HAZMAT UNIFORM

At work we do not regularly bring in HAZMAT (hazardous material) packages because we are not HAZMAT certified. Basically what that means is no one at our company has gone through the certification class, so if you sell a HAZMAT part, we normally ship it from our vendor straight to the customer. Bringing it into the office means that we have to hire another company to take it off of our hands (literally) and ship it to the customer. This week Ken, my friend and co-worker, for some unknown reason, brought a HAZMAT and corrosive package into the air that I breathe every Monday through Friday. I like to clown around a little bit at the office, but I was seriously hiding behind doorjams and walking on the outside edges of hallways to keep the distance between corrosive metals and my eyes as great as possible.



What was he thinking?

Now then, the second most important thing to remember about a HAZMAT package, if you do choose to bring it into your facility, is that you SHOULD NOT OPEN IT!! What the hell? What is in there that you could possibly need? Well, the answer is certification for our records. I was still against this, as maybe we could have called the customer and asked them to fax us a copy after they received it. Whatever, Ken ignored my advice (look at the whiteboard in the background), and went on with taking a blade to the package. I took this picture and then ran to my desk where I hid for the remainder of the day. I guess the freight forwarder we used has the ability to seal the package after they take it from us. We all survived, and there have been no side effects from the exposure (yet).