Friendly concern?

January 26, 2006 3:15 PM

How do I tell a friend her email sig is really annoying?

More generally, when should I tell a friend that something they do is really fucking annoying? Should I only be concerned about the beam in my own? I don't want to lose a friend over bullshit, you know?

posted by The Jesse Helms to human relations (32 comments total)

If it's annoying just you, let it go - not worth ruining a friendship over. If she's making a fool of herself with the email sig (and/or other things) - tell her.
posted by meerkatty at 3:17 PM on January 26, 2006

If it's an email sig, just tell her it gets pretty fucking annoying. If it's a habit she's had since she was five, you may want to tread more gently. Forgive quirks, but by no means should you go insane.
posted by jenovus at 3:18 PM on January 26, 2006

"Yeah, I forwarded your email to this dude I met online. He's a real jerk, but sometimes he's insightful, and he's been online forever. Like, since ARPANet. He proceeded to rant to me, over IM, about your sig for thirty minutes. I mean, I think it's cool and all, but I wonder if other people are misunderestimating you because of your sig."
posted by orthogonality at 3:28 PM on January 26, 2006

Depends on the friend. Some of my friends, I can tell them when they're being full of shit or hurting people's (my) feelings. Others, they get their back up and make defensive excuses. Guess which type of friend I value more. But then, I tend to be the hyper-diplomatic type who doesn't raise a ruckus until something really puts me over the line.

I might phrase it like "You know, some people might think it's kind of unprofessional to send out your emails with a 20-line ASCII image of Hello Kitty at the bottom." Or, deflect from the annoyingness of the sig and say something like "Sometimes I have a hard time reading your emails because your sig is longer than your response, and it's a bit distracting." Or, "Some people's email has spam filters that might cause them to miss emails from you if they're written in all capital letters." That is, make the issue about someone else instead of about her. She will get the message and maybe even change her behavior, without feeling directly attacked.
posted by matildaben at 3:32 PM on January 26, 2006

On preview, orthogonality's strategy makes use of the same kind of deflection I am referring to.
posted by matildaben at 3:33 PM on January 26, 2006

You could make up a sig just for her that says her sig is really annoying. But that would only work if she's got a decent sense of humor.
posted by fenriq at 3:41 PM on January 26, 2006

"Hello friend. I find your email sig really annoying. Hope it's not a big deal. Yours oversensitively, The Jesse Helms."
posted by ascullion at 3:42 PM on January 26, 2006

Should I only be concerned about the beam in my own?

I'm unfamiliar with this slang. What does it mean?
posted by odinsdream at 4:03 PM on January 26, 2006

I'm unfamiliar with this slang. What does it mean?

TJH is dropping the biblical shit up in here.
posted by xmutex at 4:07 PM on January 26, 2006

It's Biblical: Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
posted by artifarce at 4:08 PM on January 26, 2006

odinsdream: I think it refers to the "don't point out the mote in their eye unless I've taken care of the beam [of wood?] in my own" or something like that. I.e. the same rough idea as "let he who is without sin throw the first stone" or "pot calling the kettle black".

As for the main question, yea, try to do it in a non-confrontational manner if you're not comfortable being direct. I personally trend towards the direct misanthropic method, or at least I'd like to, but usually end up trying to soften the sting a bit somehow.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 4:08 PM on January 26, 2006

odinsdream: Mathew 7:4: "Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?"

Basically "look to your own flaws before correcting those of others". A common verse that is, strangely enough, rarely noticed by the religious right.

But what with you being the dream of a much older God nailed to the World Tree, one wouldn't expect you to have heard it -- wrong mythoology!
posted by The Bellman at 4:12 PM on January 26, 2006

Much as I like the word "mythoology", I meant "mythology".
posted by The Bellman at 4:14 PM on January 26, 2006

I had this issue with a friend's sig a while back. Then miraculously one day, he asked me to help proofread his resume and give job search suggestions, and emailed me the resume.

Among my hopefully-helpful suggestions was the suggestion that he remove the email sig, as it would certainly hurt his job prospects in the "unlikely" event that a prospective employer didn't think it was so funny/cool/clever as he did.

Worked like a charm.
posted by JekPorkins at 4:14 PM on January 26, 2006

I'm curious: what's the issue with the sig? I think the answers here might be dependent on what exactly the problem is.
posted by clarahamster at 4:37 PM on January 26, 2006

Like this.

Dear Friend,

thanks for the emails,
gossip, gossip, information, question.
see ya soon, etc.

The Jesse Helms

===========================
Think your sig is cool.
You moron. I really hate it. It's really annoying.



posted by seanyboy at 5:00 PM on January 26, 2006

Usually with my few friends, I give them some really friendly funny shit about it. Kind of a little wake up, like, "Hey, I love you but, when was the last time you updated that SIG?" Besides, girls/women like make-overs and stuff, why not just suggest one that is "more suitable to her personal style" or one that is "more expressive of her talent, inner beauty, green eyes, etc."?
posted by snsranch at 5:12 PM on January 26, 2006

Can we please see a copy of the signature in question?

You could always make something up about signatures like hers being ripe for carrying virii and worms.
posted by disillusioned at 5:26 PM on January 26, 2006

matildaben: Great. Now I want an ASCII art Hello Kitty as my .sig.
posted by krisjohn at 5:28 PM on January 26, 2006

Tell her that your email host doesn't allow messages with sigs attached or that a virus is going on that can get transmitted by sigs. Or, copy her sig and maybe it'll be one of those things were two people can't have the same outfit.

If you have a good relationship, it won't matter if you tell her that her sig is annoying. That, or drop in a hint or two that she needs to change it.
posted by my sock puppet account at 5:32 PM on January 26, 2006

Friends should be able to tell one another when they're being annoying. Just tell her, but be nice.

You could always make something up about signatures like hers being ripe for carrying virii and worms.

Please, please don't engage in behavioral modification programs by making up quasi-technical bullshit.

This is probably why people come into my help desk with strange voudou fetishes strapped to their laptops and reciting weird chants, thinking it has something to do with the frangible stator influxuator and that making offerings to spirits will somehow help things, when all they really needed was a new network cable.
posted by loquacious at 6:45 PM on January 26, 2006

First of all, try to reply to an email in a way that features the sig prominently, and maybe making a (non-aggressive) reference to some of its content.

Depending on her email client, she may not even be fully aware that this sig is going out as part of every message she sends. (That's happened to me before--not sending out a sig that would annoy anyone, but a sig with outdated contact info--and I'm, like, a computer guy.)

And while I agree with loquacious about not inventing virii or worms, saying "Oh, I didn't get your email--my spam filter might have picked it up because the signature was too long" seems fairly benign.
posted by staggernation at 7:43 PM on January 26, 2006

krisjohn: You're in luck. The top one is begging for your name, email address, and an oh-so-fantastic quote.
posted by I Love Tacos at 7:48 PM on January 26, 2006

Simple: "krisjohn, your sig is really annoying."
posted by nomad at 8:17 PM on January 26, 2006

"sigs are so 1994"
posted by zadcat at 8:50 PM on January 26, 2006

This is the Postfix program at host mail.thejessehelms.com.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that the message returned
below could not be delivered to one or more destinations.

For further assistance, please send mail to
<[e-mail]>

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the message returned below.

                        The Postfix program

<[e-mail]>: host mail.thejessehelms.com[204.127.198.26] said:
554 sig too long (in reply to end of DATA command)

    [ Part 2: "Delivery error report" ]

Reporting-MTA: dns; mail.thejessehelms.com
Arrival-Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 15:30:08 -0800 (PST)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; [e-mail]
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; host mail.thejessehelms.com[204.127.198.26] said:
    554 sig too long (in reply to end of DATA command)

    [ Part 3: "Undelivered Message" ]

Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 15:30:08 -0800 (PST)
From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: sup

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                                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~

posted by trevyn at 8:55 PM on January 26, 2006 [1 favorite]

trevyn wins.
posted by skrike at 9:19 PM on January 26, 2006

Tell her to change it to this:

"I printed my whole resume in 36pt Chicago Bold Shadow!"

(Sorry, I just wanted to point out my favorite part of Kibo's signature.)
posted by gohlkus at 12:07 AM on January 27, 2006

Ignore it. It's only an e-mail sig. Years from now, she'll snap to how dumb it is and change it herself.
posted by atchafalaya at 2:52 AM on January 27, 2006

If you can't tell her it is really annoying, then she is not that close of a friend and therefore you shouldn't worry about it. In these types of situations, especially with people's voicemail messages, I just make an off handed remark like 'Dude, what's up with that voicemail. Your never going to get laid with a voicemail message like that.' If I feel uncomfortable telling someone something like this, I believe I am not close enough to them for it to be my business.
posted by jasondigitized at 5:24 AM on January 27, 2006

Maybe it's his/her way of telling you your signature is dumb, by out-dumbing it.
posted by vanoakenfold at 9:30 AM on January 27, 2006

I don't think the OP specified what kind of sig it is - is it a work related sig, like those 20 line wannabe 'legal disclaimers' (that have absolutely no standing at all) or is it really a big ass ASCII of Hello Kitty?
posted by drstein at 10:45 AM on January 27, 2006