Certified Email Guy

Accredit your coworker as a Certified Email Guy. The instrument is a letter on letterhead, delivered — appropriately — by email, under the subject line "Quick follow-up." It reads:

Dear Certificant,

The Certification Desk is pleased to confirm that, following review of a substantial body of work, you have been accredited as a Certified Email Guy, with all rights and obligations attaching thereto.

The review committee considered a portfolio spanning several years of sustained practice, including: a message reading "see attached," accompanying no attachment; a same-day follow-up beginning "per my last email," the referenced email being eleven minutes old; the phrase "just bumping this," deployed as a complete message; and one "Thanks!" delivered to forty-one recipients. The committee found the work consistent, voluminous, and entirely unnecessary. Certification was unanimous.

You may now append the letters C.E.G. to your signature block, where they will sit comfortably among the existing disclaimer, the inspirational quotation, and the phone number rendered in three formats.

Certification reflects observed practice. It does not constitute endorsement.

Then a printed and framed copy follows by post, so receipt can be confirmed. Send it to the coworker you'd actually miss if they ever stopped — the one whose "per my last email" you've quietly come to look forward to. They'll pretend to be insulted. They'll also update their signature block.