"Look at that subtle off white coloring, the tasteful thickness of it. Oh my god, it even has a watermark."

A peer of mine recently explained to me that he sought to be an econ minor, “because economics looks so good in an e-mail signature.”  Apparently, the e-mail sign off has become the business card of our generation.  A chance to make a personal statement to anyone you interact with, relaying not only contact information, but also accomplishments, essence, style, class, and a tad of egoism.  All of that in three or four lines of text.  After he said this to me I started to think about my lack of an e-mail signature and what it would take to build one.  After some combing of my e-mails here are some of the styles I came up with:

1. The Sketchy Quote

This one came from a member of the alumni board of my fraternity.  The thinking is, “Okay whoever I e-mail is going to know who I am and how to get in touch with me, therefore I should use the space to highlight my personal philosophy towards life”.  The problem is that the chipper people who think this way tend to come up with quotes like this:

“I’m so optimistic I’d go after
Moby Dick in a row boat – and take
the tartar sauce with me.”

I can’t quite pinpoint it, but that makes me uneasy.  I thought about aiming for irony, and putting a quote like: “A Wise Man Says Nothing in His E-mail Sign Off,” but that would only work well if Mark Twain or Confucius had said it. True success as a writer or philosopher is when someone quotes you in their e-mail sign off.

2. The Insecure

There are those who, for whatever reason, feel inadequate and want you to know every one of their ‘accomplishments’ (loosely defined).  This is common for Northwestern students, especially freshmen and sophomores.  It usually looks something like this:

John Doe
Deputy Treasurer, Associated Student Government
Assistant Public Relations Chair, Mayfest
Merchandise Chair, Kappa Sigma Delta
VP of Philanthropy, Residence College Board
Political Science/Radio, Television, and Film
School of Communications 2010
Northwestern University
Evanston IL, 60201

This tends to be the same kind of person who has all of their summer jobs listed in Facebook. The one whose parent’s have the “My child is an honor student” bumper sticker.  I will admit, I sympathize for including ‘Evanston’, strictly for Northeastern differentiation purposes.

3. The Modest

Morton Schapiro
Professor and President
Northwestern University

What a classy guy.  Professor, and oh by the way,  President.  As much as I admire it, I have not accomplished enough in life to qualify for the modest category, although if I went with the Insecure model, I could add that I have personally e-mailed with President Schapiro.

4. The Arrogant

Some choose to use the e-mail sign off as a way of purposefully concealing information, as if to say, I have chosen to include a signature, but nothing that gives off any information whatsoever because you should already know all relevant information about me.  The standard is initials, but the truly conceited have been known just to leave one letter.  To illustrate, a former ASG President’s sign off:

–NSG

or my roommate last year

-W.

5. The Hot Mom

This doesn’t necessarily apply to only Hot Moms, or even Moms generally, but when digging through my inbox I stumbled upon an email from a friend’s attractive mother and saw this:

Jane Doe
917-555-1234

This is distinct from the ‘modest’ category because Hot Moms tend to not have worked in years and have attended universities like Santa Barbara Community College.  Really all they have to offer is their name and number, which they do via signature.

6. The Moron
I was surprised to find that some of my e-mail correspondence has been with people who put their e-mail address in their sign off.  I don’t have anything to say to someone like that.

7. The Standard Wildcat

This is essentially the Hot Mom model (not to be confused with a ‘hot model’ mom) with the school included. Most people I e-mail with have it.  I thought this was the way to go, and even set it up as my signature while I was job interviewing.  But something didn’t feel right.  It was like wearing a Northwestern shirt everywhere I digitally went.  Purple isn’t flattering on me in person, or in cyberspace.

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