NEWS: Postal Worker Goes Postal

CULTURE: Postal Worker Goes Postal

I don't understand why this seems to happen so often, but sure enough, it has happened yet again.

What is it about the postal service that causes these people to decide to open fire on the other people who work there?

Why doesn't this happen with the same frequency at say insurance companies or car dealerships? I seriously have never understood this.

I actually have a fine postal worker serving my road. I was going to leave her a card and some money for the holidays. The problem was that in light of what we really appreciate about her is her care with the many large boxes that come for me, I was going to write "Thank you for dealing so well with our huge packages!" Thank goodness I took a second look at what I wrote before I left it there. Is it a federal crime to sexually harrass a postal worker?

Last year I was visiting PresidentNumber2 in New York, and in my entire week there the weather was miserable. It was never not raining, and freezing vile horrible get-out-while-you-can rain too. While walking to the closest diner from her house for breakfast – and hating every minute of it – I noticed a postal worker walking down the street, going up the stairs of every house, putting in their mail in the slot, then going down to the next house.

I then realized that he probably had to do this for hours every day for that entire wretched week. Being from Florida, the whole "through rain, sleet, or snow" line never really came to life for me until that moment. I know it's overall a pretty good job with great benefits, but I don't begrudge what they have to do.

And yes, I understand the same goes for garbage men and any other profession that requires some kind of hard labor.

It's all the damn areacodes!!! NUMBERS!!! ALL I SEE ARE NUMBERS!!!!!!!!!

The "through rain, sleet, or snow" thing is bullshit. Mabey they go through rain but if it is snowing they won't go out. Also there are lots of other jobs that are stuck out side like construction works or cops.

I personally think that we only think there is a higher number of workplace shooting with postal workers. I would bet if you did a study that you would find that it is just like any other job.

well, working in the Logistics industry and dealing with the USPS for postal verification on a daily basis has shown me a couple things...

some postal clerks are easy going, good, human beings. Others are hall monitors that are old enough to know they are governing rules that no-one will ever care to remember...

I think most jobs are like this.... when the next civilization looks back on us I think it will look at our excel spreadsheets and out Standard Operation Procedures, and speculate how it was possible for us to document every action in acute detail or report such insignificant information without devoting our entire lives to it... which we do most the time, unless of course our entire lives weren’t fit to do such pointless, inevitably forgotten tasks and we were told we were no longer needed, and then we may loose our minds and start shooting our co-workers...

Nevertheless, killing? What the heck is that about? Those poor assholes are still working there… you aren’t, you should go to the beach… not loose your mind and murder.

My first reaction to the story was, "Was she good looking?" That's my reaction to just about every story about someone I'm not already familiar with.

It's a very high stress job.

Think about how upset you would get if you had something important in the mail that didn't come, and then think of you and the 200 other houses all being mad. There's not a lot of room for error.

Plus, vacations aside you work 6 days a week.

Being from somewhere that it actually snows, I can tell you with 100% certainty that my mail gets delivered if it snows.

[Edited on Jan 31, 2006 by PointBlank]

Being from somewhere that it actually snows, I can tell you with 100% certainty that my mail gets delivered if it snows.

[Edited on Jan 31, 2006 by PointBlank]


Totally. My mail dude shows up on time in all weather up to and including blizzards. So saying that the "rain, sleet, or snow thing" is bullshit is actually, uh, complete bullshit.

Same goes for my UPS guy. I know it's not the same same, but it's sorta the same.

Edited to say: I lost all the quote thingies. Sorry.

[Edited on Jan 31, 2006 by skooter]

For real, I want ideas on why these people go all wacky and start shooting people.

There are a lot of high-stress/low-recognition jobs out there, but it really seems that maybe eight times out of ten when something like this happens it's a post office thing.

It surely can't be because they have to walk in the snow.

[Edited on Jan 31, 2006 by crispy]

If I'm not mistaken, it's not usually the postal deliverers who kill their co-workers, but it's the postal workers who work in the sorting offices. Am i wrong?

That's the impression I've always gotten.

To quote Newman: "It's because the mail never stops"

I think a key piece of information is that the Post Office was in Goleta, CA. If I was a Postal Worker trying to make a living in an area where the median house price is $500,000, I'd probably wanna knock off a few people too.

yeah, goleta's way boring, too.

I'm surprised it doesn't happen in retail. In fact, i'm surprised it hasn't happened to me yet.

Its all the walking around and shit

Great fucking bike paths, though.

Oh phooey.

[Edited on Jan 31, 2006 by Idjiit]

It's because you have to throw the letters in their little slots so fast, and the machine keeps bringing them, and you can't just eat the extras like Lucy with chocolates because the supervisor is watching.

You never hear of somebody working in McDonalds turn around and kill there own co workers ??!!

I seriously think that part of the reason why mail carriers go nuts is because there's never a sense of completion. In just about every job there are little missions you give yourself, you accomplish them, you feel good and you move on. You have a program to write, or a presentation to prepare, or you deal with a crazy suspect. Afterwards you get some downtime to pat yourself on the back and say, "well, glad that's done, whew." You feel like you've accomplished something.

This isn't the case with the post office. No matter how well they do their job one day, there's just as much shit waiting to go out the next. There's no stop to it. There's no downtime. They can't work really hard one day and then slack off the next. The constant plodding never ending slog of it all drives them NUTS. That's my theory.