Part of my role in my pharma company as a QA Officer involves investigating customer complaints . Today, I got forwarded a letter as part of the complaint samples sent to me – that turned out to be a very very creepy anti-Semitic letter – someone in Norway obviously thinks that our company is run by Jews. The police are picking the letter up tomorrow, and I have yet to keel over like Skipral.

However, I’m pretty **** pissed – we don’t have a security team, the H&S guy didn’t know what to do, we don’t have procedures in place for this and I **** off that it was sent to me in the first place as I didn’t sign up for getting blown up by irate customers.

Advice?

have the work experience kid open letters?

Be glad they’re in Norway.

(or Russia, or USA, or wherever the creep really is)

relax?  Put it down as a one off assuming nothing similar has happened before?  Have a grown up conversation with your colleagues regarding what formal process should be put in place in the future.

😀

Put it down as a one off assuming nothing similar has happened before?

It has apparently, happened before – but no one thought to do anything about it.

My boss actually wanted me to root around in it with my bare hands, despite it not only containing lunatic letters – but lunatic handwriting up the inside of the envelope!

These are people that have worked with alkylating agents etc

What jonnyboi says.

Meh. I once worked for a company that did some work for the MOD, they converted half the floor I was working on to be bombproof, I was outside the “safe zone”. Imaging knowing that the building you are working in is considered at threat, but that you are not considered worthy of protection.

Come work in the NHS, I have to deal with complaints pretty routinely and some of them would make your toes curl. The idea that they’re screened is laughable frankly.

I’m surprised though, I didn’t have you down as a special snowflake, poor diddums

Hah! MSP! Probably fitted for, but not with bomb protection.

I’m surprised though, I didn’t have you down as a special snowflake, poor diddums

I’ve worked plenty of dangerous jobs, but I’ve worked for good companies – so the lack of professionalism surprises me a bit. Considering, they are actually a fairly big target for this kind of thing.

Given you suggest it’s unpleasant post, not some sort of suspect device, why, exactly, would there need to be any sort of procedure to deal with anything?

Just deal with it the same as nasty post(s) on here, ignore it or, where appropriate, report it.

Given you suggest it’s unpleasant post, not some sort of suspect device, why, exactly, would there need to be any sort of procedure to deal with anything?

Most of the half decent pharma companies I’ve worked for, had some basic security measures for vetting post.

it’s unpleasant post, not some sort of suspect device

I’d gathered that the OP’s letter included some chemicals of unknown origin.

If it were me I’d be a bit nervous about blithely carrying on and processing the contents of a box with a threatening letter in it?

and if they do assume the chemicals are dangerous surely having a procedure of how to deal with them wouldn’t be unreasonable?

However, I’m pretty **** pissed 

Nice that they allow alcohol on the premises.

Open it, lick it, pass it around, photocopy it with an impression of your buttocks in the background.

Send it on to an ex-girlfriend that once pissed you off.

Or a politician.

Or the Queen.

Well I suggest you take the risk seriously and only open the post in a fumehood with a biohazard suit on….

Or know that post is screened and anything more than powders in envelopes will be picked up elsewhere, especially if it came internationally.

then take some advice from either the police or a specialist firm dealing with this. Unless you are a one lab company then you should have a head office somewhere which is probably where all mail for complaints is sent through?

Unless you are a one lab company then you should have a head office somewhere which is probably where all mail for complaints is sent through?

Yeah, we have a head office – and yes, mail is routed there first.

very very creepy anti-Semitic letter

Isn’t that the only kind? 😉

It wasn’t just full on Nazi Funkmaster, it was exorcist levels of weird…

Yeah, we have a head office – and yes, mail is routed there first.

In which case send it back up the line to them or if that has no results the other option I suggested….

Yeah, demanding a fume cupboard is a good shout, thinking about it – the admittedly usually harmless samples should be forwarded straight to the lab, not me. I might use this to offload some of my responsibility on QC.

Well if you don’t give people an email address to spam with their anger it will build up and the only recourse will be to post you an box of poo…

last clinical type place I worked in the mail came in a sack. Unless Royal Mail vetted it no one else did.

I was told at work ( not by a colleague)  “you are an effing english poofter peadophile and I am going to kill you” just recently.  Reported as homophobic and racist abuse thru the reporting system.

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Fortunatly a little old man who could move fast enough to catch me but he did hit me with his zimmer frame once!

Yeah, demanding a fume cupboard is a good shout, thinking about it

Still missing the sensible solution there…..

Call somebody who specialises in this, if your company does not have a solution then they should be paying somebody who can give proper advice that will not end up with somebody in hospital and somebody in court.

Most of the half decent pharma companies I’ve worked for, had some basic security measures for vetting post.

Fair enough but, to be clear, was this post which should have failed vetting or did it contain nothing more than dangerous language. If, as i read it, it’s the later and you’re the “complaints guy” why would it not have ended up on your desk?

I get that you want some sort of security in your well-being in the workplace but there’s a big difference between “i nearly got blown up/anthraxed/dyed a funny shade of blue at work today” and “I was exposed to bad language”.

If it makes you feel better, RM will screen most of your mail much more thoroughly than your previous internal screening is likely to have done.

Oh, I’ve heard some right stories from friends in the NHS tj – I don’t envy you!

Fair enough but, to be clear, was this post which should have failed vetting or did it contain nothing more than dangerous language. If, as i read it, it’s the later and you’re the “complaints guy” why would it not have ended up on your desk?

There’s no vetting procedure in place, it would appear that the vetting is the secretary sending anything she thinks might be complaint related to me – without checking it.

It was with a potential product, which is powdered.

secretary sending anything she thinks might be complaint related to me – without checking it.

Have you upset her?

Not this one! Honest!

Call somebody who specialises in this, if your company does not have a solution then they should be paying somebody who can give proper advice that will not end up with somebody in hospital and somebody in court.

Yeah, I’ll pass this up the chain.

https://cst.org.uk/antisemitism/report-antisemitism

I’ll fill that out tonight, cheers for the link!

I had a similar call at a place i worked previously – the receptionist had taken a call, didn’t know who to pass it to and had decided it should be me.

It was the police. They had recently been tracking the activities of some anti-vivisectionist organisation and had found they had been googling our company, activities, locations, linkedin profiles, etc.

They said they had no concrete evidence of any plans but that we should consider beefing up our security, advise staff to report suspicious activity near the site / their homes and so on.

Not pleasant.

We had a couple of obviously “suspect packages” delivered to the bank when I worked there, both times some total knob just ripped them open to have a look, even the one with the wires hanging out the side (*) It’s pretty easy to post a letter or a fake bomb, very hard to do anything else but even so

Antisemitism is weirdly inclusive isn’t it? You don’t even have to be jewish.

(* a hoaxer’s favourite apparently, make sure your package looks bomby)

I found a packet of Uncle Bens in a cupboard at work.

It was a real concern as we thought it may have Rice in

We had a couple of obviously “suspect packages” delivered to the bank when I worked there, both times some total knob just ripped them open to have a look, even the one with the wires hanging out the side (*) It’s pretty easy to post a letter or a fake bomb, very hard to do anything else but even so

Antisemitism is weirdly inclusive isn’t it? You don’t even have to be jewish.

(* a hoaxer’s favourite apparently, make sure your package looks bomby)

Had something similar when I worked for a bank – they installed one of the machines like they have at airports – put the incoming mail on the belt, watch the screen as it passes through, different colours for different sorts of material, that sort of thing. They trained the staff on its use (bear in mind that the opening-the-post jobs as in most organisations aren’t the best paid or demanding of the highest skill levels) and told them that they would, some time soon, send a fake bomb in as a test.

Which explains how, one morning I was wandering through as one of the lads pulled a box off the machine, waved it vigorously above his head and announced to all and sundry “I’ve found it! I’ve found the bomb!”

Unfortunately, colleagues in other teams hadn’t been informed of the planned test. There was quite an impressive reaction…

The CS department at my place get some great letters and emails. A riding buddy of mine used to print the best ones and have them up on the wall next to his desk. Nothing dangerous, just people with serious anger issues.

I used to work for a company that both sent out mail and received it on behalf of major U.K. charities, for a time I was in the post handling room, we could sometimes get over a hundred tubs of mail, each with approximately 100-150 items in, and that all has to be opened each day, a job I’ve also done. There are procedures set in place for suspect mail, thankfully not needed very often at all, but there are the occasional weird ones from people who definitely have some issues. One of the charities is PETA, so one can imagine some of the letters that would come in. No suspect items, though.

One of my team found a hypodermic with a bare needle in the door pocket of a Skoda Yeti that was a Motability return last week, which has a clear set of procedures set out, and we have a sharps box on hand.