Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me!
Ummm. Ascii art of cute animals?
I end many of my work emails with Thanks!!! I also use irritating abreviations–cuz, probly, y’all-- and smilies in my more causal emails.
Why? Because I have a reputation as being a big ol’ bitch, and my inner snark always seems sneaks in to some degree–therefore I am always trying to head off complaints by moderating my emails with faux friendliness.
My emails reminding staff to do things a certain way look something like this:
Then everybody can pretend that I’m not pissed off that they still aren’t doing things the way they’ve been told to countless times before.
Key word. Writing a whole sentence for the subject is not so helpful when the column is not that wide. Worse yet, writing your response in the subject line and sending that along.
99% of our business is intracompany and we know the syntax of the sender’s e-mail, and replying to a display name (or even just typing the person’s name in the To box) produces the correct institutional addy.
On subject lines: Sometimes my coworkers send e-mails consisting of nothing BUT a subject line, and their standard sig if any. This may seem curt, but it’s usually done when the message is “Cookies by the coffee pot” or “Homemade pumpkin bread in the book room” or other happy news, and no one seems to mind.
I actually wrote the standard for all of my techs. I didn’t include it.
Now, back in 1999, it was a standard to include your E-mail address…
Sam
Bwah ha ha ha ha!
I compeletely missed the D-I-C-K between the exclamation points the first time.
Um… I’m appreciative!
I include my email address in my signature as a courtesy, just as I include phone numbers. Particularly since emails often get forwarded outside the company, it seems like a good idea. Yes, anyone who knows my name can easily infer my email address, but why make them do the work?
I leave my signature off by default, and only add it when appropriate, and I will often edit it (adding more contact information or deleting some). And it contains absolutely no flowery niceties. For work, it has my full name, title and contact information. No quotes, either.
Stretch, I hate to tell you this, but I suspect your “Thanks!!!” is having the opposite effect from the desired one. Unsought advice: if you are concerned about tone in an email, rewrite it. Adding a deeply insincere “Thanks!!!” to a snarky email does nothing to soften it.
Isn’t “Cheers” (as a non-drinking salutation) a British thing? I think I picked it up from a professor of mine who lived across the pond for some time, and I’ve seen it in BBC shows.
I’d just assume that “thanks” is short for “thank you for your attention,” even when you aren’t asking the recipient to do something.
Mostly, I think it boils down to another example of hollow inanities that grease the wheels of social interaction.
“How are you?” “Fine.” (Even if you just found out you have terminal cancer).
Dear Mr. Soandso: (he’s not dear to me, in fact, he’s a dickhead I’m suing).
Very truly yours, (I’m a lawyer writing you a nastygram in anticipation of litigation - I couldn’t be any less true, nor any less yours).
And so on.
I’ve been reading a lot of Jane Austen lately. Maybe I’ll change my sig file to:
Yours &tc,
AerynSun
I’m not actually trying to soften emails such as the one I used as an example, hence my “can pretend that I’m not pissed off” (italics mine) statement. You should see the pointed emails I send to the actual individual that pisses me off–the example is an email I would send to everybody so they know not to be the next offender.
My last evaluation specifically stated that I was to have no complaints from the public–my boss does not expect my co-workers to go through working with me unscathed. As a matter of fact, I am loved for my willingness to be blunt and to tell you what I think to your face; I am well-known as the non-backstabber.
On the other hand, I sometimes send emails to folks outside my specific section but still in my program that seem abrupt and snarky when I’m not meaning to be and because of my bitchy, tell it like it is rep, I am assumed by the receiver to be mean and picking on them*. A Thanks!!! at the end seems to have stopped that misunderstanding in its tracks, so I’ll continue to use it.
I bet you guys probably would hate my more sincere thank you…
Brainiac4, your kind assistance is always appreciated.
*cuz, you know, expecting people to do their jobs is picking on them and the squeaky wheels get the grease.
Understood, and thank you for taking my comment in the way it was offered. I’m glad to hear that your bosses and coworkers understand you – that’s all-too-often missing in this world.
Yeah, it’s one of the reasons I don’t go looking for another job–the intangible benefits are excellent where I am now, including working with a group of people willing to put up with me the way I am.
Very likely a British thing - many Australianisms are actually Britishisms. 
My preference is to have a short phrase, because a single key word is rarely enough at my job. But yes yes yes, PLEASE fill in the subject line. Especially now that I use Gmail to handle my work communications, subjects with blank headers are treated as if they are part of the same email chain, and it’s frustrating as hell to have to dig through a whole bunch of mesages to find the right one.
Re signing off:
I just realized that my closest work colleague and I have a particular pattern to our daily emails. The first one of the day will include greeting (“Hi sunfish”) and closing (“Thanks, Mark”); subsequent emails lose the greeting, closing gets shortened ("-Mark"); and by the end of the day, it’s just the message. A sign of the daily work grind affecting our sociability, I guess.
But in general, even the more, ah, socially challenged programmers around here tend to sign their names at the end of emails.