Quick story regarding "Going Postal"... one of my cousins immigrated to America about 15 years ago, held down all kinds of great jobs like dockworker, construction worker, ditch digger, bouncer, and for a little while, mailman. (Now he's got some office desk job.) I asked him once at a family function if he ever felt like "going postal" when he worked for the USPS. He honestly had never heard the term before, I guess it wasn't in common usage inside the back rooms. "What does it mean?" "You know, like all those mailmen who go nuts and shoot up the post office. It's happened a bunch of times, hence the phrase, 'Going Postal.'" "No, never heard anything like that, but I can see it... I would have loved to shoot my ********ing bosses."
I work across the street from one of the biggest Post Offices on the east coast. I'm kind of surprised no one's opened up there yet but they locked the place down and made us close on 9/11 (supposedly they have some FBI offices in there too) And oh yeah, traffic around here every April 15th sucks ass too because of it.
Indeed. These 'swing' carriers do five different routes every week, and are expected to know as much as the regular carrier for those five routes. When I carried the mail, I never really was able to figure out if those people got some benefit or had some status, or were just people who wanted to avoid walking the same pattern for their entire lives. The whole Going Postal thing is such a cliche. When's the last time a mailman shot up something? Shooting their boss is the dream of many people, as gets shown in this country on a regular basis. After that incident in LA, we could rename it Going Kaiser Permanente.
I never thought it was mail carriers who "went postal" but the dudes in the mail sorting jobs. High pressure, little pay, ungrateful bosses interested in only production unit numbers, wondering why you can't keep up with the machines. Like many other kinds of environments (sweatshops or textile plants come immediately to mind).
That's probably true, but I was considering all the employees equally. Although sorting is a strange job, I still don't think it causes anyone to be any more likely than anyone else to snap. The last post office related shooting I can remember actually happened in the very same town I worked in, although at a different facility. Some nutty racist lady a few years ago. If there is a higher incidence of postal workers involved in these shootings (and I think I read somewhere once that there wasn't), it would more likely be because the Postal Service tends to attract odd people. But, you know, around the same time a couple I had worked for were shotgunned to death by their teenage son. So maybe it should be "Going Prep Academy".
I think it's sort of like the phrase "jump the shark," even though the actual events "going postal" is based on happened years ago, as far as I can remember those were the first really prominent shootings of that kind, just as Fonzie's great leap set the standard for all shark-jumps to come. Except for maybe that killing spree in McDonald's back in the 80's, but "going McDonald's" just doesn't have the same ring.
I think the term got coined when it happened in two post offices in a short span of time - you know how "the media" is, they latch onto something that can be given a cute, short, easy-to-remember name and graphics more than they do details and facts sometimes The same folks who invented "road rage", and "the post-9/11 world" (wait, maybe that was the Bush administration, but the media ate that shit up, it was made for them).
Yeah, I know. I'm not sensitive about it, although I do get tired of getting the same response every single time I tell someone I was a postal carrier. David Sedaris has a great bit in one of his essays about how in the end, we all think to make the exact same jokes, ending with "All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints."
The Huberty massacre happened in my hometown. I'm actually going to drive by that place tonight, the McDonald's is gone and it's now a community college.
That's the one. This whole area is now one major cluster****. But I think it'll be nice once the renovation is over.
Not really, I'm familiar with most of the islands, and they all are pretty much the same. Tergudos are the worst of them all.
The Central Islands are where it's at. Except for one of them. I can never remember if its Graciosa or Faial that's the loser island. I think it's Graciosa. Anyway, São Jorge FTW.
He's also kind of snotty. I mean, yeah, he brings the pretty but I don't think he's a super nice guy. He submitted to taking photos with me and one of the interns here who has worshipped him since childhood but you could tell he was only doing it to be polite and not because he wanted to.
That's disappointing. And considering that he's likely to be the "face" of a brand new team, it's also kind of odd. You'd think he'd be a tad bit more attuned to the need for good PR while getting this thing off the ground.
I'm sure he does what he has to do. He did take pictures with us and said all the right things in the right places. Bad PR would have been to refuse to take pictures; after all, this was a completely non-soccer related social event (our office Christmas luncheon) so he wasn't obligated to do it. I don't know. Maybe I'm projecting my feelings about my boss onto him unfairly, but I'm not the first person to think he's kinda stuck-up.
Those companies should just adjust their work hours to match mail delivery. IMO, 6-day service dates back to when many offices were open on Saturday. That's rare now. How do rural areas "depend" on 6-day mail service, or even regular mail service at all? As far as I'm concerned, the PO could reduce home delivery even further. If I got mail twice weekly, that would be enough. Anyone who wants daily delivery should rent a PO box & go pick it up themselves. In this cellphone, email, automatic-pay, on-line banking world, daily mail is an anachronism. Who wants to pose for lots of photos with people they don't even know? You're lucky he was polite! The only thing more stupid is autographs.
Well, you shouldn't go that far! Now, if he was giving you his room or cell-phone number, I could see you providing the pen & paper! (Disclaimer: I am not claiming that this certain person is a skirt-chaser or that Alice would follow up on his offer! )
If he did do such a thing I'd have to question his sanity as his wife is about 10 times more attractive than I am. And she was at the luncheon, too.