‘Love DC’: David Cameron’s texts are a lesson in how not to sign off messages to your colleagues

Office etiquette can be a tricky beast. If, like me, you started a new job during the pandemic, you’ve probably only had the vaguest sense of the people you work with. I’ve only recently returned to the office – before I met them all in person, I had no idea how tall they were, or whether they were shy or extroverts. I didn’t know what clothes they usually wore, their sense of style, or what their voices sounded like.

Yet in other ways, it feels like I know my colleagues more intimately than people I’ve known for 30 years – I’ve seen their faces, first-thing in the mornings, drinking coffee during online news conferences; I recognise the insides of their houses, their cats, their kitchen tables. I’ve even seen some of them on screen in their pyjamas.

And they ‘know’ me, too, though we’d previously never met IRL (In Real Life): after all, they’ve been staring into my private space (my bedroom) twice a day for months on Zoom. My closest friends and family don’t know that I have a poster of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar on my wall, yet everyone who works at The Independent does. I hope they like it.

So, if it can be tricky to maintain healthy boundaries when the line between home and the office has been so utterly blurred for the past 15 months, is it any surprise that it can be tricky to get it right when it comes to selecting the right level of formality in our online communication, too?

I got chatting to most of my colleagues for the first time on Slack, our online work messenger system, rather than at the water cooler, in the canteen or in the pub. I had to introduce myself remotely, figure people out; determine when I could joke around (and who with), and when I couldn’t. I’ve become accustomed (some might argue too accustomed) to being casual to the point of being over-familiar – and it’s hard. How do you sign off an email to a colleague or contact, when you’re so used to typing “lol” or “brb”?

But this leaning towards being casual can be dangerous, and I’ve noticed it bleeding into the workspace. I have the honour of editing and publishing the editor’s letter from our various correspondents and heads of departments, and I find it almost impossible to keep myself on the straight and narrow. It takes all my willpower not to delete the customary “yours” and write with “love and kisses”, instead.

Which brings me to David Cameron. The former PM is said to have sent at least 50 texts, emails and WhatsApps about Greensill between March and June last year, to his colleagues Rishi Sunak, Michael Gove, Matt Hancock, Nadhim Zahawi and others.

Regardless of their content, what I found striking (and, let’s face it, not a little amusing) was the way Cameron “signed off” his communiqué; the informal thumbs-up emoji, the irreverent initials (“DC”), the casual-bordering-on-over-familiar “Love Dc”.

I have sympathy for Cameron’s seeming inability to judge what’s appropriate and what isn’t, when it comes to addressing people he works or once worked with. I find it hard, too, to avoid ending messages with a kiss, or sounding too enthusiastic with an ill-judged exclamation mark (“Thanks! Dc”), or to know whether I should be using “Best” or “Best wishes” or “Speak tomorrow”.

If you’ve been for socially distanced drinks and got that three-pint fuzzy feeling, isn’t a “Love” on the end of a text to your line manager justified? Because yes, okay, you might not love them deeply, yet you might love your job – or you might simply want to express a burst of affection and enthusiasm that I’ll admit often overcomes me, when I’m talking to people; after not talking to people for the best part of 15 months, because it’s been just me and Sylvia Plath in my bedroom. It’s a minefield, isn’t it?

Love and kisses,

Victoria

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