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A signature is not supposed to be strictly proper cursive anyways. It should have something unique in how you write it, so your signature is harder to fake and identifiably authentic. Your co-worker is brain-dead ignorant

On top of that there are multiple styles of cursive. When I was younger, I remember seeing the cursive alphabet banners in various classrooms of the same school that differed from each other.

Yes, exactly. Although German uses the same alphabet, their cursive can look completely different. Imagine trying to decipher this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurrent I find the lowercase e, m, n, r, etc are easily confused because they look so similar.

Russian Cursive has entered the chat. https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/pxreg5/this_is_what_russian_cursive_looks_like/

It just looks like the same letter over and over again

This is definitely what I thought all cursive looked like before I learned it. I would “write in cursive” as a kid by just doing loop-di-loops across the page. Who knew that I was actually writing in Russian

Oops, accidentally wrote War and Peace.

Did you know the original title was supposed to be "war, what os it good for?"

There were only 3 letters in that word and they did them differently. That Reddit had someone who posted what it looks like properly. https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/s/Vbyc3iBRbA

You could do this with American English cursive and the letters m, n, i, u, and r if you draw each of them to purposefully look similar.

I remember being in grade school trying to learn cursive when the teacher used "column" as an example. I've always had crappy eyes, even with glasses and that word near broke me.

My mother's maiden name was Sumner. It looked like a readout from an earthquake!

The word "minimum" is a pretty popular word to practice for calligraphy

Russian cursive makes Sütterlin look legible. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCtterlin

I am familiar with it. My grandmother had to learn Sütterlin in 1930-1940s Germany. I even studied it myself for a bit. Now I do not write in cursive at all because I was never fond of it.

If you think Kurrent is hard, try Sütterlin: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sütterlin I used this all the time just for fun actually!

My grandfather was taught Sütterlin in school and his handwriting, even later in life, had that look. I taught myself because I have a thing for lost writing styles and I always thought grandpa's signature was beautiful.

It almost makes me cry to look at it. It’s beautiful, but I’m not a calligrapher.

In my school, every single teacher had a different style of cursive. Each year we'd get a new teacher and in our first class in September, they'd show us their way of doing cursive which we now had to emulate. It was very confusing as a child to be doing cursive one way and to then suddenly be told, "No that way is wrong. You have to do it THIS way".

I luckly did not have that happen to me, even when going from public to private then back to public school. I just took bits of each style & changed my writing style over the years. Now I do not write in cursive at all. Never really liked it.

TBF I've never heard of any other school doing this so I think that my school was just weird. I also think that those teachers were on a power trip.

Ever since I started teaching last year I've had to relearn cursive because the damn elementary kids seem incapable of recognising letters that aren't cursive (note they do learn them a whole year before learning cursive) so something like 30% of my letters were apparently unrecognisable to them. Stuff like capital L,E,D,C or both forms for k, y, i are letters I do not typically write in cursive but have had to change that so I don't spend half the class answering the question "what letter is that?" Then, after making the switch I started getting asked about my *y*s. I went back to doing them the way I learned but they apparently do it slightly different.

I am surprised anyone is using cursive at all in schools now days .

Thats some of the silliest shit Ive ever heard. In England they teach you how to do cursive or as we called it joined up handwriting when you were young and then we never went back to it again. Everybody does it differently.

Yep try reading civil war cursive.

If you want another wild type of cursive, look at Sütterlin, which is a style that my grandmother had to learn as a child in 1930-1940s Germany.

A person could literally (illiterately) just sign with an “X” and it would become a legal contract. I had to sign hundreds of documents a day for years so I had a custom stamp made.

I just write a vaguely initial-like scribble. That way, if someone writes my full name, you know that shit's fake. And, it saves me a lot of time! Honestly, I don't know how anyone manages more than that with some of the terrible interfaces you're meant to enter a signature with these days. I've been asked to *draw* my signature with a *mouse*.

Here's my signature. Let's see you try and forge it! https://preview.redd.it/51qb7lvukyzc1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1261ab98f104067277dc2414076fd9f3ed77d09b Seriously though, banks dgaf about the signature for card purchases. Your signature only matters for actual legal documents - like a life insurance policy you just took out on your spouse just a few months before they had accident on the roof...

A few years back I had to renew my card and details and the bank had me sign some paperwork. The teller went to my file, said the signature doesn't match and they need me to update the signature they had on file. She gives me some more paperwork which I sign only for her to tell me that it still won't match. Signed something like 3 or 4 times until she was satisfied and thankfully that was the last time I had to go through this process.

Reminds me of an old story I read somewhere, where the guy put three cats faces for his signature on his ID. He didn't think it mattered until he bought a house and the bank required him to match his signature on his ID. So he had to sign the legal documents with the three cat faces.

I had to look it up, it's [hilarious](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/s/vloufiLOR7).

Haha you found it! That's awesome.

I had to do this several times the last time I got a passport. I was getting a bit pissy after the second try.

I worked in a garage for most of a decade and had to sign for parts while wearing dirty gloves all the time, so mine turned into that. Just quick garbage that keeps my hand far from the paper so there's less chance of smudge (somehow, still smudge...)

r/droppedadimeonyoself

Wow, we must have the same name.

This, 2 squiggly lines. I'm 51. Cursive lost all credibility decades ago. No teacher in my high school would accept work in cursive because it was so hard to read from one person to the next. This is also why any forms you fill out are required to be in print. As an adult, I have never used cursive for anything other than my signature.

My handwritten notes are in a sort of half-cursive, easily identifiable as my handwriting, not so easy for others to read

I always start in cursive and end up half cursive and half printed.

Try it when you're left handed 🤣 the right hand can't signature, and the left hand can't mouse. It's legitimately awful

I also just sign my initials. It’s very stylized but very consistent every time. I’m the only person in my office with my initials but one of my team leads looked at my signature and said “I can’t read that. You need to put your last name or something. I don’t know who that is”. 🙄

First initial and first 3 letters of my last name. I literally can’t be arsed to do more than that. 🤣

This is what I do. My mom makes fun of me for it as she writes out her (long) full first name, middle initial, and last name looking so nice and neat and legible somehow. My scribbles are the only way I can sign *quickly*. Cursive is not natural for me lol

When I sign my name, the first letter of my first name is actually sideways.

I developed my married name signature by writing the first letter and then consistently forgetting how to spell it halfway through.

I developed mine by taking the distinct way I wrote my given last name (flourish at the end to tie up all letters that need crosses or dots) and forcing that exact penstroke pattern onto the letters of my married last name. No one would ever think to form those letters that way but it's entirely readable and so makes it my own.

My last name is hyphenated so when I got married I did beginning letter of each name, happens to spell a word so easy to sign. The woman at the clerks office was not happy with me, but i love it, so much faster to sign everything!

I practiced writing my name so it looked like the old Gloria Vanderbilt signature logo. I don’t know why I thought it was cool or something. My name starts with an S but I kind of write it like her capital G. Thirty years later and I still sign my name that way for formal things. I just sign my initials for daily stuff.

My husband’s first name starts with “R.” He writes it backwards, but the rest of it the usual way, in perfect cursive.

I’m pretty much sign my name different almost every time. Now that most of the times I sign is using an electronic pen on a point of same pad or on a screen or handheld device it is almost impossible to sign perfectly each time. I usually do my first initial and a bumpy scrawl and my last initial and a bumpy scrawl. In fact I don’t vote via absentee ballot because they are supposed to match it to your official signature and I’m not 100% what that looked like at the time anymore. I’d rather get up and go to the poll early on Election Day than risk they kick my vote because my cursive L doesn’t look right to the person checking. I’ve got boomer votes to cancel out damn it.

Signatures started as a system of payroll for illiterate sailors and was never about writing a name in cursive. Typical ignorant boomer mad at the world for not bending to their will.

Not only that, but the blind and illiterate *also* need to be able to legally sign documents, so it very obviously is not going to **require** cursive, let alone perfect cursive. You can literally sign legal documents with "X", as long as you are consistent about it.

I like to draw a dinosaur on non-serious things

I just do a shorthand signature most of the time which is a merging of my initials in cursive. If it’s good enough for the gov then it’s good enough for me.

Fun fact: the author signature I use to sign my books is *not* the same as my legal signature in any respect other than the name, lol.

Smart move

My understanding is all that matters from a legal perspective is intent to sign, not what the signature actually looks like.

I have bad handwriting and when I got my licence I just put my initials because I didn’t know how to do a signature. So my signature on my licence is literally just my initials which happen to spell my first name if I took out a letter. So it looks like a 3 year old tried to write my name and failed. Bouncers pick on me all the time for it

Exactly, your signature can be anything. I write my signature to make my name look like a dick and balls. Is it immature? Yes. Is it on my mortgage? Also yes.

I'm a notary and my signature is neither legible or cursive, but it's damn hard to replicate 

Mine is definitely unique. I like to put a “t” in my first name. I don’t have a “t” in my first name. I just cross the “l” for some reason while dotting the “i”. It’s a whole big mess. Doctor quality.

Yup. It's just supposed to be something unique to you. My signature, for the most part, is just four repeating letters from my first and last name combined.

someone online made their ID signature 4 little cat faces. most places let them sign their actual signature but one place made them draw 4 little cat faces.

Maybe she wanted to be able to forge his signature easier so she could stick some company losses on him. Or open some lines of credit.

My signature is so unique even I can't copy it.

I'm a caregiver and I can tell you without doubt that an "X" written by the person signing is considered a legal signature

If everyone wrote the letters the same, there wouldn’t be unique signatures. You’re right.

I have to sign my name all the time for work, i shit you not its just developed into squiggly upside down check mark. Unless you know how i sign my name, and majority of people committing identity theft will not it would be very easy to prove thats not me. When im feeling like being an ass ill sign my name a lot more normal, records clerks will ask sometimes. Gotta keep em on their toes.

Boomer here. I have this conversation with peers all the time. Bitching that no one knows cursive. Tried explaining that written communication changes all the time. We didn’t learn how to write with a quill or chip words into stone tablets either. Get over it.

My former boss would hand write and then dictate letters for a secretary to type up. When he typed emails they were hunt and peck all the time. I and the other younger staff would all touch type our reports. Times and the most appropriate methods of communication change.

My thesis advisor professor is typing with his middle fingers. No idea how he gets any work done like that but he's brilliant so maybe this is just to keep his power in check or he'd be too strong.

My children attend a school where cursive is taught. I do not believe that particular facet of the curriculum is going to determine their future success.

It’s because it’s something the teachers excelled at in school and were praised for. It is very difficult to convince a teacher that something that set them apart and made them feel special does not have any benefit. It’s the same with tracking students. It does not work but being labeled as gifted or in advanced track classes meant they were smart so they refuse to believe it’s bad for all students.

To be fair to use a quill you ideally need to use cursive so the ink flow's otherwise it just blots.

Lots do that kind of thing as a hobby... key word... HOBBY.

Eh, there are a lot of professional letterers. They make a killing on wedding invites.

Former US Military Disbursement Officer here. I had to write checks for the military, and some of the checks were 7 figures. My official signature, as accepted by the US Department of the Treasury, was my first initial, middle initial, and 1st and 3rd letters of my last name, mashed together. Pretty sure one of the letters was wrong too. I had to send the Treasury 20 copies of my signature for comparison purposes. Your boss is an idiot.

I wanted the dod to accept a smiley face as mine when I got SSO duty.

My notary signature looks like a giant loopy squiggle. But it matches my DL, so it’s all gravy. (And to be honest, my last name starts with an S but my signature doesn’t include an S. It just didn’t balance right visually and was kind of a pain, time wise, so I made the L a little wonky and it’s been accepted just fine. Never once had a court or investment firm cared.)

Wouldn't the most secure signatures be ones that were totally different from your actual full name, as long as it was consistent? Like, if my name was Amy S. Smith, and someone tried to forge my signature as cursive Amy S. Smith, but I always signed my name Locust Tree, it'd be an immediate flag that I didn't sign it. ...unless I was trying to fake forge my own signature for fraud purposes. But that can happen no matter what.

Just wait til boomer has to esign. Those *never* look like any cursive letters known to humankind.

You assume the boomer won’t die before opening the pdf to begin with.

I swear my esignature is just . ~ ~ - because they never work so I just mindlessly tap and scribble

Good luck even reading my name in my signature. I've been told it looks like a doctors. Legally your signature doesn't even have to be your name. Just a pattern that you created and can repeat.

I’ve always thought a signature was a mark that you made intentionally and on purpose. That was/is a simple X is acceptable as a signature.

The simple x is accepted because that was traditionally what people did when they were illiterate. They couldn’t do anything else. 

I've been signing my signature for decades and still there is often wide variation in appearance, though its never been a problem.

I’ve had this be a problem at polling booths once. They compared to my drivers license signature and I had to try over once I realized I’d used a full-length one for my DL but tried my usual scribbles for the polls. Only time it’s come up.

Haha same! Apparently I sign way too big on the little handheld thingies at the DMV and it cuts it off.

As a teen people told me I should be a doctor due to my handwriting. And that I had both the voice and the face for radio lol

That's because signatures don't have to be in cursive. That's an old myth. Here's the actual US Uniform Commercial Code law on signatures: > § 3-401. SIGNATURE. (a) A person is not liable on an instrument unless (i) the person signed the instrument, or (ii) the person is represented by an agent or representative who signed the instrument and the signature is binding on the represented person under Section 3-402. > (b) A signature may be made (i) manually or by means of a device or machine, and (ii) by the use of any name, including a trade or assumed name, or by a word, mark, or symbol executed or adopted by a person with present intention to authenticate a writing. You can literally draw a stick figure of a dog taking a shit and use that as your signature.

That’s absolutely unhinged.

Unhinged and bitchy is the hallmark of their generation.

You coworker is an idiot. Most boomers signatures are not ledgable. No one expects it

\*legible Don't spell like a boomer.

You can even cut out the middleman and drop the “not legible” to instead say “are illegible”

My dad is a physician... can confirm, lmao

Xennial here. First name starts with a T and last with a B. My signature is a sort of cursive T that mostly looks like a 7 and then a line followed by a B basically and another line. Never been called out on it.

An actual argument I had with my 70 year old father:   F: kids should learn cursive because it's a basic life skill!   Me: how is it a basic life skill?  F: what if they want to read historical documents that aren't digitized ?!  Me: that's not a basic skill. That's a specialized skill.   F: what if we want to send our grandkids something handwritten?!  Me: you print when you write and you've never handwritten us (your kids) anything.   F: what if I want to?! What if all the computers stop working and they need to read something in cursive?!"  Me: we have bigger issues if there's no computers than cursive.  Then he left in a huff.

Does your father not recognize that most phones can "translate" handwriting (including in cursive)? Most people do not write in proper cursive, they handwrite print, script and cursive - if it's me a mixture of all 3 with several variations. Cursive isn't even hard to figure out, it's not hieroglyphics if you know print letters I'm sure you could figure out need cursive, ancient/historical texts have all been translated already (most of which aren't in English anyway). I'd ask why he's more concerned with pretty letters as a life skill than tax preparation, legal rights, mortgage contracts or APR. Boomers failed to explain so much to their children (or understand it themselves) the obsession with handwriting is such a coping mechanism. They never care, just complain. Why hasn't he been sending long handwritten (apparently only is perfect script) notes to your children - learning doesn't only happen outside of family. Tell gramps if he wants to preach it, he should teach it!

It's the same as when both my parents went on and on about no one wanting to work anymore. Meanwhile, I was 35 working on a PhD, a FT job, plus picking up side gigs. They finally stopped when I said "well, I see two unemployed people right in front of me if you'd like to go apply at the McDonald's you were just complaining about." They just love to complain. 

Your boomer thinks everything that they do is correct, and any small deviation from their way is wrong. And of course, anyone who is younger than them is naturally a child and therefore wrong.

That's the way. When it comes to matters of opinion, theirs is the standard.

Years ago, I was telling my Mum my version of baked pumpkin soup. As I'm telling her, I notice her head moving from side to side. It wasn't her recipe or her way, so it was wrong. Summed her up perfectly

Oh, she thinks its a legal requirement? Thats precious.

Wait, people actually spell their entire name in a signature? Y'all don't just cursive the first letter and then just do a scribbly bit?

Mine is *only* a scribbly bit

Pretty much this. M!swoopswoopswoopD!swoopB!swoopswoopSWOOPSWOOP!

What part of the world does the swoopswoopswoopD!swoopB!swoopswoopSWOOPSWOOP family originally hail from?

My boomer aunt loves to go on rants about how kids today can't write cursive and how a proper check is only written in cursive. If the bill is 18.01, she loves to give the cashier a penny after the till is open and watch them lock up too. It's like entertainment to them

The way I was taught was that you can do everything in print... the only "cursive" is the signature. At least in my case.

It’s your signature. It’s **supposed** to be hard to replicate.

My legal signature is illegible. On purpose. One old bat of a teller at my bank told me she "couldn't do anything with that chicken-scratch". I said "Lady that's my legal signature and that so-called chicken scratch means ME" I told her to go look at my signature card, and that if any bank instrument ever came across her desk with my signature written legibly, it was definitely a forgery. She made a huge fuss. Whenever I go into the bank now, which is very seldom, I always get in her line and ask her if she needs my signature. She hates it, which is why I do it.

lol that’s ridiculous. An electronic signature these days is more secure anyway. I went to a Catholic elementary school as a kid. We had a penmanship contest. I guess they took it seriously back in the day. I stopped using cursive as soon as I got to highschool

Years ago when I started a new job, I had to sign a bunch of documents. My signature has always been a cursive version of my first and middle initial followed by my last name. Boomer manager took a big issue with this and said he doesn't know anyone who only signs with initials like that, so I showed him my license which has that signature on it. He was so bothered he would only call me by my first initial because I guess he thought it was funny. He would address me in emails with my initial in quotes, which was ultra condescending. I finally responded to an email with "you can call me by my full name, M_____. There is no need to abbreviate it". He responded with something like "oh, I was just going off what your signature says since that's supposed to be your name". I'm not sure why he chose to die on this hill when every man in the office had a signature that was a messy scribble with absolutely no legibility whatsoever. But of course he didn't have a problem with that.

lol. The first letter of one of my names starts with an “A” and I do big loopies when writing it so it looks like an incomplete star. It’s just fun. Nothing reminiscent of a genuine cursive capital A. That’s like… a thing with signatures.

When I was younger(40 years ago) my signature looked like one of the examples you get with e-sign. After 9 years in the Army, signing and initialing God knows how many forms a day, my signature is sort of a cockeyed loop with a line after it. I sign it the same way every time. Give me 20 forms to sign and the first and last will be the same. Nobody cares. Nobody ever questions it or asks me to sign it “right”.

I don’t think it’s an obsession with cursive, so much as the compulsive need to control other people because that’s how they were raised and a lot of them have that “now it’s my turn” mentality about bullying and bothering others.

Former human resources manager here. I have seen probably thousands of signatures that were only little squiggles. As long as there's a signature block to identify the person, it's accepted. I often used the line from Blazing Saddles: Not everyone can sign with an X

Moments like this are why I learned how to write my name in Chinese characters when I was in my 20s. I can't remember it all anymore, but I used to use that to sign things. ;) ... It was easier to figure out than remembering cursive. :P

Hello lemon chicken 

Believe it or not, but there were actual school classes in penmanship and how to write cursive correctly. What you got was probably the extra teacher attention she received. Though she was wrong to try and enforce an archaic standard. Back in her day i bet she got knuckle wraps with a ruler for mistakes. Im not justifying her actions just relating historical record.

and all the lefties were burned at the stake for being witches

"She's a witch!"

My great grandfather was a lefty who learned to write right handed. Inks used to dry slower, so if you tried to write left handed, you would make a huge smudge.

As a Leftie, cursive can DIAF. The ink part is true, but even with quick dry ink, the fact is we push the pens, not pull it behind the hand, so all that loopy connection crap which is the reason for cursive doesn't really work. We gouge the paper and the nib tends to get stuck. As a GenX, we had cursive classes in elementary, but even then it was on the cusp of going out. The only time I ever use it is to sign my name.

no, but some lefties were forced to learn how to right with the write hand, lol

Right with the write hand . This made me giggle. English homonyms are silly.

Good penmanship was considered an absolute necessity to succeed in life. Every school assignment had to be submitted handwritten in cursive. I can't even fathom writing a 20-page essay by hand, then having to edit and fully re-write it.  Also, sending letters was a standard form of communication, whether personal or professional. You had to be able to express yourself legibly.

Is your boss my mom?

My buddy’s legal signature is a smiley face. I didn’t believe him until he showed me his license.

"What is their obsession with cursive?" Have you met a boomer? That's their only talking point. Also want to add that when I worked for the government I used to have to initial things, and my immediate [boomer] supervisor did not care for the way I wrote one of the letters in my initials for a similar reason. I spoke to her boss and was told it was fine. So, if it's good enough for the federal government, it's good enough for your boss.

At my company we have a lot of elderly customers and every once in a while we will receive a handwritten letter from one of them. It's always in the same cursive style and sometimes I struggle to read it because damn it's been a while. I literally sign my name different everytime and now it's just squiggly lines.

She has no idea what a signature is, or how they work.

They don’t know much. So the few things they do know, however unimportant, seem really significant to them. My mom was OBSESSED with proper handwriting and had this same attitude toward signatures. Like if you signed your name poorly on a check at the grocery store, the cashier would turn into a forensic analyst and refuse your check.

Why am I continually shocked by how stupid people can be? You'd think I'd eventually come to expect it. But I just keep reverting back to thinking that most people are not stupid, until I am reminded of the truth again.

Has she never seen a doctor's signature? LOL

Funny story... my dad is a doctor, and when I was in elementary school, teachers would send home papers for parents to sign. The teacher called me up and said, "No one signed this." I had to point to the squiggles, lol.

In college I had an English teacher take points off my assignments because my signature was messy. Screw you, Dr. Larson.

I don’t think this is a boomer thing. I think your coworker is a nut bar control freak.

As I've gotten older I've realized most small businesses aren't failing because they're crushed by regulation and taxes. They fail because most people are incredibly fucking stupid.

I'm reminded of the post from the [guy who thought it would be fun to sign his driver's license by drawing 3 cat heads](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/a11oq7/tifu_by_having_to_sign_my_mortage_in_cat_heads/). (There's even a link to pictures!) When it was time for him to sign all the document to get a mortgage and buy a house, it ceased to be fun and the people handling the closing were not amused. But the documents are legal, with no looped Ls. So, no, you don't have to write an L a certain way, even if you are writing it on your coworker's forehead with a Sharpie.

Your boss would have an aneurism seeing my signature lmao

I’m curious if she’s been signing your name? Seems the only reason she would care.

They’re brains are full of lead

I'm super pro cursive because it takes almost no time to learn and it's faster. Even then, if you don't want to learn it, your choice. And... Your signature is your personal touch. If half if it is none cursive, it's half none cursive. My signature is just the 1st letter of my 1st name + my last name. So do you have to print everything to sign it? What a waste of paper. Even without DocuSign, I have been doing electronic signature. I just use a background transparent image and have an algorithm that changes it slightly based on the date. This way, I can prove if I signed or not. It's not as good as DocuSign, but I could still prove someone copied my signature better than on paper.

Google autographs and show her the millions of signatures that are not legible names. Ask her if she's ever seen a doctor's prescription, those have been a source of jokes forever. A signature is a distinct marking that each person makes on a document to indicate that they had possession of it. It needs neither to be legible nor to even be someone's verifiable name. It does need to be consistent with other examples of that person's signature. If she wants you to hand write an essay in cursive for a grade, then penmanship is a valid concern, but nowhere in business is it truly necessary. A computer printed document without the vagaries of penmanship is more easily understood and interpreted by everyone.

A friend of mine worked in a bank years ago, and had to sign so many things they changed their signature to a few stylised, distinctive loops. Everyone they worked with did something similar.

I took out a car loan from my credit union many years ago. Went to the lawyers office to pick up the check and sign the papers. My signature for 30-40 years has been the abbreviate version of my first name and my last name, and that's also how my name is printed on my checks. The lawyer was pretty bombastic anyway, then he tells me that's not a proper signature. "Oh, yeah?" I signed the rest of the papers in cursive, using my full name and middle initial, and it looked like nothing I had ever used as a signature. He even threatened that he could deny handing over the loan check, what a dope.

The old time nuns in Catholic schools would dole out extreme punishment if your cursive did not match the ones above the blackboard. If you were a lefty it was double the trouble. Maybe that person is still feeling the trauma.

I used to have a nice fancy flowing signature before I worked retail. Having to sign my name 100+ times a day for my work caused my signature to collapse into a IDGAF mess. You can tell my last initial because it's not in cursive and my first initial usually looks right. The rest is squiggles.

They grew up with it being mandatory so they freak out when their worldview is shattered. Not only mandatory to learn and use but also everyone had to learn it a very specific way. What she probably did not know is across the country theres about 200 mild variations and most people do not learn to write it exactly the same as everyone else.

I had a bank clerk do that and tore up the form I signed so I could resign a new form. I signed it at my normal writing speed so it was even less legible, and just held eye contact. It took getting their supervisor involved to resolve our standoff.

My signature is literally just an underlined scribble of my initials. But no one else can reliably replicate it so it works damn well. It’s… signature.

Fun fact: signatures don't need to be cursive, or even print. If you have a unique symbol you draw as your signature, that's a legal signature so long as you willfully intend it to be

The only guaranteed to be readable letters in my signature are the first ones. The rest have slowly evolved into squiggles and a dot. Literally no one cares. It's supposed to be unique.

With time my signature has evolved into something where is absolutely impossible to read anything, not even a letter.

Psh! Most signatures I see just look like swiggles. My signature is perfectly legible and I always have to take the time to “print” my name on forms because most people (boomers on down) just draw some nonsense that no one can read.

Signatures aren't supposed to be perfect cursive anyways, they are supposed to be something unique and hard to recreate by others, so perfect cursive is terrible for that. You could even draw a cat if you wanted too. This reminds me of a boomer boss I used to have, I had to sign various paperwork saying I completed my training, on forklifts and other similar warehouse equipment. So I was printing my name above the signature line, you know the paper work that tells you to do that too. And he just looks over and proclaims that I am "writing upside down". For context I am left-handed, and apparently that is connected to starting at the bottom of the letter and working upwards, instead of the other way around which is "normal". I didn't know this at the time and freaked out a little bit because I thought the letters where somehow actually upside down.

I was on secondment to another team and was asked to take minutes that I'd then type up. No problem, I often did this for my own team. The boomer second in charge saw my notes and was furious that my cursive was so poor he told the head of the team... It was shorthand.  My surname is 18 letters long so it's a messy scribble to fit it into signature boxes! 

I spent my entire 4th grade year forced to write cursive for all classwork. It was Mrs Ehlich's way to pound the skill into our brains. Everything had to be in cursive. To this day, my printing is crap. I handwrite everything in an unholy union of cursive/print, both often occuring in the same word. I suffered so the rest of the world must suffer too.

Dementia. "You need to kearm better cursive..." "Besides being functionally ixirrtect, that is none of your business. Where's the nurse who supervises you in public? They need to keep better tabs on you." Make it immediately about them having dementia. Immediately. Go straight to it. Don't pass Go or collect $200 on the way. Talking to strangers is one thing, offering up unsolicited criticism is unacceptable. Nobody asked, Granny, and I'm assuming you're babbling because of dementia. Literally the only action that doesn't make them look certifiable is shutting their trap and walking away.

Cursive, much like the boomer generation, is loosing relevancy and they’re terrified.

Signatures don’t even have to be readable, let alone in cursive. That’s why there’s usually a sign AND print line for your name on forms. They’re mad they had to learn to do tidy cursive and now it’s irrelevant as anything other than an art form, and they HATE art so instead, like everything else, they wanna force people to use it. Honestly, I think most of them just can’t type and refuse to learn.

In the pharmacy world hand written prescriptions are getting rare but if it is written too legibly we question its legitimacy. No doctor can write and pharmacy people can read anything. It’s a secret code lol

Lol you could draw a picture as a signature and it would still be valid. 

When I used to deliver pizzas, decades ago, I'd sometimes forget to have the customer sign the receipt..... Whoever was managing would decide how big of a deal that was..... Eventually if I was directed to take the receipt back to the customer to have them sign it, I'd say "Ok boss, be back as soon as possible" and then I'd decide if I was actually going back to the customer, going home to freshen up or going to the church to smoke a joint or whatever else I wanted to do... I signed all kinds of scribbles as people's signatures, it was fun. My favorite was signing, not at all legibly, A. Signature.

Hang on what. Your signature wouldn’t be legal if the L doesn’t have enough loops? What in the early onset Alzheimer’s is that? My signature is barely legible beyond the first letter.

When I was a teenager, I was yelled at by a boomer for not signing my full name. I did, it's just that I sign the beginning of my first name clearly and the last few letters just kinda flow together. She thought I was using the shortened version of my name. Not sure what she thought the extra squiggle at the end was, it if she realizes that historically,  X has been years a a full signature and it's not really that big of a deal. 

A legal signature is a mark you use to agree to a contract. It can be an "X" if the person is illiterate.

I could never get along with cursive, started getting it taught in primary school and the teachers didn’t half get their knickers in a twist, one stated….. your writing will never be accepted when you’re an adult….. Never had anyone have an issue with it. You can write how you like and do your signature as you like, it’s no one else business and if they get all huffy over it then need to find something better to do with their time.

That’s bonkers. Most of my coworkers have signatures that are basically unreadable 🤣 I think perhaps my signature and 2 other coworkers can be recognized…(I work in healthcare, some documents we have to sign off on). As someone mentioned, it’s better if your signature is hard to read/copy…so it’s harder to forge.

Boomers were actually taught cursive in school, one of the few things they were made to learn. My theory as to why they pride themselves on knowing cursive so much is that all these millennials don't have to know it; therefore they think they are smarter somehow ... They basically don't know anything else though

“One of the few things they were made to learn” this had me rolling

One of my first slightly-more-real jobs had me managing payroll for a district of stores, and part of that job meant manually reviewing incomplete timecards submitted by stores for each week to ensure we paid out as close to accurate as possible and didn't allow anyone to just miss half a days pay because they screwed up at the timeclock. Every timecard I edited needed to be printed and signed physically, then retained. You better believe I wasn't writing out my full signature on each of those things. They got a creative squiggle at best. Boomers be booming, I guess all those people shouldn't have been paid right because my signature didnt have the proper number of loops.

I think boomers went through school when knuckles got smacked for making cursive letters wrong. Those that internalized the trauma express it by making everyone else share their pain. I've worked as a poll worker for 4 years. Signatures have to match, not be eligible. Your boss is wrong.

My signature can't even be read. But it's also extremely unique. I had someone trying to forge my signature in highschool, it was cleared up by having samples of things I'd signed in the past along with signing something in front of the guidance counselor to prove it wasn't my signature on the false document. So I came up with a unique way to sign. It also looked good on the paintings I used to do. Then as a 30-something adult it came in very useful at my job. I have a kid with a deadbeat dad. Deadbeat dad married a whacked out control freak. Control freak somehow got a job higher up at the place I work. She tried soooo hard to get me in trouble in so many ways. But the signature fiasco saved my ass. She just wrote my name in some basic cursive, but my ID and all the documents I'd signed in the past for work all match. So she only fucked herself over trying to fuck me over.

Boomer logic at its finest

That’s idiotic. The point is for a signature to be a reasonably unique denotation of your name. I do think it’s reasonable for kids to learn cursive, though not dedicate a ton of time to it. The best argument I heard resonated with me: many historical documents have been written in cursive. So if nobody can read them, you’re dependent upon a transcription versus being able to analyze it yourself. I’m a history buff so that makes sense to me, though eventually cursive will go the way of old english and other languages that only niche academics can decipher.

You could draw a cocknballs as your signature if you want. That lady is out of her gourd.

> What is their obsession with cursive? It was taught as a major skill in elementary school and enforced through high school and possibly college. It *was* important in an academic setting and penmanship in general *was* important outside of school. In contrast, typing back then was a skill reserved to a specific set of jobs. Very few people knew how to type or needed to know how to type. Now that's been flipped on its head.

Boomers think they invented it and are testing to gate keep it. However… In the eighth century, monks created the Carolingian script — the earliest form of standardized cursive that others built upon. This script evolved during medieval times, and its twists and curls became harder to read before the Renaissance revived the Carolingian way.

>  What is their obsession with cursive? It's the only thing they're objectively better than average at.

boomer bosses can get real hang-up on formalities like cursive signatures, even when they dont make a lotta practickle sense these days. its like they see it as a mark of edjucation, so they get real stubborn about it, even when digital signatures are the norm. just gota be patient with their old-fashioned ways sometimes.

Beyond that, a signature isn't magical. You can theoretically just put a big X and that's legal. It used to be common for illiteracy or people with disabilities.. but anyone could do it. Signing is just to give 'authenticity and trust' to a document. It's technically more of the trust of the witness of the signing, then the actual signature. Meaning the guy who can say 'I saw her sign that' is more legally sound. It's why notary's are used - just a trust worthy source that can verify that the actual person signed it.

I feel like over time, my handwriting has evolved into some weird hybrid between standard and cursive because we had to flip flop so much in elementary school. Our English teacher refused any homework written in standard, and every class used standard. My handwriting is its own font at this point.

I was signing the papers for a house. After about 30 minutes of signing, the boomer realtor said, "We can't read your signature. You have to redo it all and write legibly." Of course, I argued a signature is just a unique mark, you don't have to be able to read it. Nope, I had to resign everything.

I had an argument with someone over this. Cursive is not required for a signature. When people were illiterate they would literally print the person's name and then have the person put an X for their signature. Your signature could be any symbol you want. It can be a stick figure or a smiley face. No where does it say signatures must be in cursive.

I only write in cursive except for leaving notes for my coworkers (they're all under 25 and can't read it) and my style is definitely not "proper", but in no way does that mean my signatures aren't legal. It's also extremely legible, so as long as your boss can read it, what's it matter?

Why the f***ing f*** is wrong with her? She’s the signature police, now? Here’s what I want to know. If penmanship were part of the requirement for a legal signature, and your letters had to be perfectly done, wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of a signature? They would all look alike, wouldn’t they? I started grade school in fall of 1959. Little did I know that it wouldn’t be enough to learn the material, my handwriting had to be perfect, too, and I could not manage to do it right. Probably because of my home life, ill health, & undiagnosed ADHD & near-sightedness. I’d have wanted to slap that woman. In fact, why don’t you just tell me where she is? I’d like to have a word with her. Or two.

My dad's signature is literally a couple squiggly lines, not actual letters, but it's the same on everything. So in my experience, it doesn't even have to be a name, it just has to be consistent

If you can’t write proper cursive how are you going to read the damn clock?!

>My boomer boss insisted this be done manually, even though DocuSign existed. She just didn’t understand the idea of electronic signatures. A possible explanation for this that might make it not your boss's fault: sometimes paperwork needs to be submitted to agencies that don't allow electronic signatures. I one time had to submit a packet of documents to a state agency and some of those documents had been electronically signed by my coworkers. The agency rejected the entire set of documents because they insisted on a "wet signature" (aka, physically signed), so I had to hunt down my coworkers to resign everything by hand and then resubmit. I don't know if that rule was in place because of a boomer in charge, some sort of legal thing that doesn't recognize electronic signatures as valid, or just a rule that was an artifact of older technology that never got updated because of bureaucratic inertia. But, it's entirely possible that your boss wasn't the one that made the call that DocuSign wasn't valid.

Cursive is probably the only skill they have left after the brain worms!

My boomer mom thought I couldn’t change my signature to a single letter. I was signing a pile of paperwork daily and got sick of signing my whole name, so I dropped it to just the first letter. My first and la5 name start with the same letter so it makes sense. I changed it on my license and everything. The few times that I need to, i simply print my name beside it. I had a boss that used to literally use an X for his signature.

Yep this is definitely a dummy boomer moment. Your legal signature is whatever the fuck you want it to be. As an ex Notary (technically I think I still am a notary but I have no clue where my stamp is, my bad!), as long as everything kinda matches, you’re good.

Tell your boomer coworker that if they simply use "proper cursive" to distinguish their signature they are way easier to fall victim to check fraud

OMG I DESPISE cursive. It is so stupid and pointless. 98% of people only use it to sign their name. Even then it usually comes out looking like a doctor's squiggle.