Going postal

Wiktionary: go postal – Bedeutungserklärungen, Wortherkunft, Synonyme, Übersetzungen

Datei:1986-post-office-killing-spree-statue.jpg

Memorial of the 1986 post office incident in Edmond, Oklahoma.

Going postal is an American English slang term, used as a verb meaning to suddenly become extremely and uncontrollably angry, possibly to the point of violence and in a workplace environment. The term derives from a series of incidents from 1983 onward in which United States Postal Service (USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, and members of the police or general public. Between 1986 and 1997, more than 40 people were killed in at least 20 incidents of workplace rage. Following this series of events, the idiom entered common parlance and has been applied to murders committed by employees in acts of workplace rage, irrespective of the employer; and generally to describe fits of rage, though not necessarily at the level of murder, in or outside the workplace.

Earliest citation

This term first appeared in print on December 17, 1993 in the St. Petersburg Times.

"The symposium was sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service, which has seen so many outbursts that in some circles excessive stress is known as 'going postal.' Thirty-five people have been killed in 11 post office shootings since 1983." Some USPS workers do not approve of the term "going postal" and have made attempts to stop people from using the saying. Others feel it has earned its place appropriately.

Notable postal shootings

Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986

On August 20, 1986, 14 employees were shot and killed and six wounded at the Edmond, Oklahoma, post office by a postman, Patrick Sherrill, who then committed suicide with a shot to the forehead.

Ridgewood, New Jersey in 1991

On October 10, 1991, Joseph Harris shot and killed four people, including his former boss and two other USPS employees a year after being fired.

Royal Oak, Michigan in 1991

On November 14, 1991 in Royal Oak, Michigan, Thomas McIlvane killed five people, including himself, with a Ruger 10/22 rifle in Royal Oak's post office, after being fired from the Postal Service for "insubordination." He had been previously suspended for getting into altercations with postal customers on his route.

Double event in 1993

Two shootings took place on the same day, May 6, 1993, a few hours apart. At a post office in Dearborn, Michigan, Lawrence Jasion wounded three and killed two (including himself). In Dana Point, California, Mark Richard Hilburn killed his mother, then shot two postal workers dead.Vorlage:Fact

As a result of these two shooting, in 1993 the Postal Service created 85 Workplace Environment Analysts for domicile at its 85 postal districts. These new positions were created to help with violence prevention and workplace improvement. In February 2009, the Postal Service unilaterally eliminated these positions as part of its downsizing efforts.( Footnote: Musacco, Stephen (2009). Beyond going postal: Shifting from workplace tragedies and toxic workplace environments to a safe and healthy organization. Booksurge.)

Goleta, California, in 2006

Jennifer San Marco, a former postal employee, killed six postal employees before committing suicide with a handgun, on the evening of January 30, 2006, at a large postal processing facility in Goleta, California.

Police later also identified a seventh victim dead in a condominium complex in Goleta, California where San Marco once lived.

According to media reports, the Postal Service had forced San Marco to retire in 2003 because of her worsening mental problems. Her choice of victims may have also been racially motivated; San Marco had a previous history of racial prejudice, and tried to obtain a business license for a newspaper of her own ideas, called The Racist Press, in New Mexico.

This incident is believed to be the deadliest workplace shooting ever carried out in the United States by a woman.

Baker City, Oregon, in 2006

Grant Gallaher, current employee and letter carrier of thirteen years, while on duty as a letter carrier in Baker City, Oregon, reportedly went home and got his .357 Magnum revolver and drove to the city post office with the intention of killing his postmaster. Arriving at the parking lot, he reportedly ran over his supervisor several times. Subsequently he went into the post office looking for his postmaster. Not finding the postmaster, he went back out to the parking lot and shot his supervisor several times at close range, ostensibly to make sure she was dead. He then reportedly fired several more bullets into the supervisor's car.

Grant Gallaher reportedly was on a new route for three weeks and had felt pressured by a week-long work-time study and an extra twenty minutes added to his new route. On the day of his rampage, he reportedly was ahead of schedule on his route and his supervisor brought him more mail to deliver. He allegedly decided to take the matter up with his postmaster on his cell phone and then went home to get his .357 Magnum revolver to exact his revenge. The work climate had reportedly improved from what it was in 1998, the year a union steward, age fifty-three, at the Baker City post office committed suicide.

This act of workplace violence by Grant Gallaher connotes what the notion of "going postal" is meant to exemplify by its use in the popular media, that is, a verb meaning to suddenly become extremely and uncontrollably angry, possibly to the point of violence.

Analysis

Researchers have found that the homicide rates per 100,000 workers at postal facilities were lower than at other workplaces. In major industries, the highest rate of 2.1 homicides per 100,000 workers was in retail. The next highest rate of 1.66 was in public administration, which includes police officers. The homicide rate for postal workers was 0.26 per 100,000. The most dangerous occupation: taxi driving, with a homicide rate of 31.54 per 100,000 workers.Vorlage:Fact

However, not all murders on the job are directly comparable to "going postal". Taxi drivers, for example, are much more likely to be murdered by passengers than by their peers. Working in retail means one is exposed to store robberies. In a 1993 joint hearing of the United States Congress in its review of violence in the U.S. Postal Service, NIOSH estimates were cited as part of the record for the 1980s where it is noted that during this timeframe 13 percent of the employee-directed homicides occurred at postal facilities by current or former employees, where less than three-quarters of 1 percent of the total full-time civilian labor force was employed (Musacco, 2009).

Going postal and disgruntled postal employees in popular culture

• In the 1995 film Jumanji, the gun salesman asks "You're not a postal worker, are you" to Van Pelt (Jonathan Hyde) when he attempts to seek a replacement weapon for an assassination mission.
• In the 1996 film Jingle All The Way, Myron (Sinbad) constantly complains about racism and having bad christmases, and that he was "fired" from being a postal employee although he was taking a break. He ranted about homemade bombs in mail as a way to be defiant to the cops at the radio station when he and Howard (Arnold Schwarzenegger) were on a mission to find a Turbo Man doll.
• Postal, a 3rd person shooter from the 90s.
• A disgruntled postal employee fugitive is a side mission in True Crime: Streets of LA.
• Postal, a violent movie adaptation of "Going Postal".
• British fantasy author, Terry Pratchett titled his 29th 'Discworld' novel (2004) "Going Postal".
• In Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, The heroes go searching for weapons and find a large cache of grenades and guns, but no bullets in the room of Wally Enfield (Charles Fleischer) a recently fired postal worker.
• In an episode of CatDog, Dog says "Let's get postal!" before carrying out a plan to ambush his mailman.
• In an Episode of The Simpsons, Ned Flanders fires upon a Mailman during a Dream Sequence, the Mail man then removes his own gun from the mailbag and fires back.

See also

• Amok
• List of massacres
• Road rage
• Spree killer

References

Vorlage:Reflist 9. Bob Dart, "'Going postal' is a bad rap for mail carriers, study finds", Austin American-Statesman, September 2, 2000, p. A28.

10. Stephen Musacco (2009)..."the notion of 'going postal' as a myth is not supported by the overwhelming evidence to the contrary" (p. 34). Beyond Going Postal: Shifting from workplace tragedies and toxic workplace environments to a safe and healthy organization.

Further reading

• "Beyond Going Postal: Shifting from workplace tragedies and toxic workplace environments to a safe and healthy organization" is the title of a book by [Stephen Musacco, Ph.D.], which examines the paramilitary, authoritarian postal culture and its relationship to toxic workplace environments and postal tragedies.[[1]]
• Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond is the title of a book by Mark Ames, which examines the rise of office and school shootings in the wake of the Reagan Revolution, and compares the shootings to slave rebellions (ISBN 1-932360-82-4).
• Going Postal is also the title of a book by Don Lasseter, which examines the issue of workplace shootings inside the USPS (ISBN 0-7860-0439-8).
• Lone Wolf, by Pan Pantziarka is a comprehensive study of the spree killer phenomenon, and looks in detail at a number of cases in the U.S., UK and Australia. (ISBN 0-7535-0437-5).

External links

• Copycat Effect- review of Coleman's book on tendency of publicity about mass deaths to provoke more with section on postal shootings
• Gun advocate website listing 1986-1997 incidents
• 2000 Report of the United States Postal Service Commission on a Safe and Secure Workplace (Report that called "going postal" 'a myth')
• Open Letter to the United States Congress outlining the critical need for reform of the authoritarian postal culture via Congressional intervention and legislation. (Musacco, 2009). (Chapter 11 of book Beyond Going Postal Note: In chapter 4: fallacies, omissions, and inaccurate conclusions in the 2000 Report of the United States Service Commission on a Safe and Secure Workplace were examined.
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the report's release