To find "Mrs" in a work email signature a bit cringe

[Whyohwhyohwhy26]

Just that really, is this a new thing or I'm just noticing it more nowadays that some female colleagues have Mrs first name last name on their email signatures where the norm is just names + job title etc. I've never seen a male colleague's email signature be "Mr X" and i'd find that equally odd to be honest. Unless it's a professional title like Dr or Professor AIBU to think putting your personal title in an email signature a bit cringe ?

Does nothing people (male or female) do ever make you cringe then? God knows how you get by on MN..id consider someone's personal choices to be things related to their lifestyle personally.

About a million MN threads would argue otherwise about that being a perfectly good system.

I can see the point of adding your title if you've got a name that could be used by either sex - Alex, Chris, Sam etc. I had no idea of the sex of most of my former Asian colleagues - communication was usually by mail (timezones) and no profile pics etc. It didn't actually matter, as long as they could reseat a network cable in the Singapore datacentre or wherever. And given I am often literally the only woman in the office, I don't feel the need to point out my sex. I already stand out because of it.

I prefer to be Firstname Surname, but one colleague can be weirdly formal, and I did complain to him after he sent out some meeting minutes - why are they all Mr Smith, Mr Jones, Mr Baker, etc, and I'm just Emma? Really, I was asking why aren't they John, Mike, Dave - but I did notice on this week's minutes, I have been made more equal and am now Ms Bearhug, so he is being consistent now.

Exactly although actually might be more fun if we did, very camp.

Australian here. You would never see mrs, miss, miss or mr on an email, it’s just first name, last name. And no Dear Sir or Madam..
im very surprised, sounds a bit Dickensian to me.

I do this but I'm a teacher so I am called Mrs X on a daily basis and a lot of parents don't necessarily know my first name. Mrs X is like my work persona!

It doesn't matter what you consider personal choice though does it?

The fact is they're choosing to use Mrs and you're putting their choices down with the use of the word 'cringe'.

Not sure why you're arguing about it.

If you're going to put other women down, at least own it.

It's not common in the UK either.

In my 30 years of work the only place they used it was a very self-consciously antiquated public sector organisation where people went out of their way to be conservative.

I can imagine it being used in schools, for obvious reasons, possibly other public sector bodies. But it's absolutely not done in professional settings or private sector any more: I think it would mark you out as very old-fashioned or possibly high camp.

I’ve only seen it done with people with unisex names. I’ve known male and female people do this too. But to be fair lost of workplaces are asking people to put their preferred pronouns on their email signatures. You may find it’s people who want to avoid writing she/her

Agree with @LostMySocks I see it fairly frequently from people based in Germany.

I’m mid-50s and have never used Ms, Miss etc in a sign off for work I don’t think, or maybe back in the early 90s when sending physical letters.

I work in corporate companies (ie not education etc) and would find it really odd to get an email signed off with ‘Mrs’ if it was from someone in the UK. It would feel like me saying ‘hey, call me Jane!’ with them replying ‘And to you, I am Mrs Pompous Arse.’

Well because I've never seen it before and never seen a single man use Mr in his email. I wouldn't really think of the multiple for women being given to us as "choices" more as a historical quirk that was imposed upon us to advertise our marital status..I don't think it's odd in any instance where you're advising how you'd like to be addressed but no one at work is going to address you by any title you choose so what's the point?

Weird as. Never seen it

It would feel like me saying ‘hey, call me Jane!’ with them replying ‘And to you, I am Mrs Pompous Arse.’

This exactly

Now THAT is weird.

I’ve never known any unmarried woman use Mrs. Why would you do that when Ms is a perfectly good alternative and has been for decades?

A woman in legal at my old company used to do this - her signature was Forename Surname (Mrs)

I often wondered why, haven't noticed anyone else do it

Perhaps instead of getting your knickers in such a twist you could just actually answer if you mean these women are "choosing" that they want to refer to them as Mrs X or not ? And if not, maybe you could just explain the rationale instead of taking it so hard that I find things people.dl,en and women cringe and I own that. I'm just not gonna be overdramatic and say I'm putting them down on their personal choices.😂 It's a MN thread not a cease and desist for them to change their signature fgs

Agree. I loathe 'Mrs' is any context.

I didn't think it was either, literally never seen this in my career until recently but all these colleagues are either US or UK based.

I can see why it could be used instead of the whole pronouns bollocks, cant think of any other reason other than "look at me, I am married"!

I’ve never seen this, but would also find it odd. I also really dislike it when people add their qualifications after their name when they have no relevance to their job a bit like me putting my 10m swimming badge on mine.

I could see that making sense except two colleagues I can think of the top of my head have Mrs and pronouns(but not any availability of their working days or hours which I find much more useful info wise!)

Never seen anyone do this. I would find it odd.

Exactly. That's why it's cringeworthy.

Same, only seen that once but I suspect it's done along the same lines and just makes me think the person doesn't understand context, that the titles or qualifications they see on some people's emails are entirely relevant from their role, not a fun fact about what they studied at uni

Whenever someone asks me my pronouns I say Mrs. 🤣

It's very old-fashioned. Older colleagues used to do it decades ago but I've not seen it for a very long time.