I like to think that I have a good sense of humor and believe that there is room for friendliness in a professional relationship. But I'll admit to being surprised, and not in a good way, when after sending a thank you email to an events planner I'm working with, I got this response: "Always at your service, mylady[sic]." I've only been conversing with this person for a couple of months, and we certainly are not at that level of friendliness (although, as a friend of mine pointed out, a comment like this really only would have been appropriate had I signed off on my email "Until the morrow, my lord.").

But all joking aside, most of my Facebook friends agreed that this crossed the line. It inspired Christine Pilch's post "Avoiding inappropriateness to safeguard your brand," where she makes this important point (see her full post for the second example)....