Admin opening your letters

[swee'pea99]

It's an old school thing. One place I worked, a colleague's mum wrote to him c/o the office 'cos he was always moving and it was the most 'fixed' address he had. The office 'den mum' used to open all these letters, even after he challenged her, saying 'you know by the handwriting those are personal letters from my mum'. She was adamant: if it arrives at this office, I open it, period. Small minded twit she was.

 

[Arch]

iirc it's actually illegal to open mail not addressed to you, unless you have written consent. i might be wrong, any lawyers in the house? patrick…

Nah, he doesn't open his own post. He has a pair of lovelies in bikinis to do it - one ot hold the envelope, one to wield the letter opener. He used to have one to lick the stamps for outgoing post too, but the advent of self adhehive ones saw her out on the street...

 

[Chuffy]

Nah, he doesn't open his own post. He has a pair of lovelies in bikinis to do it - one ot hold the envelope, one to wield the letter opener. He used to have one to lick the stamps for outgoing post too, but the advent of self adhehive ones saw her out on the street...

...ah, right back where he found her.

 

[Greedo]

Mail should not be opened by anyone except the person it's addressed to. It is out of order otherwise. I would never open the mail sent to my office for any of the people that work for me.

I had mates who's mums opened their mail when they lived at home. I'd be livid if that had happened to me!

 

[simoncc]

If you are prepared to use your place of work as your address of convenience for non work related post then I don't see how can complain really. Maybe they open such mail as a way of discouraging people from this practice.

 

[mondobongo]

One Company I worked for actually had it in the Staff Handbook that any mail received at the firms address would be opened though they would prefer that you did not have any mail sent there in the first place.

 

[John Ponting]

also gives the post room staff the chance to be first opening potential letter bombs.

 

[buggi]

if you don't want it opened ask the sender to put PERSONAL on it. It's pretty much standard practice for all letters to be opened in the office (even Private ones) as other companies often address letters private anyway. Most admin staff will not open a PERSONAL letter.

 

[Tharg2007]

if you are that bothered get a PO box

 

[Willow]

Usually if post is marked strictly private and confidential then it isn't opened by anyone else. Much of our mail is junk and frankly the staff would get very fed up if I distributed what had their name on it. responsibilities change and people don't change who they send the junk too. Only one person where I work insists on opening his mail and I respect that (well if I notice before slitting it open) if he wants to open his own macro catalogue, and generaly junk who am I to complain. Whereas the boss is more than happy for me to open it all, decide what goes in the bin and who gets the rest (normally me!)

 

[yenrod]

This is still something I can't get used to.

It's not that I've got anything to hide, it just feels rude.

It also might have something to do with the fact that I came back from A/L on Friday to find that 2 pairs of Endura socks had done the rounds of the office.

My 1st job, ever, was office junior.

So I got the task of opening the post and there was plenty of it !

When handing it out - got some funny looks BUT there was that much of it that i didnt have time to check out all the boring bits which was pretty much ALL the post !

 

[Brains]

If it's sent to the company then it belongs to the company - it's up to them to decide if they want to pass on unopened.

Same situation with e-mail. if it's to you@yourcompany.com then it belongs to the company to what they like with.

Ain't no such thing as private mail, e-mail or post.
(Started in the post room, moved to communications - several different companies, same rules)

 

[Maizie]

I worked as an office junior at a solicitors and there all the post was opened up except if it was marked private/confidential/personal, etc.

Where I work now, Royal Mail deliveries to the post room just get distributed, nothing is opened. Mind you, there are a couple of thousand people on site, so it'd be a lot of post to order!
Anything that comes from a courier goes to stores, not the post room, and they do open it all. If it is work-related, they bring it round to you. If it is personal, they send you an email and ask you to collect it from them. But, they don't mind you getting personal deliveries either via RM or courier, and they do warn you that anything coming to stores will be opened and logged...