How to Deal With Violent Co-Workers
By Anne Fisher

(FORTUNE Magazine) – DEAR ANNIE: I work in a petrochemical manufacturing facility. About two years ago, an employee who has a very incendiary personality was fired for sleeping on the job. This person had threatened about three-quarters of the 42 employees who work in this unit. Now we have heard that this employee has won his arbitration case and will be coming back. We are all scared of this man, who has done drugs and owns several guns. What can we do to prepare for his return? STEVE

DEAR STEVE: Your letter alarmed me, as you know (because I answered you right away, privately). But because it arrived here in mid-July, about two weeks before Mark Burton shot 22 people (killing nine) in a day-trading office in Atlanta--and three weeks before a "copycat" office gunfire rampage in Alabama that killed three--I admit I saw yours as an isolated situation. Was I wrong. The research I've done since has convinced me that workplace violence (not always fatal, but always terrible) is not, and has never been, rare. It's just gotten a little more deadly lately--especially in some parts of the country, and particularly in the kind of facility where you work. No wonder you are frightened. Who wouldn't be?

And here's the truly scary part: Legally, you are entitled to a safe workplace. Practically, there are no guarantees. The best your employer can do is to have a policy in place that is clear and consistent, and that (theoretically anyway) provides an early-warning system for addressing threats of violence. "We are even getting down to the level of 'funny' remarks that people make, like 'If I get laid off, I'll start shooting,' " says Mark Braverman, head of CMG Associates in Newton, Mass. Braverman has a Ph.D. in psychology and has done antiviolence consulting work (or post-violence counseling) for American Express, Compaq, Du Pont, and the U.S. Postal Service. "Companies are just now starting to treat this the way airports treat 'jokes' about bombs. That is to say, zero tolerance." I suspect that your company has no such policy. If it did, you wouldn't be writing to me.

Go to your boss, and his or her boss' boss, and the union people, and strongly suggest--without naming names just yet--that it would be in both the company's and the union's best interests to come up with a plan for dealing with people who seem dangerous. Braverman wrote a wonderfully concise and thoughtful book you may want to take with you, Preventing Workplace Violence: A Guide for Employers and Practitioners (Sage Publications: $35 hardcover, $16.95 paperback). The book is about what really works and what doesn't--including how to tell whether someone is dangerous or just weird. Here's a hint: Many "experts" rely on profiles of the typical murderous guy. Profiles are a tidy idea, but they are notoriously--sometimes embarrassingly--unreliable. Just look at Richard Jewell, accused by the FBI of the Atlanta Olympics bombing. He seemed to fit the standard profile. Just one pesky little fact: He didn't do it.

Which only points up the fundamental problem: how unpredictable human beings--especially sociopathic ones--have always been. No one is saying this stuff is easy. But let me say this one more time, because it is really, really important: Your company, and the union, owe it to you to have systems in place to prevent what can be prevented. Or as Braverman puts it, "This is like any other workplace safety issue. If there were a toxic gas leak, would the company want you to report it? Or would everyone just tiptoe around quietly and hope that it would go away?"

DEAR ANNIE: I am an honors graduate of a good school (pre-med), and I want to be a surgeon. But my friends tell me it's not a good career, because you spend so much time in medical school and sink so much into starting a practice, etc., that there is no money in it. Is this true? What is the average income of a surgeon? TO BE OR NOT TO BE

DEAR TBNB: The American Medical Association reports that the average surgeon in the U.S. now earns $225,000 a year. (This is well above the average income of all physicians, at $160,000, but a little below radiologists, the highest paid at $230,000.) But, honey, may I be frank? If your question reflects your attitude toward your chosen profession, I hope to God you never operate on me or anyone I love. Not even my dog. Especially not.