Scribbled signatures....

[TNT]

I sympathize with the OP Slick on this matter - for the life of me, I just can't understand what is so, so difficult about doing something we all learned how to do in grade school (please, please tell me that generalization isn't too broad of a generalization to make here!).

There's a story here... when I was very young, before I even got to kindergarten, I didn't have anything better to do, so I taught myself cursive writing. Alas, I taught myself by copying my sister's handwriting... and she had an extremely girly way of writing.

Which explains why 40 some years later, I don't write anything... I print. When someone makes me write... i.e., signatures... I draw wavy lines.

[HowMayIHelpMe?]

If you looked at what was embossed, then you would be able to read it

Not necessarily true. In fact, rarely true. If I had a nickel for the many times I've looked at the front of someone's card and then when I got to the "signature" on the back there was no apparent relation to what was on the front
I'd be telling my Lear jet pilot to just stop at the next pretty island they see.

But I want to make sure I understand your point. Are you saying that if someone wants to, they can make some combination of an X and a check mark and a curly-cue or whatever and call that a signature? Or their "mark"?

What if I wanted to rent an apartment? The rental office must accept as my pledging to pay my rent for a year something that looks like I was falling down as I was trying to write my name?

What if I wanted to by a gun? It's just too bad for the law-abiding public if I want to insist that my name just happens to look like someone was just doodling to check to see if there was any ink in the pen?

What if I wanted to donate blood at the hospital?
Should the hospital really have to take something that looks nothing at all like someone's name as their name?

I"m not trying to be a smartass here, I'm just trying to find out if you really, really think people ought to literally be able to insist that any old unreadable chicken scratch or "X" is their "signature".

Call me a hardliner if you will (I've been doing this for close to twenty years ), but if someone hands me back the receipt they just signed, and it's just a scribble where a signature ought to be, and I then go look at the back of the card and lo and behold there's another scribble there, I'll ask for their ID. It's that simple. They made a mistake on the back of their credit card: where there should have been a signature they put down a scribble.

I really wish I understood why some people cannot just do the right thing and sign their name. In answer to your question about why I would want to sign my name in a "standardized font" - I'm not sure what you mean here when you say a "standardized font". One's signature is their name, done in proper cursive. I'm not going to go putting "X"'s on my forms and receipts out of some worry that someone will forge my signature, exactly because I take the time to sign my name the right way.

Well, that's just my own little peaceble .02. :-)

Another .03 to make it an even nickel: what on Earth has happened to accountability in this country?

[Casino Jockey]

my signiture is my 1st intital with a wavy line after it. last night at work i went through 74 handpay slips = each needs to be signed twice.
thats 148 times i signed my name in 8 hours. you now know why my sig is so easy.

[Broomjockey]

Banrion's right.

Your signature does not have to be your name, or even legible.

However, it does have to be consistent. It is a legally binding mark, and back before literacy was common, and a mark was still required, putting "X" was all people could really do.

I don't have to be able to make out your name from your signature, but damn it, at least make it look the same as the back of your card. I had a person, the back of their card was signed all nice and "proper." The slip they signed? Barely even a scribble. I told them flat out "I cannot accept this. Either sign it the way your card is signed, or give me some supporting ID. They were maaaaaad. But they chose to change their mark, and that was their problem.

[Sofar]

You can tell I'm young by my signature, being as it's still legible. As I age it may deteriorate. I'm also very proud of my handwriting, I even use chisel-tip nibs to that effect. I also like to add flourishes. However, these days the purpose of one's signature is to be a mark irreproducible by any other man, and the best way to do that is to let the muscle memory take over. If the signature on the back of the card is two wavy, spikey lines with some dots and crosses and the person in question produces the exact same mark without even paying attention, it's him. Any other man could only reproduce the mark very carefully, and that would be suspicious enough for me to ask for identification.

As a side note, many people these days do not know how to read or write cursive. In fact, I was never even taught. I had to teach myself.

[HowMayIHelpMe?]

*Sigh.....*

There seems to be some disagreement on this issue here. Is Banrion right? Am I wrong? Is anyone on here really qualified to just jump in and declare one participant on this thread the one true and correct person? I don't think so.

Here's what I do know: I've been working in one form of retail or another for nearly 20 years. If I were to hear another person say to me that they were in retail for close to 20 years, I would understand what that meant and give them credit for knowing a little bit about what they're talking about. These sorts of things used to matter. People used to be held accountable for what they did. I was taught very early on in grade school how to prepare my signature (full first name, middle initial, full last name, then any suffix designation, i.e., "Jr.", etc - in other words, the way to write an actual signature). I've written my signature the same way ever since. I'm 38 now. My signature looks the same on everything I sign that needs my signature on it, and it's been that way all these years. Because, as I was taught, that's how you write your proper signature. Over the years, as I've grown older and worked with younger sets of co-workers, I'm seeing strange new value-sets come into play and I find it perturbing.

I just don't understand what's happening to the world when I read some of the responses on here. I can't be the only one on here who thinks this is really about accountability, and responsibility, and respect.


Those three things mean a lot to me.

[Heksubah]

My signature is not really legible at all, save for the first letter of my first and last names. It's just how I sign my name. It matches what is on my driver's license, credit/debit card, and what is on record for everything I've signed in the last... gosh... ten years? It is just how I feel is most natural for me when I sign things. Of course, whenever necessary and on any forms that require it I will glady print my name in a legible fashion.

The thing that I don't get, though, is the people that NEED to sign legibly. You see, I'm a pharmacy technician for a mail order pharmacy and I spend all day long reading prescriptions and typing them in. Now tell me how on earth, on a prescription pad for a giant clinic that lists 30 doctors, I can tell who you are if you just scrawl? If I were in that sort of position I would either adapt my signature to something legible, or do what a lot of doctors do and write my name as well... or put a DEA or something. And then these offices get huffy when I call them and want to know who signed! Right, as if without their word I'm going to just process it. It could be any Joe Blow. Tell me a doctor's name or the patient gets nada!

[Broomjockey]

I just don't understand what's happening to the world when I read some of the responses on here. I can't be the only one on here who thinks this is really about accountability, and responsibility, and respect.


Those three things mean a lot to me.

No, you're not the only one. Which is why I said it has to be consistent, and it is a binding mark. That's your accountability (binding), respect (consistent), and responsibility (both binding AND consistent). I don't see how everyone signing their full name in cursive is any more indicitive of respect than someone who has the exact same signature on all their paperwork and uses it. I've had to deal with Chinese people signing in Chinese characters for their card. And I took it, because to insist on it being something I could read would be disrespectful to them, especially since it matches.

And I said Banrion is right because, rather than using person experience, an actual definition was supplied. As long as someone makes a consistent mark that matches the rest of their documentation, and they agree to be bound by it, I don't see why having a difficult to reproduce scrawl is disrespectful or irresponsible.

And remember, we were limiting the discussion to signatures, not writing your name down on a list where it will need to be read AS your name. People who sign when it says specifically "Name (please print)" make me angry, and then yes, I agree, it's disrespectful etc. But just for signing? You've completely lost me.

[NightAngel]

I am told that I have very nice handwriting- it resembles calligraphy as that's what I based it on.

My legal signature, however, is unreadable. If you can pick out my first and last initials- good for you! I doubt it though. What I mean by Legal is that it is on my driver's license, SS card, credit card receipts, rental agreement, blood donor card, etc. If ever need be anyone could look back over the years and see everything I've signed I signed the same- completely unreadable but in the same pattern.
Anything that I'm legally applying for, using, etc. has my name typed on it somewhere already. Now, if there's a line to sign and a line to print- I do both and I use my calligraphic handwriting on the print line.

Funny thing though- some people have complained that they can't read my regular handwriting either.

Can't win for losing I guess.

[Jack7957]

I've been told my signature is so bad, I should have been a doctor. I can make it loeater, but then I'd have to slow down and think about forming the letters correctly, the way I was taught many, many years ago.

As a side note, one day I was using a self-serve checkout and got the prompt for signature since I was paying by CC. I tried just doing an "X", and it got rejected! Had to re-sign using my sig and all was well. I don't know if it was actually comparing it to something, or just rejecting because it was just an X, but I did find it interesting anyway.

[Broomjockey]

I tried just doing an "X", and it got rejected! Had to re-sign using my sig and all was well. I don't know if it was actually comparing it to something, or just rejecting because it was just an X, but I did find it interesting anyway.

I can see two possibilities, and they both make sense: It rejected the X for being too short, or if you've e-signed before, it's got your signature on file, and compares it within tolerance.

I'd vote for X being too short though, as I can only imagine the potential snarking from people who just sloppily signed >_<

[iradney]

My father's signature is barely legible. It looks like a scribble. However, all his signatures are the SAME scribble. He's a doctor. He has to sign 100+ times a day. He cannot afford to stand there and carefully write out his full name, especially when he has an emergency. My signature looks like my name, but it deteriorates if I have to sign it more than 10 times in one day.

[Shironu-Akaineko]

I have a shaky hand. So my name ends up as S***** G****squiggle squiggle squiggle. It just seems so hard to write I E R in cursive for my hand.

[AFpheonix]

My cursive has always sucked, therefore my signature looks like poo. I don't really care.

I DO care when I get a doctor's script from an ER or hospital release and the doctor not only scribbles his signature, but has a generic student DEA (identifying # for doctors to prescribe narcotics) and then fails to print their name somewhere so I can figure out who the heck it is.

There's one doctor around here who's signature is a wavy line, but I recognize his handwriting, at least.

[BookstoreEscapee]

My sig on my cards is legible, and when I sign the receipt at least the initials are clearly visible as they appear on the card. Not necessarily the rest of my name . If I'm doing something more "official" (signing my taxes, rental agreement or whatever) I will make my signature legible, but I have to slow down a bit to do it. I also have problems with my wrists so some days when my hands get tired it's harder to do it.

Ever get people who sign in a different alphabet? I've had Asian customers who sign their names in the characters of their language (usually Japanese or Chinese, as far as I can tell). But they usually have their English signature too.

I had one guy who used to sign his name and draw a smiley face at the end. Cute.