When creating an email address, you can add a signature at the bottom of your message. You can customize it by adding your name, company, and contact information so the receiver knows who the message is from.
But it’s important to keep this information up-to-date, as one woman learned. She recalled a mortifying moment after sending an email with an embarrassing childhood email signature to her boss.
TikTok user Jessica Stahle (@jessicastahle31) started the video by saying, “This the story of how I found out that every email I have sent since I was 10 years old has had the auto signature ‘im in love with Justin Biebers new haircut!!!’”
She said she was aware of the signature and knew that she should have deleted it. But, she added that she thought by manually deleting it from the bottom of every email she sent, no one else could see it.
“For work, it just says, ‘Sent from my iPhone,’” she claimed.
However, the decision to preserve this this piece of her childhood would haunt her.
“About a month ago, how this all kind of resurfaced, I was emailing my friend [and] co-worker, and one of my managers who’s pretty high up. This was just a quick, like, scheduling email. I knew as soon as I sent it because I guess I was just sending it really fast that I forgot to delete the signature,” she said. “I’ve never once had this issue before, so I’m freaking out because this isn’t just one of my managers. This is top dog.”
Instantly, Stahle turned to her co-worker friend for advice.
“So, she eventually is just like, ‘That is really embarrassing but you should just acknowledge it,’” she shared. “So, that’s what I do.”
The email signature continued to haunt her
After a month, Stahle thought the incident had blown over. But she was wrong.
“My other manager, who is, like, right above me, she goes up to me and is like, ‘You know what I love? Your little signature at the end of your emails,’” she recalled her manager saying.
At first, the content creator assumed her higher manager had informed the woman about the email exchange. Again, she was incorrect.
“‘Well, I can see every email that you send,’” the manager said, adding, “Ever since I’ve worked here, you’ve had that little thing at the end of your email. I think it’s quirky. I think it’s fun.”
Subsequently, Stahle decided to scroll through her past emails. She discovered that every message she had ever sent from her laptop had the signature.
“Everything I’ve sent from my computer has had that auto signature because even if I delete it, if you click those three dots, it’s still there,” the content creator said. She then added some helpful information for anyone using email signatures.
She noted, “Turns out, it was on a setting that made sure that signature was embedded into the email no matter what at the very bottom of the page.”
Stahle also realized the signature was not only confined to work emails.
“I’ve applied to countless jobs from that email address. that email address is my primary form of contact with my extended family. I even applied to some colleges with that address,” she said.
“Take this as a cautionary tale to just double-check your Gmail settings and make sure that your auto signature is what you would like it to be,” she concluded.
The Daily Dot reached out to Stahle via Instagram direct message and TikTok comment.
@jessicastahle31 Take this as a cautionary tale. Check your gmail settings. #email #workemails #worklife #alcoholic #storytime #greenscreen ♬ original sound – Jessica Stahle
Viewers demanded to see the haircut
The video received over 192,000 views. Some viewers cracked jokes about the email signature.
“This would keep me up for the next 7 years,” one viewer said.
“LOL the way I would be googling ‘did Justin Bieber cut his hair 2024,’” another quipped.
“The fact that you send an email saying “disregard that signature” with the SAME SIGNATURE,” a third remarked.
“WE DEMAND A HAIRCUT REVEAL,” someone else joked.
Others shared similar embarrassing experiences of emails going wrong.
“I accidentally sent several work emails from my cat’s email account (he’s big on instagram lol),” one user shared.
“All of my emails for years had the name “Gmail” as the name because I thought I was just labeling the email on my phone, not changing my name. I applied to SO MANY JOBS,” another commented.
How do you delete your email signature in Gmail?
Gmail’s help center provides detailed steps on how you can manage your auto signature.
When you open your Gmail, click “Settings” on the right-hand side. From there, you hit “General” and scroll to “Signature.”
After that, click the signature and “save changes.”
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