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.
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
I dunno dude, you can assume that the person is being disingenuous, but you can’t know that. Does the tech support agent genuinely know you and know what’s going on in your life? No. Is there a zero percent chance that they also would be glad to hear that another random person just living life like them is getting through it okay? Also no.
They might not care on the same level or in the same way that your friends might, but when a grocery store worker tells me to have a nice day and I say “you too!” there is a part of me, however small and unaffected, that does genuinely hope this random person just trying to make it work in life is doing all right and has a good day, because I would want that for myself as a random person as well.
You can project that they’re being completely disingenuous and don’t give a single half a shit how you’re doing, but making that assumption for all of humanity, and then allowing yourself to be so bothered by it that you make an internet post is sort of… Silly.
I get your first point but to the second point, you’re making my point. Looking someone in the face and having a moment with each other is a valid reason to wish them well, IMO.
A stranger on the other end of a support ticket, someone I’ve never interacted with before, someone who may know my email address but not my first name, hoping I’m well is cringy. Someone I do know and work with on a regular basis hoping I’m well is utter garbage. We just spoke on the phone yesterday so you’re not hoping I’m well, you just didn’t bother to remove that from the copy paste, you lazy ass.
If the internet didn’t have “silly” shit on it then it might as well not exist.
if you think that not seeing them face to face invalidates any sort of good will towards each other then that’s your personal outlook. I email tons of people every day that I’ve never met in person but have still developed ideas of, opinions on, and wonder about, so I don’t think that the removal of physically seeing the person changes too much about your well wishes towards them.
And I’m not saying silly as in not valid to exist, I mean silly as in letting it bother you to that degree.
Edit: I do also want to acknowledge that a good 70% of the time or so, I’d be willing to bet you’re correct and that a person saying pleasantries doesn’t care one bit, but I know there are people that do mean that stuff, to one degree or another, because I’m that way a lot of the time, and some people I know are that way.
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