He held that every subsequent email in a long thread should start with, "Hello [name]," before the first paragraph. I thought that was reasonable for the first email, but when things got to the 3rd or 4th response, it was normal to just write your response, first paragraph starting on the first line.
Most of the company did that. He and I had issues. We never resolved this (I gave in on this, as I was trying to resolve our lack of alignment on many fronts), but I find it completely normal in most of the companies I've worked in since.
Especially since those of us who are emailing each other all day long are doing it over and over again, day after day, and getting the friendly formalities when we see other in real space, or on calls.
There's a passive aggressiveness to holding out for higher formalities when the cultural context is otherwise totally fine with shorthands that come with working and communicating with some people a lot.
