Thank You for Understanding.

[saint_monkey]

• Thu, 11:39: I'll spellcheck when I'm dead.
• Thu, 12:28: Did you ever notice that when people say "Thank you for understanding" that they want you to agree to something that makes no sense?

You may think I am nitpicking, but as someone who worked email customer service for a few years, there is a lot of thought and diplomacy that goes into the crafting of correspondence, and the choice of words used makes a large difference in how the message is perceived. Openings and closings are extremely important. A good opening sets the tone for the entire message, and a good closing can ice the cupcake, causing you to overlook or ignore something that is off about the message.

"Thank you for understanding" is chosen for the natural response that most people will have to this phrase. When reading this, the average reader will say to themselves, "Well of COURSE I understand." The alternative is to say that they don't understand something, and the average audience doesn't want to admit that they don't have a grasp of the situation.

I so frequently see "Thank you for understanding" as the closing line to correspondence where the gist of the letter is "we are removing the services from your account that made purchasing these services worthwhile," or "we will now be charging a monthly fee for the privilege of simply having an account with us," or "we are offering no solution to your reasonable concern" or some other situation that would normally be unacceptable.

I think the spin here is pretty bold. They are really saying, "We acknowledge that you will not like this change, so we are framing this entire argument as 'reasonable steps that we have taken' and we will close with a phrase that implies that if you disagree, then you simply don't understand the sense or scope of our actions. In other words, they push the burden of sensibility over to you, at the same time that they are acknowledging that their action may not be reasonable.