... but that still represents another step that could be deemed unnecessary. Like all cloud solutions consideration should be given before jumping at the latest shiny.
Quinnster247@reddit
I’m enjoying Exclaimer.
One of the funnier (to me) parts of this implementation project was seeing how many employees gave themselves random bullshit titles in their email signatures.
Exclaimer pulls their real HR approved title from AD, if they have any complaints — straight to HR, not us.
ExclaimerHelp@reddit
Thanks for the shoutout! We've seen some great ones in our time also ;)
phalangepatella@reddit
The only support related issue we have had regarding CodeTwo signature is when a new user doesn't read the "don't make your own email signature" part or the orientation docs, and painstaking builds there own based off of another employee's messages. Then they send email and don't understand why their email is sending a butchered version and a nicer version too.
$8.00 a YEAR per user. It is nuts not to.
narcissisadmin@reddit
You're being awfully pushy about this.
phalangepatella@reddit
Shit. I've been made. My undercover work for BIG AUTOMATIC EMAIL SIGNATURE has been blown...
Time to plan my exit...
nextyoyoma@reddit
ThAt’S tOo ExPeNsIvE
smnhdy@reddit
That would be $12m in my environment… that’s not chump change…
The bigger issue at scale though is data accuracy.
phalangepatella@reddit
Yeah, that's a lot, but with 150,000 employees like Apple, AT&T, BMW, Tesla, etc. I'm sure revenue is many orders or magnitude higher than that. You'd also negotiate a far better price at that scale. Even so, I'd suspect every one of those companies would fart $12m for brand consistency alone.
The data is pulled from your own Entra / Active Directory data. Is it accurate there? I'd hope so, but I am a realist...
nextyoyoma@reddit
I mean if you have 1.5 million users who ALL need their signatures managed, I feel like you might be able to get some better pricing. Or roll your own and hire someone to do nothing but maintain that service.
Spida81@reddit
One of the latter updates allows the automatic removal of user created signatures. Brilliant little tool.
phalangepatella@reddit
Oh, damn! I need to look into that. Thanks for the heads up.
9jmp@reddit
I didn't realize it was only 8$ per year per user... Is it domain wide or whoever we want?
phalangepatella@reddit
You can create an AD group and tell CodeTwo to apply to that group (aka the users in that group). Or make different groups that get different signatures. Or disable signatures by groups, etc.
Of course, to can tell it to apply to individual users too.
Famous_Lynx_3277@reddit
I’d buy them lunch.
somethimesiwonder@reddit
Confirming for codetwo. Used it in a on-prem environment. It is pure Gold for signature standardizations.
ryalln@reddit
Just did that at my new org. Just had to write a policy for someone who changed it and they learnt very quickly it’s there for a reason.
CeleryMan20@reddit
Symprex SignatureManager is good too.
natefrogg1@reddit
that’s cool! there are quite a few systems to handle that sort of thing so I’m glad you landed on one that ticks all the boxes for you and your environment. It is worth $0 to us, but I get that it might matter quite a bit for some companies
phalangepatella@reddit
Brand consistency is a huge thing for us, so that pegged the value meter. But there are so many things you can do with it as well. Different signatures based on new messages vs replies, time based special signatures, instant updates for changing information, etc.
Master-IT-All@reddit
Well, a Chief Financial Officer being bent up about it is kind of odd. That's not their job, the only thing they should say is to the CIO/CTO/IT Director, is "Hey why don't we have signatures enforced?"
That's what the Chief Information Officer or IT Director is supposed to do, identify business reasons and tools to achieve better results in I.T.
I'm guessing your organization doesn't do a lot of business to business email activity with the white collar elites, or has a need to appear as a white collar. So this is pretty low value for you.
BrainWaveCC@reddit
In a suitably large org, the division of labor is typical that clear. In a smaller org, there is no guarantee of such clean silos.
Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is left as an exercise for the reader...
ExceptionEX@reddit
many many orgs the CFO is the head of IT and all tech related departments, this goes back to companies where finance were the first departments to get computers.
pemungkah@reddit
Exactly the right way to handle idiotic requests at that level: run up a proposal of all the work and the cost for it, and make sure it’s accurately astronomical.
g-rocklobster@reddit
You're intent here is to bring levity and I don't want to harsh your vibe so I'll simply say I appreciate your attempt at it.
But I don't think you're going to get the response you expected.
richie65@reddit (OP)
I wish people could not take themselves so seriously...
jimicus@reddit
So do I, but the days when you could get away with that are about twenty years in the past.
richie65@reddit (OP)
I make it work for me - And I find it very useful / helpful...
Here is a reply I made to someone else's comment:
\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~
I deal with inside customers - Who have known me for a while, and / or figure me out pretty quick - And the few who are the kind of humorless / indignant types - Simply do not last...
And vendors...
For the folks I work with -
I find it vitally important to keep humor at the forefront of all of my exchanges -
So even the most serious of conversations already have a lighthearted foundation - And they know that if I have to be THAT serious... It's pretty serious.
And I have their undivided attention as the outset.
But once that is out of the way, the stress level deflates quickly.
johko814@reddit
I hope you do not use as many hyphens in your work emails as you have done in this post. Very - unprofessional.
hafhdrn@reddit
"Your email format is not the same as my email format. Very unprofessional."
Pound dirt.
richie65@reddit (OP)
I'm an IT guy not an English major.
Master-IT-All@reddit
I find your use of the ellipsis to imply a punishment is coming, to be very unprofessional.
TommyVe@reddit
People are morons and I would advise against giving them the option to tailor a signature.
scoldog@reddit
Learnt this the hard way years ago.
Some users had inappropriate things in their emails, but one user had a picture taken front on of a landing 747 that took up the entire length of the screen.
It was the straw that broke the sysadmins back and we put a plan in place to prevent this from happening.
g-rocklobster@reddit
I was going to leave this alone because, like I said, you're intent at levity was admirable. Short version is that yes, it's unprofessional. Whether you change it or not is up to you (and, I guess, your manager). If you want my details, read on. If not, give me my downvote and more on.
Full disclaimer - for the first several (10?) years I was in IT, I had a similar sense of humor. Servers were named not based on their purpose but either after team names, cartoon characters, or things like FUBAR and SNAFU. I tried the whole quote thing in the signature. I did the funky avatars. And 28 yo me would have thought your signature was hilarious.
Then I realized that the risk of my attempts at humor being taken the wrong way weren't worth what little amusement I got out of it. With regards to the out-facing things like the quotes, avatars, signatures, I was, fortunately, never called out on it. For the server/machine names, however, I recognize pretty quickly that naming convention DOES matter when the shit hits the fan and you need to figure out what server has is having an issue quickly.
I also realized that I really do not want my personal life and my work life getting tangled up. I want that separation, I want to be able to leave work behind when I'm done for the day. Which means acting in a more business like and professional manner than I did in the past while at work. It's one of the reasons why I don't like/don't want to work remotely. I use the commute to switch from my relaxed personal mentality to my office mentality. Doesn't mean I don't still have fun with people at work. But I'm more cognizant of what I put out-facing and what impact it may or may not have.
In your case you've been lucky enough that no one has complained about it until now. But as funny as it is, it IS unprofesional. Again, whether you change it or not is up to you (and, I guess, your manager).
richie65@reddit (OP)
I don't really have a 'manager' per se...
I report to the Treasurer - And he and I are like-minded, and his boss and I are drinking buddies...
bfodder@reddit
Imagine that photo in you signature while communicating about a company wide outage.
richie65@reddit (OP)
It HAS happened... Most recently this past Friday...
We are on o365, so I was able to send out an email about it, and I happened to be working from home - Everyone who had Outlook on their phone, as able to see the email...
Really all that happened is that for some still entirely unknown reason a Meraki switch decided to not notice a problem with the VPN, and couldn't reach the DC's in Azure...
(rebooting that switch fixed the issue)...
Plenty of people took note of the irony / sarcasm gets to carry occasionally...
johko814@reddit
I don't take myself that seriously, but I do take my business (and the one I work for) seriously.
No_Mechanic1362@reddit
I use some text in my signature that says, "It's really unfortunate when some piece of equipment selects a new pope."
madd-hatter@reddit
It is unprofessional.
richie65@reddit (OP)
Then it is also an incredibly effective way to show the humorless that an email signature has nothing to do with proficiency.
Might also go a long way to show that having a sense of humor at work is a really strong indicator of job satisfaction - And indicator / attribute that builds confidence across the board.
Food for thought?
madd-hatter@reddit
Your comment is not thought-provoking. It is what it is, not what you want it to be.
richie65@reddit (OP)
You think?
Mindestiny@reddit
You're getting really defensive and condescending at everyone who concurs that it's unprofessional. Which it is, even if it's funny.
First-Structure-2407@reddit
Exclaimer for us. Easy to split the branding and give marketing access
jdptechnc@reddit
If you want to call attention to yourself, then you do you, I guess. Having an annoying email signature is one way to be remembered.
quack_duck_code@reddit
One of our overseas / Asian cohorts wanted to tell him - That my email was "not professional".
They're just salty they can't have fun at work.
richie65@reddit (OP)
I sincerely believe (and many of the comments here seem to confirm) that for many people - Even the idea of having fun at work, never actually occurs to them...
Or their idea of fun at work consists of wildly changing the wallpaper on their login screen, according to the upcoming holiday, and cheering for their boss, because 'free pizza at lunch'...
So cool!
quack_duck_code@reddit
"Wait you can work hard and have fun while doing it!?!?!"
This is why teams hire people with social skills, people who they would like to work with rather than someone with a few extra certs and a masters degree.
Whiney? Pass Political? Pass Victimized? Pass Cutt throat? Pass
A big red flag for me during interviews was when poor past performance was blamed on someone else.
Rather, I like when candidates say they LEARNED from a bad past experience. Preferably though, just avoid negativity and downer conversations if you can.
whatsgoodbaby@reddit
If someone sends me an image in their signature every time they email me I assume they are kind of dumb
richie65@reddit (OP)
Wow!
I'm sure glad I'm not dumb... Or prejudice...
geoff5093@reddit
The problem is many email clients, especially with image blocking for non-trusted senders, will have your signature appear as an image attachment. Drives me crazy seeing that along with a big X where the image is supposed to be in their signature.
Janus67@reddit
Or, for instance, every time a user emails our helpdesk and a ticker is auto-created it attaches the dumb images that uses have in their emails
richie65@reddit (OP)
I see those too - But I see no reason to let that stuff bother me...
It is, after all, the nature of the beast...
If only to reduce the overall stress potential - I look for the pertinent stuff, and have even been known to interrupt people who attempt to go into details I don't care about...
My favorite - Is when they start trying to explain why they need something to work (when it has stopped working) - And I tell them: "You don't need to justify, to me why it has to work correctly... I get it."
It's my way of telling them to 'shut up', 'I know that already', or 'I simply do not care, about that detail'
It puts them in a spot where they are primed to provide me with the details needed to troubleshoot, etc.
Or - They go on about how something "used to 'be'..."
And I step in with: "lets talk about that stuff later... I need to look at"
Focus on what is actually important, ignore what is not.
richie65@reddit (OP)
You do realize that signatures are typically configured to be added automatically to the email, don't you
whatsgoodbaby@reddit
Your homestar runner whatever is mandated by your company?
richie65@reddit (OP)
Sure.
kirashi3@reddit
I do, but my anti-spam filters aren't as forgiving. 😉
Happy_Kale888@reddit
It is not professional to have images in signatures...
a60v@reddit
This. Any email signature that is more than the sig separator (dash dash space newline) followed by four lines of text is unprofessional. Especially if HTML and/or images are involved. HTML mail in general is evil, and I will die on that hill.
Happy_Kale888@reddit
Correct no HTML!!!
punklinux@reddit
If I could have the people with gigantic GIFs of their certifications have those removed in outgoing, I'd be happy. Like, okay, we get it. Cisco certified PMP/PMI master Sigma Six MCSE for 15 years... great. I don't care, you're still an idiot.
Jeebus_Juice813420@reddit
This has been in my sig for close to a decade. Never been called out on it.
"No trees were killed in the sending of this email. However several billion electrons were terribly inconvenienced.”
TheFluffiestRedditor@reddit
I (and others) used "This email was composed with 100% recycled electrons" waaaay back in the early 2000s.
Jeebus_Juice813420@reddit
Oh, I know its old school. I definitely did not come up with it.
lovejw2@reddit
I have that as my personal email signature. I love that quote from Neil
Jeebus_Juice813420@reddit
I think I pulled it from dsl reports. I didn't know it was from someone. Wh9 is Neil?
lovejw2@reddit
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Jeebus_Juice813420@reddit
Awesome, Glad I stole from someone cool. Was afraid for a sec it would be some evil dictator or something.
teksean@reddit
I like it, too much of IT is freaking boring. Be fun.
j______7@reddit
Better than most signatures I see that look like you’ve been hit with popup ad spam from the 90’s.
bobothro@reddit
Damn, I see this field has sucked the life out of a lot of people here.
richie65@reddit (OP)
It really has.
It's no wonder the 'no people skills' computer geek stereotype is so persistent.
And why so many in this field hate their job.
They aspire to monotony.
tardiusmaximus@reddit
I have no problem with this image. What I do have a problem with is people specifying their pronouns in their email sig.
mycatsnameisnoodle@reddit
If you were to get an email from my work email this is what you would see as my user icon. I’ve been using it for years and nobody has ever said anything.
kirashi3@reddit
Hey, do you happen to have the time?
mycatsnameisnoodle@reddit
Why yes, I do have the time.
jmbpiano@reddit
I know this one!
It's ham and swiss on rye time, right?
richie65@reddit (OP)
Amen, brother!
DoctorOctagonapus@reddit
Flagrant system error!?
flotey@reddit
Colleague had "this email may contain sarcasm and peanuts" in his signature. There was some kind of bug where internal signatures where also used externally. Some business partner replied and found it very funny.
zeeblefritz@reddit
idk, I feel like IT sigs are allowed more freedom than others.
richie65@reddit (OP)
Indeed - Since I'd be the one to control this stuff anyway...
Without exception - When it comes to anything IT related - No one argues with me...
The few that did push against what I insisted on - Got themselves fired, when what I warned them about came true, and it fell squarely in their laps... Resulting in the promotions that put me in the spot I am in now.
whatsgoodbaby@reddit
Rich LaDuca, Sysadmin. USUI international corporation
Morejazzplease@reddit
It isn’t funny or professional… having an image in a signature is absolutely unprofessional.
kirashi3@reddit
Agreed. Especially having 5x icon-sized images to represent social media networks.
ntrlsur@reddit
I like it. Email signatures are not a concern of ours so we don't manage user signatures. Hell my signature is straight text. Full Name Title corp address and corp phone number.
kirashi3@reddit
As all signatures should be, if they intend to be flagged by as few anti-spam systems as possible.
_nobody_else_@reddit
In company mail? Who cares. Client side? Taking into account that the lowest common denominator for a client is an imbecile in tech, I would avoid cutesy signatures.
(speaking as a stuckup dev btw)
Also, how can you link "The System is Down" without linking The Website is down
kirashi3@reddit
God damn it, Chip! You took down the Exchange server.
richie65@reddit (OP)
To be fair - I am far to open and honest to be dealing with the public as a form of employment.
I famously (as in since I was very smol) say what ever I want to say - Not in a mean spirited way, but I will speak the truth regardless of the cost.
With me, you know exactly what you are getting.
If I didn't have some humor in my emails - I think people would wonder / worry.
But, alas - I rely on humor to keep things relaxed, and how people respond to humor, tells me a lot about the individual.
OccamsPubes@reddit
This is why people don’t like IT lol
dracotrapnet@reddit
Marketing loves signatures and loves them to all look the same. I played along during the company 20 year anniversary. After that I went no image, no phone number, no website. My signature was Name, Title, Company name in plain text. I went that way because I started to use multiple phones, tablets and iOS mail and gmail on Android did not do html signatures. I did not want anyone to know when I was answering from phone, tablet, or pc. They all looked alike no matter where I answered from.
Nobody needs my phone, website, company logo, fax, cellphone number. If you can't write an email to send a ticket, use speech to text!
Janus67@reddit
I like homestar as much as the next person, but I detest images in signatures. It makes them too big and unnecessarily gets attached to email threads and tickets causing bloating for no reason.
That said, for years (when I was getting started in IT) I had 'the internet is a series of tubes '- Ted Stevens in my signature. But at least that was a single line of plain text.
No_Bit_1456@reddit
Welcome to dealing with cultures that consider it a honor to fall asleep at their desk.
joef360@reddit
Some people out there must be so miserable that they complain about shit just to make others miserable.
QuietComplaint87@reddit
I had a manager who jokingly added an extra B to his name, Bob, because his boss had a name with three identical letters in it, and that supervisor would always say his name as, "Mammoth, with THREE Ms." So Bobb it became and remained for decades after. I decided to become "mikee" with two e's in his honor. One e is silent. The other one is long.
Ciderhero@reddit
When I started my first proper job, I was in HR & IT. My boss was keeping records for approx. 1,000 electrical operatives on paper, so I offered to digitise the workforce for the region using a similar solution that I created for coursework at uni - basically MS Access with a VB front-end. Anyway, during testing I created a HR record for myself and put my title as "Lord High Admiral for Earth's Forces", to make my boss laugh. We chuckled, then forgot about it because my HR record was controlled by the corporate HRIS rather than my solution.
Many years later, corporate decided to manage all HR records with their solution, so asked all regions to send them their records for import. My boss gave them my database, I forgot about my test record, and so for about three months, my payslip and automatic signature was:
CiderHero
Lord High Admiral for Earth's Forces
A lesson about cleaning up any test accounts when dealing with HRIS systems.
mknash1974@reddit
To be honest while I like the image I think your repeated assertion that you are indeed a very funny guy tells us all we need to know about your sense of humour.
Enjoy the sig, we all need a little fun in our lives and if this is yours then happy days
gryghin@reddit
They were having us account for every minute of our time and said that we should only be looking at our email for 2 hours a day.
I put the time I would look at my emails in my signature. "For better efficiency, I will read and respond to email requests from 09:00 to 11:00."
My manager told me that was fine in practice but to take it out of my signature.
I was a senior applications/Web Admin/MS-SQL DBA for Factory IT, and at the time, the company was Fortune 50 and part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Another time, he asked us to come up with a new team name, we proposed Applications, Systems and Support but when he saw the signature we designed, it was A.S.S. and he said no.
richie65@reddit (OP)
A.S.S.
DerkvanL@reddit
I have a oneliner at the bottom of my signature: "There is only 1
ExceptionEX@reddit
yeah that would not work any of the agencies we manage, they are largely governmental, legal, lobbyist, etc...
Signatures are regulated and real estate is reserved for pointless legal threats about opening an email someone sent to you but didn't mean to. And a shit ton of claims about this message being compliment with some regs. Then of course some state/fed/agency seal.
hacnstein@reddit
The System Is Down! is my ring tone.. one person has recognized it in all these years.
Who doesn't love a light switch rave?
WechTreck@reddit
Remember when fortune files would drop random quotes into your .sig?
--
WechTreck
"We aim to please. Ourselves, mostly, but we do aim to please."
fourpuns@reddit
I mean I get annoyed by pictures in general in emails
Ziegelphilie@reddit
Yeah, I dunno. I walk around the office in socks, have a large cardboard T-Rex behind my desk and a collection of personalised mugs - but I still wouldn't use a cartoon in my signature.
nachoismo@reddit
My first job in the 90s, my signature was obfuscated perl that when run, would rm -rf /. I worked at a mom and pop isp, everyone loved it. Times have changed.
Igot1forya@reddit
I just ran the command and I don't think I did it correctly. It could just be my system as it stopped working. /s
SikhGamer@reddit
I fucking hate cute signatures. They are not needed for individuals at all. For group inboxes, sure.
richie65@reddit (OP)
Awwwww??? You called it "cute"...
fresh-dork@reddit
really, who doesn't like strongbad emails?
labdweller@reddit
I think it depends on your role and if that involves regular contact with the people on the outside then I’d understand.
I rarely get the chance to meet clients so my signature is on a vintage corporate design and my MS Teams profile picture is of my pet, but nobody cares as I’m considered “not presentable”.
Also had a colleague who used to turn up everyday in cool dinosaur themed shirts with funny captions and that was fine.
Fickle_Bit1481@reddit
My employer is pretty relaxed in many ways, but they do take email signatures and voicemail greetings rather seriously. Funny pics wouldn't fly at my place.
jort_catalog@reddit
Ok boomer
BlueWater321@reddit
This is peak millennial. Leave us alone and go snort a zyn or something.
ultimatebob@reddit
I would have given bonus points if it played "The System Is Down" Homestar Runner song if you clicked on it.
goombatch@reddit
I like this version from Strong Bad emails
https://youtu.be/GtQpThwWQtQ?si=91sKwojdOQY83KEW
richie65@reddit (OP)
Oh boy - The fun I could have if...
Phx86@reddit
*light switch rave*
ncc74656m@reddit
Honestly, as a now manager who has never been able to let go of snark and humor, mostly because it keeps me alive, I wholly encourage this. If you were in some super straightlaced high end job like finance or legal, I could see this being a problem for people. Beyond that, most other folks need to just get over it.
That said, I would discourage it being sent outside the domain.
richie65@reddit (OP)
I deal with inside customers - Who have known me for a while, and / or figure me out pretty quick - And the few who are the kind of humorless / indignant types - Simply do not last...
And vendors...
For the folks I work with -
I find it vitally important to keep humor at the forefront of all of my exchanges -
So even the most serious of conversations already have a lighthearted foundation - And they know that if I have to be THAT serious... It's pretty serious.
And I have their undivided attention as the outset.
But once that is out of the way, the stress level deflates quickly.
phony_sys_admin@reddit
I'm glad I work somewhere where signatures are not even mandatory.
Ape_Escape_Economy@reddit
System of a Down!
Ghrislain@reddit
I'm the head of IT at my place and I fully support non-standardization in signatures. Why else is it called a signature? The fudds who call it unprofessional are usually hidebound types anyways.
npsimons@reddit
I'm extremely tempted to make the "System is Down" techno from another HSR episode into an alert tone for when my systems actually go down.
phalangepatella@reddit
Doo doo do do doo
retornam@reddit
Doot doo.
phalangepatella@reddit
eatmynasty@reddit
Are you five? That’s an unprofessional signature.
richie65@reddit (OP)
My ability to perform my job at a professional, level has absolutely nothing to do with my desire to insert humor where I can.
But - Yeah... I am 5. And as you will see - I am very bad at math and birthdays...
Does that help you.
I have been this age for a few decades now.
eatmynasty@reddit
It’s not even a funny joke
phalangepatella@reddit
...says someone named eatmynasty.
eatmynasty@reddit
This isn’t my work reddit account nerd
phalangepatella@reddit
Ok, go fire up the work account a reply with that and we'll see if that will be different.
I'm trying not to get into bickerfests with internet losers, but Reddit keeps making it difficult for me to avoid.
Coffee_Ops@reddit
That's an unprofessional reddit name.
mikimalco@reddit
And you are what exactly?
IT-Roadie@reddit
One of Us! One of Us! One of Us!
TinderSubThrowAway@reddit
Not sure I would consider that professional in a signature.
Funny, sure, but only for a small subset of people.
TheAnniCake@reddit
I wouldn't put it in my signature because the MSP I work for is rather strict with that stuff but I think it's pretty funny!
Slowstang305@reddit
If you are in a corporate environment it will be looked down upon. My company strives for professionalism and standardization. I control our signatures using Exclaimer so no customization is allowed on the users level. Data is pulled from AD. Is it funny sure, but not something I would place in mine even if I did not deploy exclaimer.
dxlsm@reddit
400% awesome.
Banluil@reddit
Is it unprofessional? Yes.
Is it funny? Also yes.
Would I put it in mine? No. Simply because my boss would laugh at it and then tell me to take it out.