Talk:Going postal

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I deleted a section. Mike Hunt? Obviously a fake name. Katanas? I'll beleive it when someone else than rotten.com says it.

Ha. Canada invented going postal at least 50 years before =) In October 1934 Rosaire Bilodeau, ex carrier of the Quebec postal service, drove five of his family out in the woods - in two trips - and did away with them. He then took 8 shots at postmaster Morin, senior mail clerk Moise Jolicoeur, and divisional superintendant Oscar Fiset, killing the last. [Family Herald and Weekly Star, 1934 Oct 31, p48] 142.177.170.43 23:35, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC), cleaning house

Another reference: I remember seeing something in a Simpson's comic book where an armed postal worker walks into Moe's bar, sick of all these "disgruntled postal worker" characterizations, and tells everyone to line up against the wall, only to be knocked out by the bathroom door as Barney walks through...

Would the links at the bottom not be better spun off into a separate disambig page? Thryduulf 22:30, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)


This description of "going postal" is surprisingly biased against the numerous alienated workers of the USPS. You even mention a "study" by the USPS management which refutes the obvious fact that something is terribly wrong with the USPS! Unbelieveable. I'm sure my comments here will be promptly deleted. "Going Postal" didn't come out of thin air: the USPS has a notoriously BAD reputation for quasi-militaristic management style of employees. They spy on letter carriers as they do their routes. They verbally abuse temporary employees. Their hierarchical "boot on neck" way of treating workers creates a hostile work environment fostering resentment and alienation. In general, the United States has a hyper-lopsided pro-management bias in its labor laws: if you don't believe me, go work at WalMart--which right now has the largest class action discrimination lawsuit grinding through the courts. The tragic "gone postal" incidents which created this slang term came into being because of an oppressive and unjust work environment in the USPS which exploits workers to the benefit of management. To work in the United States, sadly in general, is to be a wage slave. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.99.205.192 (talk • contribs) 02:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

"I'm sure my comments here will be promptly deleted." As you can see, they weren't. Less martyrdom, please. --24.172.77.138 15:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
If only they'd thought of, well, you know, quitting their job and getting another one! Who knew. --60.46.249.243 04:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I would like the reference to the "Queens Street" massacare noted or removed as this shooting was the result of someone turning up to postal backoffice operations who was not invovled in working there or was ever a postal worker. I would not think this was a case of "going postal", suprising that this hasn't been picked up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.100.230.77 (talk • contribs) . 14:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Clueless?

Anyone have a source for the claim that the film Clueless popularized this phrase? I would have thought it was in currency before 1995. Postdlf 15:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date of term not accurate

My father was a postal worker and a shooting event where he worked took place in the late 70's and the term was being used then... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 164.214.4.62 (talk • contribs) . 19:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking the same, I remember having read some descriptions of people "going postal" in relation to bank robberies and their imminent arrest. E.g. going postal as in "he was going postal when the cops turned up". Anyone else heard of this? I believe it was somewhere in the sixties. --NiklasBr (talk) 12:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Jan 31, 2006 one notable?

Is the Jan 31 shooting notable enough to have its own paragraph? Above it, there's a statement that "Between 1986 and 1997, more than 40 people were killed in more than 20 incidents." To keep things consistent, either at least some of those other 20 incidents should be detailed as well, or the Jan 31, 2006 details should be removed. --Interiot 18:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

It's the latest one, and a relatively large number of people died. When another one occurs, I am sure that the editors who are interested in this article at that time will replace it since this article was tagged with the qualifier "the latest incident". --hitssquad 19:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's one vote for including statistics for all 20 incidents. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.249.16.166 (talk • contribs) . 19:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we should include all the incedents. --WhiteDragon 19:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Where might one find all of these incidents?--ttogreh 21:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
This statement was originally added by Tagishsimon, who cited this web site. GUllman 21:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Make sure each one is cited by CNN or the BBC if you are going to add it to the list. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 22:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see much point to adding information on all of them, but if it is to be done, a table with simple statistics might be most appropriate, with date, location, number of deaths, simple facts like that. I agree with Hitssquad that whatever one is the "latest incident" should be treated as at present. The "latest incident" is why I happened to look up this article, as I'm sure is true for many other people. However, this "latest incident" will just be another statistic when a new "latest incident" comes along and so will no longer deserve such coverage. Postdlf 00:32, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This might stir the pot a bit, I'm sorry but I'd like to know

I read many years ago that one of the reasons there was a higher incidence of workplace shootings at the USPO was that being a governmental agency, they had instituted a policy of giving war veterans preference when hiring and that a number of those hires suffered from Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome, and that this was one of the reasons they would flip out and kill like that. Urban legend, myth? I have no idea. Of course one way to verify that would be to check if most of the killers were in fact war veterans. Progman3K 08:24, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not that prevalent

While it is popular think that workplace violence is more prevalent among Postal workers, take a look at the numbers. The USPS employs 700,000 people. [1] Among all of these employees, there are a couple homocides per year on average. However, in the US there are over 1,000 work place deaths per year. [2] Can someone show there is a real relationship here? 69.106.245.242 23:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I wanted to bring this point up but in reverse. The section critical of the amount of postal workers going postal shows that only a very few postal workers die each year compared to a larger amount of taxi drives. But taxi drivers are presumably more likely to be killed by their customers, and so that statistic has nothing to do with 'going postal' which is of course the process of an employee or ex-employee committing homicide on their fellow employees. You say above that there are over 1,000 work place deaths per year but they don't necessarily have a relationship to 'going postal'. they may be the result of accidents, or murder by customers and clients. Anyway, to get to my point, I think the reference citing the amount of deaths per thousand in postal worker, retail, and taxi drivers should be removed because it doesn't actually shed any light on the process of 'going postal'. Maybe other people have taken responsibility for this page, so I will let them decide whether my advice should be taken or not. 195.92.67.71 18:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The phrase "going postal" refers to postal workers 'killing people,' not the likihood of being killed on the job. Saying "postal workers are less likely to be killed" does not support the claim "postal workers are less likely to multiple homicides." I smell a PR job by someone (the USPO?) being mindlessly repeated. None of the supposed 'refutations' that I've read actually refute the assertion in question. --Ryan Wise 07:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the two comments above that the statistics in the section titled "Analysis" is not appropriate for this article. Most likely the retail clerks or taxi drivers were killed during robbery attempts, the police officers were killed in the line of duty etc. So the section "Analysis" can only tell you how likely you will get killed, not how likely you will "go postal" based on where you work. Those numbers only show the stats w.r.t. to the victims, not the killers. The title of this article is all about the state of mind of the killers. Unless the victims in those stats were killed during a "going postal" incident, those stats does not fit this context. On the other hand, it would be informative to adjust these stats to show "coworker killings" in different kinds of workplaces. I have a feeling that "Post Office" would surface to the top or else the term "Going Postal" would be really misleading. To me, this analysis section actually becomes a red herring because now no one will really research into why there were so many shootings in Post Offices. Kowloonese 00:28, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I am the writer of the comment farther to the top of this page about "Going Postal is surprisingly biased..." I finally registered. Anyways I only came back to this page because I am amazed that only weeks after my above posting about the awful state of the USPS employee situation, ANOTHER "going postal" incident has happened in Goleta, California! To all those contributing to this section of Wiki taking a contrary position to mine: what can I say but (with much remorse and sadness for the victims and their families in Goleta) 'I told you so'. Not going to say anything else out of respect for the dead and wounded from this last USPS massacre. Clearly there is something terribly wrong with USPS and the way it handles it's employees. Period.

Don't know about generalities myself, maybe there is a systemic issue at USPS, but Thomas McIlvane had some serious problems of his own, according to Errol Morris' interview on the subject in his interview series "First Person" (episode titled "the Stalker")... apparently McIlvane was kicked out of the Marines for threatening a superior, and had threatened the life of his manager at USPS repeatedly in the months leading up to the shootings. His manager had filed several police reports but nothing was done due to lack of evidence, until after the shootings... so maybe the work environment contributed, but there was more to it than that. -Fennel 05:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your input. All of the postal workers that I meet at the post office or on the street seem to be very friendly and well balanced. Having said that, I'd like to mention another factor that might be coming into play. Perhaps some of the people who are attracted to postal service employment are those who are highly intelligent but lacking in "people skills". This could be a problem if they worked as managers as well. Just a theory. Steve Dufour 01:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I have a theory, but some researchers really have to explore further to prove it. In many workplaces, the working condition is not necessarily ideal. People think about leaving for a better and more stable job, or some may be laid off when financial condition of the company changes. These people don't have a strong attachment to their jobs either they don't like the job or the job have never offered any security to begin with. However, the situtation for the Postal workers is the opposite. The Post Office is an ideal workplace for many people. Good benefit, stable job and relatively less demanding in term of skills. Some people want to spend their whole life in such dream workplace and become very attached. Regardless of how ideal the workplace is, inter-personal relations are hard to control. What if you want to work there till you retire, but your boss is a jerk and he tortures you everyday or threaten to fire your? Or what if you are a little crazy to begin with and your fellow workers are scared of you but yet they want to keep their dream jobs so they start to ignore and isolate you and that drives you crazier? The fear of losing a dream job can be extremely stressful and may explain why these people return with a gun to deal with those who jeapardized their job. The same state of mind can be found in all industry, but the fact that some people feel more "attached" to their jobs make the stress strong enough to push over the edge. Kowloonese 00:53, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] language

what, not one mention of the word disgruntled? —Tamfang 16:09, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reaganomics

A recent article on AlterNet [3] claimed that Reaganomics helped cause these shootings. -- LGagnon 20:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Video Game

Anyone feel like adding a bit on the video game, Postal?


[edit] Konvix?

Is the section about the members of the rap group killing 300 police officers anything other than garbage?

I can't find anything to back up the existence of such a group.

[edit] delete Montclair 1995?

This is about a robbery, not a postal worker flipping out. Is there any reason to keep it? KarlM 05:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so, better remove it. Muad 10:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Son of Sam

According to this from Time.com - Son of Sam was a Postal worker - surely this deserves a mention - even if just to debunk a connection??--Macca7174 14:12, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I just want to let anyone who reads this know that as the daughter of a postal employee who was involved in the Royal Oak Post Office shooting that the term "going postal" is a very ignorant and hurtful word to refer to any Postal worker as. These are people who work for the government and every day work their asses off for the citizens of this country making sure you get your damn mail on time. It may not seem like a big job to people and too many people are disrespectful of this job. "Going postal" is just extremely disrespectful and IGNORANT, this word should not be in any search as far as I'm concerned.

[edit] store named Goin' Postal

There is no mention of the franchise "Goin' Postal" based out of Zephyrhills, Florida which opened in 2002. In my opinion, this name is in extremely poor and probably uneducated taste. http://www.goinpostal.com

Geraanne 23:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2 Stupid Dogs (90s cartoon)

I don't remember the exact episode, but there was one scene where a postal worker threatens to blow up a post office with an a-bomb.

[edit] USPS shooters: veterans?

I am thinking that the USPS Postal Service gives preferential slection toward hiring military veterans (and I am also here acknowledging that these "going postal" employees are an extremely small percentage of the overall USPS workforce) --- do any of the bios of these postal shooters reveal any information about veterans status?15:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First postal shooting...

According to this article [4] the first shooting occurred in 1983. As well as a second that same year and a third the year after. That accounts for THREE shootings prior to the ones listed in this Wikipedia article. 71.114.75.194 05:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Patricksherrill.jpg

Image:Patricksherrill.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 19:22, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] vandalism

the phrase "of course he could have been framed by the cia" or something to that effect seems like vandalism...anyone wannna remove it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.185.67.41 (talk) 17:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)