This has been popping up in my thoughts a bit recently. I’ve been employed in an office environment for over nine years and have been a Manager and technical company contact (person in the company who converses with persons outside the company on technical matters) for about 5 of those years.
But in all that time I am only just beginning to think about this!
Specifically - Is it right or wrong to begin most emails with ‘Hi’ and the person’s name - even if the email ‘conversation’ is already in flow.
I think I have been doing it for years - so have my colleagues, and so have the people we talk to in other companies. But when I think about it it seems bizarre. One would not have a verbal conversation with someone and prefix your turn to speak every time with “Hi bob” (using ‘bob’ as an example person)…
“Hi Bob. I was wondering if you had that fix ready to go?”
“Hi Lobsang. We are just waiting for Joe to cast his eye over it”
“Hi Bob. Ok, Do you know when that will happen?”
“Hi Lobsang. Well, Joe is off work, but he’ll be back on Wednesday. We’ll email you wednesday night”
“Hi Bob. Thanks”
Because of my wondering about this, I’ve started to change my email habit. Specifically the ‘Hi Name’ will only be on the ‘opening’ email. Each email thereafter will just begin straight away with the context. Unless there’s been a large gap where the conversation can be said to have ‘died’ or fallen dormant.
Am I losing my mind? Have I been embarrassing myself for years by saying Hi every time I email someone in the middle of a convo?
Well that might have the indirect effect of causing me not to have to email people on a semi-regular basis. And instead serve them burgers or stack supermarket shelves.
My professional emails are almost never to a single person, so I make a point of starting with the name of the individual I’m addressing if I’m not addressing all recipients. I start with Hi usually only when it’s the start of a new thread, and follow up starting with just their name from then on.
But I don’t think starting every email with “Hi So-and-so” is all that weird; certainly not enough so that I would ever question someone who did it.
I think it’s appropriate for the first two exchanges (“Hi Bob,” “Hi Lobsang”) but unnecessary after. If it were a RL conversation, you’d say hi to each other, so it kinda makes sense to still do that in email, even if it’s not in sync.
My email history has gone from a relatively formal “Dear So-and-so” to “Hi, So-and-so” to just assuming that the email will be read by the person in the “To” box and thus not needing any further recognition that he or she is the one I’m addressing.
As a result, only if the addressee is someone I’ve never had any contact with before will I use an additional greeting. If that seems appropriate, I will use either “Dear” or “Hi” or perhaps “Hello” to indicate something a little more personal than just starting in with whatever I wish to say.
After that first effort at a letter-like greeting, I tend to dispense with such extras.
E-mails to recipients outside our company are business letters in my mind (we are held to our statements as we would be to those in a business letter), so I always top and tail them as I would a business letter. The previous exchanges, if quoted, are just appendixes to the business letter.
In internal e-mails I drop the salutation altogether:
From:tschild
To:colleague1
cc:colleague2
colleague1: Have today received RI drawing for Anteater plant.Please now confirm the delivery date 1 July to the customer.