When / why / how did "I hope you are well" become a standard email intro?

Practically every email I’ve received in maybe the past year has started with “I hope you are well”. I even had an LLM draft a placeholder email for me and it started with the same thing. This has not always been the case and it’s strange to me that everyone I interact with begins their emails with this line. Frankly, it’s annoying AF.

What gives? Who started this? Why has it become so prevalent? More importantly, how do we stop it?

While I’m at it, if you work in tech / customer support, I urge you to speak with your supervisors to minimize the boiler plate copy paste trash you insert into your emails. People dealing with shit that’s not working as intended or desired do not have the mental or emotional capacity to wade through your platitudinal nonsense. Get to the fucking point.

Jimmycakes,

Yeah bro bosses just love it when you go up to them and tell them all the shit you’re not gonna write in emails to customers because a guy on the internet said so. Hope this comment finds you because you are not doing well

hperrin,

It’s just a salutation. A pleasantry. It’s a formal way of opening a correspondence. It’s considered polite. You don’t need to put one if you don’t want to, but if your message is terse, it can come across as rude.

felixthecat,

When people used to mail letters by post to stay in touch a common opening was “I hope this letter finds you well.”

It carried over from that.

HobbitFoot,

One thing that I’ve found with junior staff is that they feel a need to be overly nice in their correspondence without realizing the interaction takes time.

peg,

I’m decades beyond being junior staff and I’m always nice in my emails. I don’t care how long it takes.

hightrix,

100% agreed. Please and thank you are standard. Pleasant tone and asking to work together rather than giving commands is also.

It takes so very little extra effort to be nice.

toofpic,

I’m 1(one) decade beyond, and I’m super short and direct with a hint of familiarity. It also works, because it feels humble. It is humble, because you can’t hide any second meaning behind “I do this, you do that, okay?”

HobbitFoot,

There is a difference between nice and overly nice.

And I’m not talking about the time it takes you to be nice, but the time it takes others to process your niceness.

For instance, burying the lede on what the email is for in order to say “I hope this email finds you well”. Use that space to get to the point so that the person on your receiving end can process the email quickly. If it is a request, say please but nothing beyond that.

BirdEnjoyer,

deleted_by_author

    •
    toofpic,

    Yes, “Dear” should be either something you send part-jokingly to your actually close colleague, or a sarcastic one, when someone seriously fucked up and you send them a message explaining that.

    D61,

    Pretty sure nobody has any real idea how to send text correspondence anymore.

    Like, I work in a building 10+ miles away from my boss and often communication is done through text, email, occasionally by voice, but almost never in person.

    Every time I send a work email to my boss/coworkers, I find myself staring at the screen wondering…“Wait, is there any particular way to start these things? ‘Dear So-n-So’ is really weird. ‘First/Last Name’ seems fine unless I’m sending the email to multiple people, which happens pretty regularly. Would just jump straight into the body of the text, but that seems… wrong somehow… and potentially confusing if an email address is not something that is human readable or mixed in with a list of email addresses.”

    Eventually I just bang something out and figure, whatever, its not like 90% of my emails seem to get read by anybody anyways.

    oxjox,
    @oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

    If I’m sending it to one person I’ll open with “First,” or “Hey/Hi First,”. For multiple people, “Hello,”.

    I like to get to the point and hope to influence others to do the same. I have other coworkers who send me messages in Teams that literally just say “Hello”. I mean, come on. You’re going to distract me with “Hello” and not ask me a question? I’m not responding to Hello or even can I ask you something. Of course you can ask me something, that’s what I’m here for and that’s why we have the ability to communicate with each other. Spit it out kid!

    D61,

    “Hello” is probably the best answer but I find myself having a knee jerk “but it seems too informal to use in a work setting” that I will need to get over.

    lemmyreader,

    After some trepidation I’ll confess that I find these “hope you are well” also annoying though it depends who the sender is. What I find more annoying are the “OK, boomer” comments on the Internet. I mean what can you say after such a reply ?

    lechatron,
    @lechatron@lemmy.today avatar

    OK, Boomer.

    techt,

    That’s the intended effect – a condescending dismissal of being condescendingly dismissed. Not much you can say to a clear sign of disengagement.

    lemmyreader,

    🙂 Thank you for softening the pain.

    NotAnArdvark,

    I blame AI. I notice ChatGPT is always trying to put that into my emails. Maybe because of that, I’m also noticing it in lots of emails I get.

    oxjox,
    @oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

    I don’t blame AI but it was an AI generated email I requested (for testing purposes) where I first realized this is commonplace. It got me to wonder if others are using AI to generate emails as well.

    folkrav,

    I can’t find this specific sentence in my inbox. So I guess there are some variations. It’s just the same platitudes as people asking “how’s it going” when greeting people. It’s a weird form of politeness I’ll never really understand, but is just there. It’s futile to try and change this, IMHO.

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

    I always feel like the odd one out because I genuinely want to know these things and people just tend to brush it off …

    stealth_cookies,

    I’ve only seen it as a statement someone adds to an email when they haven’t contacted you in awhile.

    oxjox,
    @oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

    That’s the appropriate usage, in my opinion. If I contact someone I’ve had a relationship with in the past, I might say something like hey dude. Been a while, hope you’re well.

    When it’s the first time a support agent from Adobe or Microsoft interact with me from the other side of the world, I find it off putting and disingenuous (to say the least).

    idkmybffjoeysteel,
    @idkmybffjoeysteel@hexbear.net avatar

    can you imagine if they began every email with “how are you?”

    then every time you would panic and wonder if you should reply

    Boinkage,

    I use this when the tone of my email would otherwise be, where’s my spreadsheet motherfucker?? It’s nice to modify the overall tone of the email to something more friendly. I have a very curt writing style so I’m often concerned my emails will come off as blunt or demanding if I don’t include a pleasantry.

    I work in a very friendly, informal field so I find myself doing little pleasantries to fit in, email-wise.

    oxjox,
    @oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

    I would love if my coworkers were more blunt and honest.

    “Where the fuck is my spreadsheet” is very concise. It tells me what you want, it tells me what my responsibility is, and it probably tells me the level of priority the issue is for you. “where’s my spreadsheet motherfucker” is similar but, depending on our relationship, I’d take that either far more seriously or more jokingly.

    I have one guy I work with who speaks like this. He had to explain himself at first then I was like, yes please continue talking to me like a human. I’m more likely to trust people who don’t hide behind pleasantries and are just themselves with me.

    Boinkage,

    I think you’re answering your own question here.

    Your blunt coworker has to explain himself or risks being taken as rude by people who don’t know him. You yourself couldn’t determine if he was being rude to you without some additional context.

    Without further context, you don’t know how to interpret an email that says where is my spreadsheet motherfucker.

    In both cases, you’re saying further social cues are needed to determine if someone you don’t know very well is being rude or not. Hence, why people emailing people they don’t know very well in a professional capacity include niceties to convey context and tone.

    ryven,
    @ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    I usually am pleasant, though. I would feel much less human if I just demanded things!

    shinigamiookamiryuu,

    I only see it in spam. Perhaps because “I hope you are well” translates easily. Though I cannot name instances of me using it, I most likely have as well.

    solitaire,
    @solitaire@infosec.pub avatar

    It has it’s roots in actual letter writing, as in “I hope this letter finds you well”.

    Lifecoach5000,

    I’m so dumb that for years I seriously thought that meant the actual communication makes it to the recipient without any issues.

    Num10ck,

    thats a fair thought, not dumb.

    i’m still confused by Rest In Peace. Do you mean I hope this skeleton/soul doesn’t have anxiety? or that i hope the place the skeleton lays isn’t at war?

    Mouselemming,

    More like, “Please don’t get up and start eating people or sucking their blood.”

    no_name_dev_from_hell,
    @no_name_dev_from_hell@programming.dev avatar

    It means that may your soul rest in peace, has nothing to do with the actual body lol.

    Num10ck,

    oh thanks, so rest in peace means rest in peace.

    milicent_bystandr,

    If I’m not mistaken, it comes via Latin, Requiescat In Pace, meaning the same thing. The idea being that the person is only temporarily dead and will be raised back to life at Jesus’ second coming. In some views, (which I guess would be in vogue at the time of coining ‘RIP’), the essence of the person is alive and conscious in heaven (itself an abstraction yet real), awaiting their bodily resurrection. Some views take this further, that the person could be conscious and tormented in hell or purgatory.

    So Rest In Peace is wishing/blessing that the person may be at peace and rest, while they wait to be fully alive again when Jesus comes again.

    can,

    sleep is the cousin of death

    sweet dreams

    saltesc,

    Oh, great. Well if sleep’s any indicator, death’s got it’s work cut out for it.

    solitaire,
    @solitaire@infosec.pub avatar

    To be fair, I’m certain that someone has written it with that as the intended meaning. It seems like the kind of passive aggressive thing some mannered British aristocrat would do.

    wuphysics87,

    I always wonder what this means. Does it mean “I hope this letter does a good job finding you, and you can subsequently read it” or does it mean “When this does find you, I hope it recognizes you are having a good day”.

    Stock boiler plate regardless and one of the best ways to convince the recipient you are a twat.

    criitz,

    It just means you hope the recipient is well.

    user224,
    @user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    Neither. The recipient needs more water, and the letter may or may not find them a well to get water from.

    solitaire,
    @solitaire@infosec.pub avatar

    Imagine a time before instant communications, where you have no idea how life has treated the recipient since you last saw them and it might take months for your letter to arrive. It is a sincere hope that they are well and that tradgedy has not befallen them.

    It would be neurotic and unreasonable if your last update on their life was only days or even hours before, but in the days of letters hope is really all you had. It’s just honest.

    Vanth, (edited )
    @Vanth@reddthat.com avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    oxjox,
    @oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

    Good idea. I just searched for “hope well” and have found hundreds if not over a thousand messages. Without scrolling all the way back, I found several in 2017 with variations of “hope you’re well”, “hope you’re doing great”, “hope you had a great weekend”. etc.

    can,

    Those bastards and their pleasantries eh

    Tolookah, (edited )

    Sorry! I’ll try to be more mean.

    Have a great an okay weekend!

    saltesc,

    Hi Jim,

    Plans for the weekend? That’s great to hear.

    The annual report is blah blah blah…

    can,

    may you live in interesting times

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