In the last few months, I’ve been trying out different sign-offs. Sometimes I use “Cheers”, once or twice I used “Best”, but I typically don’t use anything. Family is easy because I just use “Love”. I just can’t find something that feels right.
Unfortunately, Judith Newman isn’t much help. Fortunately, she feels my pain.
In a medium where it is often oddly difficult to interpret tone, where the lines of friendship, love and business are easily muddied, and where people are sometimes a little too eager to shine brightly in the drab sludge of daily missives, something as seemingly trivial as an e-mail signoff can loom large. It can be a clue to both the personality of the sender and the standing that the recipient has in the sender’s social universe. It can enlighten, amuse and enrage — sometimes all at once.
I think I need a Google Labs feature for Gmail that suggests a sign-off based on the content.