Pan is a poly(A)‐specific 3′ exoribonuclease that, together with the CCR 4‐ NOT complex, is responsible for initiating and controlling mRNA decay by degradation of the poly(A) tail. Now, more than twenty years after the enzyme's discovery, a surge of recent papers, including one in this issue of The EMBO Journal (Wolf et al , ) has revealed details of its unusual asymmetric structure and aspects of its mode of substrate binding.