Boss reprimands employee for showing too much personality in emails, employee complies and gets accused of sounding too cold: 'I thought you didn't want personal touches'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jun 14, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

Email etiquette is always a strange phenomenon to navigate. Some people don't want your emails to reveal too much personality. Otherwise, they could sound so nice that they're creepy. Revealing what you had for breakfast that morning in a client email can come across not only as irrelevant but also unprofessional. Let's be real: the most unhinged employees reveal far more details than that. 

On the other hand, showing zero personality can come across as cold and distant. These days, it might even seem like a human was not devising the email in the first place. Your email could get completely ignored if it sounds entirely robotic. You want people to know a human is on the other end. Finding that balance between professionalism and personality when communicating with fellow coworkers and clients over email is always dependent on the person and the line of work. 

This employee proved their boss wrong after getting reprimanded for showing too much personality in their emails when he was simply using greetings and sign-offs. Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the subsequent fallout!

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    Cheezburger Image 10516337664
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Let this story serve as yet another reminder that managers should be careful when enforcing new policies at work. Telling so much to have no personal touches in their emails can quickly make their messages sound impersonal, curt, and unprofessional in a different sense. That's exactly what ended up happening here!

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    "Manager said “no personal touches in the emails”, so I took out every greeting and sign-off."

    I work in an IT support team and we handle a lot of tickets from our coworkers in other departmens. My manger
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    is usually chill, but one day she decided she didn't like how "casual" my emails sounded. She said, "No personal touches just get straight to the point. No hellos, no sign-offs".
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    So I did exactly that. The next morning, she got cc'd on a couple of my emails to HR and our finance team: "Reset password. Link attached." "Invoice attached. No further action required."
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    No "Hi," no "Thanks," nothing. I didn't even use punctuation in the last line because I figured, hey, she said no personal touches.
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    After about a week, she told me my emails sounded "cold and abrupt" and that I should. "maybe add a greeting." I just smiled and said "I thought you didn't want personal touches?"
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    Now I just send emails the normal way again. Guess she realized there's a balance between professional and just plain robotic.
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    Cheezburger Image 10516337920
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    WhenRo... . 18h ago How dare you have a personality on company time.
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    rawmeat... 15h ago • I once got chewed out by the company owner because he was reading my sent emails to better
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    micromanage my every waking moment. I signed off on a productive Friday afternoon, to a Brit, with "cheers". Got told to never do that again.
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    SkwrlTail 17h ago • Beep boop email beep.
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    Hetnikik 15h ago After working phone IT, I found that customers prefer when you don't sound scripted. If
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    you can be relaxed while not saying anything too r de, most people will appreciate it.
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    Vicus_92 16h ago • As someone in IT, I find it interesting as to how different generations of our staff interact with users.
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    You can pick an age range from the: "Hey", "Hi", "Hello" or "Good Afternoon" that emails start with.
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    Newbost... 15h ago Our mgmt decided not having greetings was "too impersonal" and "not part of our workplace culture".
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    So every two line Teams chat becomes a required dance Hi Newbosterone Hi How are you today?
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    I am well, and you? Good. Good. Did you do the needful? Yes.
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    Thank you. You're welcome. Every email gets feed through our in house Al, and starts with "Hello! I hope this reaches you well!"
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    Beneficia... • 14h ago I'm in IT too and I send smiley faces to show I'm not picking on them for not knowing stuff Imao. I'm way nicer as an IT person than I ever was as a marketer or Bl analyst
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    antPr... 13h ago • I have had some micromanager bosses in my day, but micromanaging my J email greetings is wayyy over the top.
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workplace-stories toxic-manager employee work stories toxic-workplace job malicious compliance work Horrible Bosses bad bosses company workplace malicious compliance toxic-work-environment
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