The Hater: Sent from your iPhone? Still not OK

By CARIN MOONIN

This morning I got an email and before I’d even read the second word, I knew I was going to hate 1) its contents and 2) its sender.

Part of it was the font. I won’t share which it was out of some misguided urge to protect this pathetic soul, but at least it wasn’t the universally despised comic sans.

And while the email did not contain a background of simulated loose leaf paper, clip art, or cross-stitch samplers found in the bedrooms of the most fusty bed and breakfasts, that was cold comfort as I suffered through the nonsense it contained. I reached the end, and the simmering contents of my head detonated.

The email signature.

Sent from my iPhone, please excuse any errors.

It wasn’t the improper choice of the comma over a semicolon (though that was part of it). It was the fact that this signature itself has to exist.

Sending from your mobile device is not an excuse to be fucking illiterate.

No, I won’t forgive any mistakes. And I won’t disregard curtness. You’re invested enough to send me an email? Proof the fucking thing.

I’m pretty sure there are no good ways around this other than to not have any signature at all. And I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Seriously: Why should I give a shit that you sent this not-at-a-computer? And also pardon its contents as a result? The device you send your emails from doesn’t excuse egregious spelling and grammar any more than if you sent it from a hardwired big-ass 1992 floor-sitting water-cooled behemoth with an accompanying monitor the circumference of an IMAX screen.  

Instead of using your signature to cover your ass, just be honest: “Dictated to my iPad, because I heart the sound of my own voice to the exclusion of clarity.”

Isn’t the point of working in today’s online, office-anywhere environment (OK, maybe except Yahoo and Best Buy), that you can do your job—well, and hack-free—from anywhere? When you send on-the-go emails that require a decoder ring, you’re doing a disservice to those of us who work from home—or who want to.

Maybe I should look on the bright side. Maybe I’m lucky to even get a response at all: Do you know there are articles dedicated to reminding young’uns to respond to emails? Advising them on proper (and basic) social media etiquette?

How is this not instinctive?

I feel like we’re constantly yanking down the bar. Like, some day, it will be acceptable to send an email entirely in wingdings.

I know, I know, you mobile signature lovers are not-at-all subtly telling me you’re too important! No time to sit and send a missive! You’re busy! On the go! Doing your job anywhere and everywhere! Drinking packaged Soylent meals while zooming through the tollbooth! Wheee!

Sure, I get that sometimes emails can consist of “Yes” or “No.” Or even “yhp hp,” which stood for the flavor of power bars a long-ago boss once needed me to get him (yogurt honey peanut and honey peanut, duh).

But a signature with any variation of “sent from my mobile tool?” It turns you into one. Or at least a willing shill. You might as well auction off your firstborn to the highest bidder.

That said, I have come across one mobile email signature I wish I’d thought of: “Please forgive autocorrect’s tendency to be bossy.”

Do you have a non-annoying mobile email signature? What is it? 

Carin Moonin is a writer living in Portland, Ore. Sometimes she’ll even tweet about things she hates at @carinwrites.

Photo by Mike Lau/Flickr