#36 Please consider the environment before printing this email.
Apr 10th, 2009 by pfi
Accountants have horrible e-mail signatures. Not that anyone has a good e-mail signature to begin with.
Accountants like to add “Please consider the environment before printing this email” to the end of their message as part of their signature. It’s often embellished with webdings and colored green to bring attention to the message.
While good intentioned, it doesn’t add any value – this sums up most accountants. Consider that the extra line generated from the message can cause a page break and print an extra sheet.
Or consider that nobody pays attention to it. It’s often buried below the sender’s contact information and above the “This message is confidential…” obligatory legal disclosure.
As mentioned before, accountants could never go paperless. An accountant’s need to get something done overrides any want to save trees from getting cut down. Once an accountant finds an e-mail they need, it’s as good as CTRL+P before they see “Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.”
While conserving resources is a noble goal, accountants are usually more interested in appearing to be green than being green.
If you see “Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail,” you can praise an accountant for doing their part to help the environment. Whatever you do, do not ask them about real ways to help the environment, such as turning off lights not in use or not using styrofoam coffee cups. Because these are things that they cannot give up.