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, often to the point of violence and in a workplace environment. The term gained popularity after the 1995 movie Clueless. It 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. The phrase has been applied to murders committed by employees in acts of workplace rage, irrespective of the employer. It's generally used to describe fits of rage, though not necessarily at the level of murder, in or outside the workplace.

Origin

The earliest citation is December 17, 1993 in the St. Petersburg Times: Vorlage:Cquote

December 31, 1993 in Los Angeles Times: Vorlage:Cquote

By 1994 the term was reportedly being used as an Internet euphemism or slang for "losing it." The term gained popularity due to the movie Clueless (1995) by Amy Heckerling.

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

The U.S. post office in Royal Oak

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:Citation needed

As a result of these two shootings, 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.

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.

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:Citation needed

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.

Depictions 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 putting homemade bombs in the 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.
• In episode 4 "The Birth", of the 1996 first-person shooter video game Duke Nukem 3D, Level 6 is called "Going Postal". It takes place in a post office and when Duke enters the counter area, he says "Looks like it's time for me to go postal!". The level is modeled after a real post office at 501 East Oates Rd., Garland, Texas.
• Postal, a 3rd person shooter video game from the 1990s. A film adaptation, also called Postal was developed.
• A disgruntled postal employee fugitive is a side mission in the video game True Crime: Streets of LA.
• 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 the animated television series CatDog, Dog says "Let's get postal!" before carrying out a plan to ambush his mailman.
• Detective Frank Drebin must face down armed 'disgruntled postal workers' as part of the opening sequence to the comedy film, Naked Gun 33 1/3.
• In "Homer Loves Flanders", an episode of the animated television series The Simpsons, when Ned Flanders fires a gun upon a mailman during a dream sequence, the mailman removes his own gun from the mailbag and fires back. In another episode, Sunday, Cruddy Sunday, Nelson Muntz asks a mailman if he has ever gone on a shooting spree.
• In the Dilbert episode "Ethics", when the World's Smartest Garbageman introduces Dilbert to the reanimated Ben Franklin to help solve an ethical dilema he is having, one of the facts about the Postal Service Dilbert cites that are contrary to Franklin's vision for the service (accidentally causing Franklin to die again, though the Garbageman brings him back) is that "the term 'going postal' refers to losing your mind, going crazy, and opening fire on large groups of innocent people".
• Going Postal is the 33rd Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett.
• In an episode of the animated television series Rocko's Modern Life, while Rocko is riding in a crowded subway car, a postman mentions he has been feeling disgruntled ever since he got laid off. When the other passengers quickly vacate the car, the postman reveals he did it simply for "swinging room" when he starts playing on the handles.
• In the Seinfeld episode "The Old Man", Newman says that he is a postal worker, to which George asks, "Aren't those the guys that always go crazy and come back with a gun and shoot everybody?" Newman replies, "Sometimes..."
• In the video game Saints Row 2, there's a COPS inspired mini-game called FUZZ. One of the tasks is to bring down a maniac postal worker. He looks like Gucci Mane.

See also

• Amok
• Fragging
• 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).
• Going Postal is also the title of the 29th book of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett (ISBN 0552149438).

External links

• Postal Work Unfairly Maligned, Study Says, September 1, 2000.
• Aug. 20, 1986: Just an ordinary day, August 19, 2006
• 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')
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the report's release
• 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, especially the conclusion that "going postal was a myth, a bad rap".