Practically every email I’ve received in maybe the past year has started with “I hope you are well”. I even had an LLM draft a placeholder email for me and it started with the same thing. This has not always been the case and it’s strange to me that everyone I interact with begins their emails with this line. Frankly, it’s annoying AF.
What gives? Who started this? Why has it become so prevalent? More importantly, how do we stop it?
While I’m at it, if you work in tech / customer support, I urge you to speak with your supervisors to minimize the boiler plate copy paste trash you insert into your emails. People dealing with shit that’s not working as intended or desired do not have the mental or emotional capacity to wade through your platitudinal nonsense. Get to the fucking point.
What do you mean?
the previous comment is implying that we’re not allowed to find things annoying and that if we do we either have nothing else going wrong in life or are perpetually angry.
this is one of the obvious tactics for bad-faith arguments that I never remember the names of.
Hey Mac, I hope this comment finds you well.
“Annoying as fuck” indicates a high level of annoyance and/or frustration. My point is that if 7 words in the opening line of an email (which are trivially easy to skip or ignore) create that level of annoyance then something isn’t right.
I absolutely agree that people who are overly verbose, who step around the point they are making with flowery language, and use a thousand words when a few will do can make it considerably harder to extract a clear meaning, purpose, or instruction from that peice of communication.
But that isn’t what Op started with. Op said the opening line is what was annoying as fuck. That is what I was challenging them on.
Kind regards,
HelloThere.
Hello there, HelloThere.
I hope this message finds you on the toilet passing the best stool you’ve had this week.
What I find annoying as fuck is the disingenuousness of it all. Coming from a tech support agent I’ve never spoken before with is bullshit. Coming from someone I work with and communicate with on a daily basis is bullshit. The only time it should be used is coming from someone I’ve had a relationship with in the past whom I haven’t spoken with in months or years. That’s the kind of person who actually gives a shit if I’m well or not.
Incidentally, I used to get messages from Microsoft agents that started with “Dear, First”. That was just funny.
Best, oxjox
It was alright, not the best but I appreciate the encouragement.
I get where you’re coming from, but I’d suggest a slightly alternative view.
While the sentiment may not be the same as if it came from a friend you’d not spoken to recently, etc, I would assume that when you’re walking past a random person on the street, and someone asked you how you hoped that random person was, you’d probably be on the “well” end of the spectrum than the “not well”.
In that sense, I don’t think it’s strictly correct to say the statement is disingenuous, but maybe more insincere. It’s not a lie, or false, but the person writing it isn’t expecting an answer of “well no actually my cat just died”, nor in most situations would they take on the task of solving whatever ails the recipient.
So the view I’m suggesting is that while it may not be absolutely sincere, there is truth to the wish in a basic sense.
A good example of this is how British people greet each other with “alright?”. It’s just another way of saying hello, no one (outside your friends, and even then) are actually asking you to detail how you are. The expected response is “yeah, you?” and anything else really confuses people. It’s like answering a knock knock joke with “fuck off” rather than “whose there?”.
Does it make sense? No, not really, and it’s particularly confusing for Americans because “are you alright?” is a phrase only used when you’re seriously concerned about someone’s wellbeing, which gets rather amusing when it’s being used as a platitude.
Ultimately, I’d say it’s better that humans relate in ways which are intended to be positive, rather than neutral (where we may end up dehumanising each other by acting like we are robots), or negative way (by being antagonising).
You don’t have to agree, but I do think that it’s a pretty innocuous thing.
Dear First is actually a spam filter I have, it’s made my life much better by ditching so many utterly useless recruiters.
Love and kisses,
HelloThere
uh, ok. i really don’t care. people are allowed to find things annoying whether you agree or not.
Sure, that’s sorta what this entire post is about.