The Dark and Gruesome Origins of Going Postal
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 พ.ค. 2022
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I remember episode of The Simpsons when Ned Flanders had a dream that he got on top of a tower with a sniper rifle and started shooting and a postal worker pulled out his machine gun and started shooting back.
That was a reference to the Whitman shooting at the University of Texas.
@@Bacopa68 yeah when I was stationed down at Fort Hood when I was in the army, if you go to that tower you can still see bullet holes.
@@Bacopa68 He had a tumor in his brain that they found & they think that was what caused his insanity etc.
@@ClickClack_Bam so did he, the gunman said so in a suicide letter.
@@grapeshot atta girl
A postal official in the early 90’s explained to me one additional fact you failed to mention. The USPS had preferential hiring of ex military people. This meant that in the late 80’s postal managers were largely Vietnam era vets with a military style of management- while most of the workers of the time were non military. In an organization as large as the USPS that combination was bound to play out badly.
That IS a fascinating element, thanks for sharing it. And I know it's at least feasibly true because to this day if you fill out an application for (any) federal job it asks if you have any military background, like they are still hired preferentially. I don't have any beef with that because lord knows vets don't get much of a 'benefits package' in return for their service, but one would hope people with potential PTSD and used to chains of command very different from civilian work life would be well-screened before hiring.
@@audreymuzingo933 uh, One Would hope ... But the Punitive, aggressive, "Shareholders FIRST", "Money-At-ALL-Costs" attitude of Corporate America makes me wonder if Postal Workers will start "Going Postal" all over again.
I mean, I TRULY hope not, but I don't hold out much hope. Considering the US has a so-called "Minimum Wage" that's more like a Slave Wage & Serving/Waiting jobs where you are Actually expected to work FULL-TIME for TIPS ONLY (which is ACTUAL Slavery, in my opinion), things are just going from bad to much, much worse.
BTW, For anyone who thinks that's too much, work for TIPS only in the USA began, following the US Civil War, when so-called "Freed" Slaves were offered jobs on Trains, serving meals - for TIPS ONLY.
I guess the thought was, Oh well, at least you get a bed on the train?!!
- Nice. Very evolved. And it's only getting better ... I mean worse! 👎❌
This is true. I was going to say this. I was friends with a lot of guys who were desperate to get out of the horror of the war in Vietnam, and discovered they could get out early, and continue working at the post office to finish out their service at the post office. And friend, I know they were some sketchy people from their service. When the first guy made the news going postal, I wondered...
A lot of police are also ex-military, and while there is still a chain-of-command style of leadership, they often lack the discipline and accountability of the military.
That's interesting to know. Unfortunately, so many of those marine corps vets also had Agent Orange poisoning, along with toxic water exposures at Camp Lejeune. With neurotoxic exposures and resulting damages, the effects are cumulative, additive, and synergistic. The neurotoxic effects of poisons are VERY well documented scientifically. One exposure is all it takes to "set off" a vulnerable person.
Perhaps selecting former military is INTENTIONAL? That way we can label them as "bad people", rather than the POISONS, military industrial warmongering complex, greedy, evil corporate and govt cronies, and head traumas (TBI's), that messed them up! WITH EMOTIONAL DAMAGE, TO BOOT! WHY CARE ABOUT OTHERS WHEN NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOU?! Our veterans and their toxic-damaged children, are to be callously discarded, lied about, incarcerated, and made/left to die by "the system".
President Obama had signed a bill while in office, for the surviving children of the marines' toxic water exposure damages to get help with the resulting health damages. Think the greedy western med evil rulers want THAT?! There is NO help for that from the western med paradigm of "poison for profit"! Think poisoning with big pharma drugs is the best treatment, for what was CAUSED by OTHER poisons?! (Makes about as much sense as chemotherapy poisoning for cancer caused by a poison, right?!) Think Presidents really have a say, are in control over the greedy banks, and are "calling the shots"?! REALLY?!
Unfortunately, the lying medical doctor gate-keepers in the VA system, didn't have to abide by the law. My children have been denied the healing medical care they should have had. My youngest son has to pay for his own testosterone replacement therapy, after the govt destroyed his ability to produce it on his own. He was hit with the endocrine-disrupting-estrogen-mimicking POISON in 2004, with the pesticide experiment. He was only 15 when they "chemically castrated him".
Beginning in 1996, I spent countless of thousands of dollars on alternative therapies on my children and myself, to handle the health damages from toxic military exposures. I am sure those other vets did NOT do the same! Those chemicals not only make a man more feminine, but will also alter brain function, cause "anger/rage issues", and other mental illness "LABELS". YOU CANNOT BEAT THE EVIL SYSTEMS, ABUSE, AND LIARS OF THE GOVT!
My children's father had to blow his brains out, after developing early-onset dementia at the age of 39. My children were ages 8, 6, 4, and 1 1/2. We had NO idea what was happening, only he was "going crazy". There was no help other than his GUN to BLOW HIS BRAINS OUT!
My husband was behind enemy lines in Cambodia when "we were no there". He was in ROTC while in high school, after George Bush, Sr. brought him over here from El Salvador as a teen. He got his citizenship after completing his military service for our country. Then he came home and was spit upon. The atrocities he was a part of, haunted him.
I didn't find out the truth of his experience until several years ago, when reading his military papers with a newly-working brain. Included was a confidentiality agreement. These men go their deaths with the secrets, rather than face the US govt persecution for whistle-blowing. I signed no such agreement and am free to "spill the beans"! His own classmates even had doubted that he had served overseas, and had told me so at his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.
I moved from Maryland to Colorado in 1995. When the govt used us for human guinea pigs for the 2004 pesticide experiment, I met everyone that was harmed and/or was outraged. One of those was a former Army vet from PA, visiting his sister with a horse ranch here. He got REALLY sick from the poisoning, and had been working at the post office. The organophosphate exposure worsened his mild pre-existing chemical sensitivities and sent him "over the edge". (Same as with me!) He was SOOOOO sick from the toxic fumes off-gassing from the mail with ink, dyes, and perfumes, that he could no longer work. Of course, quitting meant he lost his life-time benefits he was to get. He left here in a rage to go back to PA, "out of this fascist state" of Colorado. Think his rage is not well deserved?!
After the 1993 postal shooting, there was an episode of "Rocko's Modern Life" where Rocko is taking the bus and standing next to a character in a postal uniform. That character suddenly says, "You know, ever since I got laid off from the post office, I've been feeling a little . . . . DIsgUntLEd." Everyone immediately flees and the character grabs one of those hand straps and shouts, "Wooo! Now I got some swingin' room!"
As an adult I'm equal parts amused and appalled.
Send me a link to that sceen
@@holymelon8011 I can't find the clip online but I'm pretty sure the episode was "Commuted Sentence."
I found this clip which does show Rocko on a subway standing next to a postal worker who is reading "Psycho Weekly." Unfortunately the clip doesn't show the exact scene I was talking about.
th-cam.com/video/aQUifYBwWNo/w-d-xo.html
@@pompe221 ha damn I liked that x3
I'm glad I'm not the only one that loved Rocko's Modern Life enough to remember the scene when watching this!
Amazing. I need to rewatch Rocko just to see what I missed out on as a kid.
Fallout New Vegas has taught me to never test the sanity of a mailman.
Benny had no idea who he was messing with.
when you walk into The Tops is the moment benny knew he fucked up
I lived in Oklahoma at the time of the Edmond Post Office shooting and actually knew two people who worked there but were not present on the day of the shooting. They both said (paraphrasing) that Sherrill's coworkers didn't deserve his anger but they could understand why he shot his supervisor. That told me a lot about the management style of the USPS.
Me, too. I had just moved there in late May of 1986. You are correct; management there was not nice even to customers. I was married to a letter carriers once. It was not a healthy place to work.
If you go to the USPS subreddit (I follow it because I ship a lot of things and used to receive a lot of things) you can see theirs a lot of asshole supervisors, there are some good ones too but of course people aren’t going to vent about the good ones. Postal workers work their ass off, make sure to treat them well, they deserve their benefits and pay! Give them water and snacks when it’s hot to say thank you!
"It's a shame about the others. Except the supervisor. Fuck that guy"
This person obviously was unstable and no one deserved what he did when he was a horrible person before his employment here.
"I regret nothing."
- Postal Dude
Except the other supervisor who came 1hr late. 😅
FedEx isn't a part of the postal service...but, as a carrier, I can say that, there is a reason why High blood pressure, heart disease, anxiety and depression are rampant In the post office
We have a deal with postal service and they’re still snobby that’s why I can’t walk into the post office wearing my uniform
@@SparklRebel I know, all of the delivery companies have a deal with the po to be the last mile. If your po is snobby to you, you just have a sucky po. Lol. All of our delivery guys come in, use the bathroom, take a break, shoot, when we all bring food in, they get some of that too.
FedEx is garbage
@@aprilvinyard1900 I’m talking about working in the Memphis world hub not being a FedEx delivery driver. They’re snobby about how their mail is dealt with especially the rewraps. There is shit in the damaged postal that could just use a piece of tape or a new label and be placed in a can to get where it needs to go nothing missing at all yet oh no one little rip let’s put our we care bs on it. If you really cared you would let me tape up the damn package and let it get to the customer
@@sciencenate well so is every postal and shipping company out there I got some good google reviews about some petty ass postal workers so FedEx isn’t the only one who throws packages btw
This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry asks Newman why it’s always postal workers that go crazy and go on a shooting spree and Newman said it’s simply because the mail never stops. It’s always coming in and has to go out immediately. Kinda true when you think about it.
It’s not the mail that drives the carriers crazy, it’s the people in charge that do. They can practically act and treat people that are below them as well or as horribly as they please. Some postmasters and supervisors are very biased, too. They both have their favorites, or they form cliques of clerks and/or carriers, who they let do whatever they want. The ones they don’t favor, they practically breathe down their necks, waiting for them to slip up, and give them a reason to yell at, scream at, or simply reprimand them.
I work for a parcel delivery company and i always wondered why we get paid so much, nothing crazy but its certainly much higher than minimum wage. As a warehouse worker i never really felt i was being treated unfairly, however the drivers have a lot more to deal with. You frequently find these guys working 12 hour shifts or more, i can definitely see the need to provide these people with as much financial support as possible. Not only are they the face of the company but they have the largest load to bear, being entirely responsible for the hundreds of packages they deliver every day. It takes a special kind of person, someone who can deal with massive responsibility whilst having a smile on their face. I can only hope that one day ill be able to do the same. Shoutout to all the delivery guys out there, you rock.
Not to mention the risk for other people's lives an overworked driver can pose.
Depending on where you work, you also have to deal with the risk of being carjacked, stuck up, or just murdered.
Watch swift and shift couriers
Watch swift and shift couriers
i think people who lay out food for the drivers should be acknowledge for the good deed and nothing more.
My father was a postal employee for many years, and even became a supervisor at the height of the postal shootings. His last position was in the Ridgewood Post Office not long after the incident there. A few years later, he was on psychiatric disability because of the Post Office. Thankfully, he was self-aware enough to realize that, without professional help, he could become another news story. Just talking about the post office would cause him to feel rage for the rest of his life.
How posh were the Ridgewood, NJ Postal buildings? With as high a tax base as Ridgewood, I would expect some nicer amenities than the Newark P.O.s
@@One.DeSanctis. Never been to a Newark PO, but there was nothing impressive about Ridgewood that I remember. Maybe the lobby floor got an extra mopping once in a while.
Why? What made him so enraged?
@@vitoanania6042 Take your pick... inhumane treatmment, corruption, constant stress, unreasonable demands, toxic management... the list goes on.
As a recently retired USPS letter carrier I honestly can’t believe there haven’t been more instances of employees Going Postal. Since retiring I’ve actually been diagnosed with PTSD due to my years at the USPSand horrible treatment by management there.
Yeahhhhh. No comment. Hope your hurt feelings induced ptsd heals soon.
@@grilledleeks6514 says the guy who listens to game sound tracks
@@leroyadler7756 woah woah cmon now game soundtracks can be exceptionally good
I was a carrier at the Edmond, OK post office and survived the massacre. Management got WORSE afterward. What a horrid place.
@@NorthRoyalton it's just music also you never heard about arcanum soundtrack
I lived in Royal Oak, MI, and ours was one of the post offices that got shot up during my childhood. Hearing this phrase has never failed to bring a shiver down my back and make my arm hair stand up, no matter how desensitized I've become to it...
I lived in Wixom at the time, that's the incident that taught me horrible crime isn't just in big cities on the coast.
Small world guys! I’m in Plymouth!
Lake Orion, Michigan club lol. However I am too young to know about this firsthand
LO! Gang!😎
One of the people wounded was a trainer of mine. We had to go to R.O. for part of it.
She was a nice person and I think she just not a target. Just at work.
“One of my various brothers-in-law was a mailman. He said the expression 'going postal' made perfect sense to him. You spend all day delivering a mountain of letters one at a time. Then you go to work the next morning, and there's a whole new mountain to deal with. And it's forever.”
- David Rossi, Criminal Minds, Season 7: Divining Rod
I mean that's just work. I do construction. You spend all day building something and come in the next day and build some more. Cashiers- you spend all day cashing people out and then come in the next day and there's more people to cash out.
That’s just TV. The mountains of mail isn’t the problem. The problem is the expectation from unreasonable managers/supervisors/postmasters who expect you to put those mountains of mail, magazines, and packages together, and deliver it in 8 hours when it will take you 12. The full-time carriers don’t even get paid overtime until two weeks before Christmas, they get paid evaluation for the rest of the year, so essentially, if it takes them an extra 4 hours to complete their route, they’re working those 4 hours for free. In fact, a lot of carriers often don’t even take a lunch because they just want to get done sooner, plus, some offices will reprimand them for taking a lunch.
A friend of mine was involved in the development of the first "Postal" game, and was the lead producer of the video game. A friend of his came up with the idea, and my friend helped with the original story and mission design. I got to play it before it hit the shelves, and was rather shocked - it was so far from his nice, friendly nature. He did, however, make a lot of money from the games.
Being able to use a cat's butt as a gun suppressor or pee on people is really a highlight. Peeing straight up to where it comes back down into your own mouth was a hilarious thing you could do, if not a bit gross. 🤣
I played it ... it was great ... really good escapest fun !!
Wow, thank him for the memories of sneaking downstairs at a friend's house at a sleepover to play the demo which we definitely were NOT allowed to play. Good times.
Butsause
Loved that game when I was a teenager. I remember playing the demo and asking for the full game for xmas or a birthday and my Dad used to moan about the sound effects being horrible, like wounded people crawling about screaming in agony.
The 1988, Chevy Chase film, "Funny Farm," highlights the frustration of some postal workers who are obligated to extend their workday and duties to deliver mail to homes (or other places) that are in extremely far-flung, remote locations. In the film, the lone postal worker who must make the daily long drive out to the home of the title characters, the "Farmers," is shown to always drive like a mad man up the road, throwing the mail at the Farmer's mailbox as he passes it, while continuing to drive at full speed and letting out a crazed, cackling laugh.
We had a crazy female postal worker who everyone likened to the mailman from Funny Farm. She would floor the accelerator on her postal van flinging rooster tails of dirt and sand as she went from mailbox to mailbox. It was easy to know her route because there was a trench along the road that she had created. If someone's kids made the mistake of approaching the mailbox before she had left she would scream and sometimes chuck the mail at them. You could hear her screaming who knows what in Chinese as she drove down the block.
"oh, your on Crum Petres route. The problem is yer 5 miles off of his route. By the time he gets to your place he's pretty well liquored up and pissed off. My advice.... learn to live with it"
That's also just a movie.
@@supercalifragilistaphobic2146 Then there's the moving guy asking for directions...
" Hey Mack, which way to Red Bud?"
How'd ya know my name is Mack?
"Lucky guess.."
Well you can guess yer way to Red Bud
@@supercalifragilistaphobic2146 I always wondered why that lady was like that. Did she have a mental disorder or was she just overworked and stressed out? They always say life is stranger than fiction. Some of the best books and movies are based on real life.
Should've sign the damn petition
Former postal window clerk, I spent 23 years there, left 6 months after the pandemic began. Nothing has changed. The same atmosphere and attitudes of management, and the unions are useless. If nothing changes, nothing will change. Thank you for the episode Simon, it's a good thing to see such a grim history laid out in its entirety.
Having been a mailman... it's not easy. You get abused, used, insulted, demeaned. I was the best carrier in my office, yet my supervisor treated me like shit and consistently told me I was terrible at my job (never had a single complaint about my service, was always done with my route early, in 2 and a half years never misdelivered a single piece of mail). I quit, but I can definitely say that the Post Office can make otherwise good people go insane.
Not wishing to call bullshit but you probably had 2 years of no complaints rather than 2 years of no misdelivery's.
@@brendanroberts1310 no, not a single misdelivery. I knew every single person on my route, every single house, by heart. I can still tell you every single person's name, their address, what magazines they were subscribed to and even most of their birthdays. The entire town knows me on a first name basis. I've gone to
Birthday parties, I've gone to retirement parties, I've even gone to housewarming parties for former customers who moved away from the town. I had zero mideliveries for 2 straight years, and not one complaint. I was literally a model employee on that route. Even got my route done early every day. 8 hour route but I was done by 3pm every single day. I just loved my job immensely while I was doing that route.
@@brendanroberts1310maybe if you worked a real job, instead of being a kept woman you'd have a understanding what work is like.
I worked as a carrier. I don't know any who never got a complaint called in. Calling BS on that.
@@MeTaLISaWeSoMe95creepy
As an American, I appreciated the inappropriate joke. Having grown up scared of the post office because of these incidents, I also appreciated this video.
" Oh no !!, Blondie , I'll be late for work!!, see ya !!"
" Oh no!!, here comes Dagwood, ....ive had it with him always crashing into me, and scattering mail all around !!!, ......TAKE THIS BUMSTEAD !!!!".
Before he could get shot, Dagwood crashes into his angry mailman, scattering mail all around, saving himself for the next weeks comic strip.
I've literally never heard of being afraid of the post office lmfao. I'm more afraid of the US government. They still have the highest kill count in a child massacre. Higher than any school shooting. IE Waco.
@@johnbockelie3899 you gotta be fucking kidding
I used to work for the USPS. It is a very miserable job. You go into work, there are a million things to deliver. You spend all day delivering them. Next day, there are a million things to deliver. You spend all day delivering them. Next day, there are a million things to deliver. You spend all day delivering them.
And then repeat that every day, for years, for your entire career. It's like you never get anything done, and never actually accomplish anything.
It was work, four letter word, you are in RETIREMENTLAND, now aren't you? Life is good?
Pretty sure factory workers on an assembly line feel the same way. Also many in retail sales you keep cleaning up displays folding and hanging clothes or sticking shelves it's mind numbing repetative work but it's what you're getting paid to do. I am a small business owner it is incredibly stressful since I'm the one responsible for everything.
@@josephwilliams7995There is a reason this video is titled going postal and not going small business owner, retail sales associate, or factory worker
Sounds like housework.
I'm retired now but I worked for the USPS for 28 years. There was a lot of stress and pressure with my job as a clerk. One of the people I worked with was fired for his violent behavior but thankfully he never retaliated against anyone. He did however have a hit list which I was on because I testified against him under oath. Our boses...purgered themselves. Only 2 of us were brave enough to testify. The last couple of years of my employment were hell with the workload being increased almost daily. When they offered early retirement over 40 of us left my facility. The pay and benefits are good but you work your ass off in that job and you inevitably leave that job with a variety of health problems.
Retired window clerk here, been on the outside for 12 years, RETIREMENTLAND, is good! Did 24, on the inside.
@@boondocker7964 LOL, the prison terminology gave me a chuckle. But I get it.
@@audreymuzingo933 HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!
The Postal Service had great benefits...before their retirement program was bankrupted.
My grandfather was allowed to retire in late 1984 at age 59 as he was dying of cancer. My grandmother collected on his benefits for the rest of her 82 years. The old 30 years and then a gold watch axiom lasted at the USPS far longer than many other American employers.
like every other industry, the pay and benefits have gotten whittled down to nothing, along with the path to career being obfuscated and hindered for new employees. The union is about as effective as a baby with no teeth. Cant imagine why they are having -such- a hard time hiring people these days.
I’ve heard the term “going postal” my whole life, and from context clues I found out what it meant. But this video is the first time that it’s actually made sense.
I worked for the Postal Service in the 90s, and it was quite stressful. But the pay was very good and it had decent benefits. Had I stayed, I might have been able to retire early, but yeah that stress was too much.
Stress?🤔
Whenever I go to P.O.
they seem to be taking their sweet time! 🙄
It’s tougher depending on the station. Some places are really busy and people are overworked but some hardly get any mail.
@@OldHeathen1963 Well yeah, there are things a clerk can do to handle customers more efficiently, OR, the clerk can do many things to slow down transactions and sometimes things are more involved than just selling a book of stamps.
@@OldHeathen1963 You realise there are more departments than the bit you see at the post iffice, right? You're really going to presume to know more about it than someone who actually worked there?
@@kg6801its like driving my construction crews and seeing most of them leaning in shovels. Yes. We know the ONE GUY ACTUALLY DIGGING is doing that for a reason and all thr other construction workers all stand around for some actual logistical reason. However.
It's for profit
A money making business.
Meankng if you isn't get your shit looking good in front of customers you'll never churn a profit.
It's like thr postmaster who's in charge has no fucki g clue PERCEPTION is the majority of profits in publicly traded companies.
On Henry Sherrill, my mom knew him at one point. She didn't know him well and wasn't very close to him but she had talked to him off and on for some time. She told me when I was younger that the media wasn't entirely accurate in regards to Sherrill, choosing to label him as a stereotypical insane mass murderer. While he was insane and a mass murderer, his story is a lot more complex and reveals a lot of other problems with the mental health system in the US. He grew up fairly normal but he watched his father fall into a steep mental health decline, and even suffered through a lobotomy, before passing in 1958 a completely different man than he once knew. After his father's passing, he relied on his mother for support. At some point, he noticed the red flags that he was beginning to suffer the same mental health issues his father did, and when his mother passed away, they began to get worse, his fears increased that he would suffer like his father and be forced to have a lobotomy if he sought mental health treatment. My mom and others who more truly knew him described him as kind but said he changed when his mental health declined rapidly. When he was working at the post office, he complained that he was bullied, insulted and mocked at work by other employees and supervisors. My mom hadn't talked to him for some time when the shooting happened, but she said his motives were most likely retaliation against the bullying he faced and a desire to end his life to end his suffering from mental illness. After the shooting, she talked to some of the people who were closest to him and after the media had slandered him, labeling him as a peeping tom and a loner, the people closest to him were afraid to speak out for fear of public shaming while they were grieving both his deaths and the deaths of his victims. It was a complicated event resulting from a man's decline into mental health, a workplace's failure to prevent bullying, the deaths of countless victims, and the forced silence by those who knew him and grieved him due to media stereotyping.
Anecdotally, I know the phrase "going postal" was fairly common well before that 1993 publication. We used it not infrequently while I was still in high school in the '80s in reference to teachers we thought were a bit unhinged.
Yeah, definitely remember that slang circulating earlier too; back then you could get away with joking about mass shootings in such terms bc they were generally seen as peculiar to certain settings/situations, not phenomena that could happen anywhere at anytime.
My cousin was the first person I heard use the term "Go Postal". I INSTANLY knew what she meant (this was well before 1993). Fun Fact: She worked for the USPS.
I remember hearing the term as early as 1977.
From the US, and while I didn't know the stories of the post office shootings, mass shootings are so common here... I just assumed that was where it came from. Never questioned it.
The job is brutal, customers are annoying as fuck, some of the work is absolutely mind numbing... dealing with coworkers would be gas on a fire.
Despite it being illegal, where I grew up, our letters were often opened, and gift cards and money, if obvious, would be stolen.
Reminds me of that scene in Jumanji 1995 where Van Pelt bribes a gun store clerk with a bag of gold coins to buy a USAS-12 (which is incorrectly portrayed as a suppressed sniper rifle), and the clerk worriedly asks Van Pelt whether he is "a postal worker or something".
I asked a few postal workers over the years about the work environment at USPS. They all said it was very, very stressful and horrible management contributed to that toxic situation. Add that to people that already have mental illness and a dangerous situation develops that could lead to violence. It's sad and feeling empathy for people is understandable but they are still murderous terrorists and should be treated accordingly.
The environment turned them into murderers, they didn't wake up one day and just decide to shoot everyone at their dream job.
I'm a Mail Handler for the United States Postal Service working at a Postal plant and I find the building and the environment horrible.
Simon - you can take a holiday, there's time for rest and recovery. We're only here for so-long; don't spend it all working.
Idk, if you hear Simon talking about his work on chanel's like Brain blaze, he loves what he does. He spends a decent amount of time with his family, has time to work on his own projects, and has an amazing time at work. I'm quite jealous actually. He's even said he feels like he only does a tiny bit of work and feels like the rest of it is just him having a good time. People can definitely get overworked doing this much stuff, but he loves it and it's what he wants to do, otherwise he wouldn't be setting up more podcasts/channels.
I guess it's the old idiom, "if you do what you love, you won't have to work a day in your life" which always sounded like BS, but it seems Simon has carved himself his own niche out of this old saying.
Simon has extremely good work/life balance. :-) An extremely efficient system of video production combined with working super hard during every minute of work time is something he's a master of, and most people are not. ;-) -Daven
There was a scandal where postal delivery workers were dying because their delivery cars had no air conditioning in a heat wave
I feel almost guilty. The postal service employees at my Post Office are some of the friendliest, happiest, most helpful people I've ever met. It's almost embarrassing how nice they are.
The closest post office to us has 1 guy working there who's always got a smile on his face and is incredibly laid back. It's so nice seeing someone so happy at work!
That's probably because they're at a Post Office and not the distribution center.
It always depends on the location. A post office in the boonies will usually be nicer because the stress isn’t as bad as it would be in a major city office.
@@quietcrowd I'm not at a post office. I'm at a distribution center, a dusty, filthy plant.
As someone who has a relative or two who worked for the post office, I’ve always been told these horrific cases of people snapping and going on a rampage were due to how corrupt and stressful the workplace environment and management structure are.
Not condoning what they did, by the way, just stating that that job isn’t a place for those who have preexisting mental health issues to apply to work at, as they’ll chew you up and spit you out if you’re unable to handle the overly stressful workload.
It sounds like most american work places i've heard
@@angrydragonslayer Fast Food is just a long suicide attempt.
I condone it. It's appropriate behavior when your treated like that.
@@angrydragonslayer I don't think this is a US problem, it's a western world problem. They can't get away with the slave labour that some countries can so they just make it legal enough to get away with. This is what actually trickles down in modern capitalism, toxic management practices. If I had a similar relationship with a friend as I did with any number of my previous employers I would call it abusive and gtfo of there, but because we're trapped by modern feudalism we just have to eat it and let it destroy our psychological health; then be told it's our fault for being lazy or "not able to handle it", as if not being able to take constant abuse wasn't a completely human response.
As a Postal Clerk in the Navy for 23 years, "going Postal" 99.9% of the time is someone shooting their co-workers, not the public. USPS is very stressful and the civilian side has quite a few rules that are hard to follow and don't make a lot of sense.
My dad was a postal worker that got injured on the job in the 90’s and had to deal with their workers comp process, his supervisor was constantly trying to get him to go to psychologists and looking for reasons to fire him, one time we went gopher hunting and he left all the empty shells in his truck so when he got to work and opened the drivers door all the empty shells fell out, his super locked him out for 4 days. Was probably the funniest moment of what was an 8 year long misery for my entire family
I saw similar issues in the military, the biggest being civilians trying to make rules and cultural changes for people expected to possibility fight and die. The only reason it almost never happened is because steps are taken to identify and get help for someone that may "go postal."
Did this stressfulness of USPS work exist before DeJoy? I'm no federal employee, but I'm EXTREMELY enthusiastic about DeJoy getting DeAxe.
Not to be shitty, but you're in the Navy. Everyone there is a coworker
Weird thst I just post about my short lived stint in the navy on another channel… but I did lead the recruit side of the post in boot camp. I had to take all the official tests and everything but I mainly did it to get out of doing the watches at night in my division (023!)
I worked in postal work, as a warehouse mail sorter over the Christmas period. Working from the late afternoon to the crack of Dawn in a freezing, loud, disorienting room with one ten minute lunch break with people constantly yanking you around for a job then saying “back to your old post” while leaving you God knows where else in the building is stressful on it’s own. And I wasn’t even delivering the bloody things.
I’m not gonna say I don’t BLAME people for going postal, but I’m not surprised they do.
I actually work at USPS as a letter carrier. I can see it. In the past 2 weeks I have been forced to work 7 x 14 hour days, and I haven't had the worst of it. On another point it's hard to be profitable when you have all the non profit and political mail that is basically financially not worth the time it takes to read the address
And all the Amazon packages we are paid diddly to deliver even on Sunday
I work as a postmaster of a one manned office for town of 600, mail comes in an hour before my hours start and another plane comes in an hour after I close so I'm usually working 12-13 hours daily every week besides Sunday and Saturday and I'm only aloud 6 hours of overtime pay
It really annoys me when people say that the US Mail is a drain on taxpayers. First of all, the mail service has unrealistic pension funding that no other agency or private industry is held to.. and the USPS is a service, do politicians call the US Military a drain on the tax payers? No.. why do they hold USPS differently than other government agencies? At least USPS mostly funds itself.
They just recent stop the "pre funding" practice, thankfully! The USPS is a public service not a business.
It’s because it’s an easy target for politicians. Unlike the military, there’s no industrial complex behind the post office to pay for their campaigns and the post office doesn’t do anything flashy that politicians can point to and tell their constituents they helped make that. It’s in the unique position of being universally known, but lacking the clout to stand up for itself
All of that is entirely correct, though it's even worse than that. The ridiculous pension pre-funding requirement was put in place in 2006 by Republicans, who proceeded in time to rail against the "problem" they knew that action of theirs would create. In addition to that unnecessary burden being a big contributor to the USPS being in the red, it also functionally wiped out capitalization funds that could have gone toward modernizing to help the USPS operate more efficiently.
@@CulixIII the good news is, I believe that prefunding requirement has recently been lifted.
It's proof that government agencies are evil, we put up with the Army because it's a "necessary" evil but the USPS is forced to exist and forced to compete with businesses so it becomes an unnatural and propped up agency.
I remember joking about teachers "going postal" with a childhood friend no later than the 1989-1990 school year. In fact, I'm thinking closer to the 1987-1988 school year. Going postal was in vernacular use for several years prior to 1993. The national newspapers are often the last place a new "viral" term appears.
i lived in an area where mail was still delivered to your door for some years. i was always puzzled as to why our carrier did his route at nearly a dead run even in the hottest weather. i was later told by another former letter carrier it was so he could relax for the last hour or two of his scheduled route time. if the bosses ever found out he could complete his route early they would have given him more mail to carry.
The biggest reason postal workers get worn out is their supervisors sit in comfy air conditioned offices while they time how long the carriers take to deliver mail or take lunches ect. The letter carriers get run ragged and continually have overtime dropped in them while being treated like crap. See John A Watzlawick 3rd.
*etc.
@@BatCaveOz *etcetera
Sounds like any job I've ever worked at.
I worked for Friendly's for 10 years as a 2nd job, it was easy and I liked the people until we got a new store manager that didn't like me for some reason I still don't know why.
She did everything to try to make me quit, assigning me extra work that was her boyfriend/cooks work while taking away hrs so I wouldn't have time to finish my job.
Once my girlfriend came to pick me up and she told her I had left with another girl even though she knew I walked next door to get cigarettes.
My gf didn't believe her, but it's still unprofessional and scummy.
She also tried to make me where a pink Friendly's hat and when I switched with a waitress for her blue hat we got written up for insubordination.
When she found out that my other job was a pizza place she posted disgusting lies on her Facebook account about the store.
None of the bosses above her wanted to hear anything I said because she had threatened to take them to court a year earlier for sex discrimination because of a similar incident at a different store.
10 years of work with no problems or write ups and I was fired after not finishing her boyfriends work.
That led me to a better job so it worked out in the end.
Working 16+ hours a day during Christmas (Nov-Jan)... not exaggerating... Getting yelled at because it took you that long to deliver 2000 packages In. One. Day.
I would come in at 7:30am get a load of 400+ packages and rinse and repeat until there were no more packages in the entire building.
Often that was 5 runs... and there was 7 of us CCAs doing that.
Not once going home before 8pm and often 11pm was when we were done
So yes, you had it rough.
Change minor details...I have had the SAME experience. And YES, it was in food service.... (Seems to be an especially "toxic" industry) Hell, I had MUCH a better experience working RETAIL. (Not kidding on the last part. Believe it or not, I had a great time working at Kmart! Sucks that ONE GUY fucked up Kmart AND Sears.) In retail it was "only" the CUSTOMERS that truly sucked.
@@the_algorithm always one guy that makes life experiences a competition.
@@jamesslick4790 its a very toxic industry. Right on the head
Let me guess, you were all teenagers. Friendly s was notorious for hiring apathetic incompetent high schoolers.
I understand the postal thing. They go out in all kinds of weather delivery mail just to be told to work harder. They do mandatory overtime and the expectations are at times extreme. There's no restroom easily available and when you're not delivering you're driving or organizing. We all know what working in customer service is like so imagine doing that with no one else present if people start acting crazy. It's seems overwhelming and some are bound to crack here they also work 6 days a week and expected to deliver on Sundays when holidays occur. That might not be nation wide but here it's clear they hate it. Our mail lady doesn't even wear a uniform.
As a (semi) federal employee, this makes me glad the library has a mental health option with the general benefits.
Yeah.
Librarian sounds like really tough job.
I'm amazed employees haven't started going postal at Amazon. You can only handle being treated like a robot for so long.
Somehow this explanation made the Discworld book Going Postal even more hilarious.
"Would you sign my petition?"
My wife was an RCA for 2 years and from some of the stories she's told me, it sounds like a horrific place to work. Primarily the way that the older unionized employees behave towards the rest of the staff. They're basically unfireable so they can treat anyone as horribly as they like free from any accountability as they run out the clock on their last few years before retirement. "Paying your dues" means being treated like absolute shit for several years before you become a regular carrier with a regular route. The only upside is she got hella fit during those two years.
Bro same I’ve been working a week now as an rca and I’ve lost 10 pounds.
I quit the post office 2 years ago. Your explanation at the end of the video about what is going wrong, and how it started hits home hard. I honestly think I might suffer from PTSD from that job.
The mail never stops
I remember an episode of Rocko's Modern Life where a postal carrier on a crowded subway said he was feeling disgruntled and the crowd cleared out. He then proceeded to swing on the hand loop saying "now I got me some swingin' room". Being like 8 at the time, my older brother had to explain the joke to me.
To this day: postal workers still experience the same bullshit he said.
To this day.
One cool thing about this country, is we can choose where and who we work for. Job too stressful? It happens, no lie there, but if it is, and you are unable to fix it, find a different job. Simple stuff really.
@@deecee4644 that's funny.
@@deecee4644 Your smugness and sarcasm just makes your complete lack of awareness that other people could be in more complicated situations than your simplistic little solution that much more ridiculous and irritating.
I worked for the USPS for a couple years & recall them saying they would fire anyone using the term "going postal" while at work.
i remember the 86 shooting mostly because some local radio announcer who did little radio essays (not Paul Harvey but someone similar) had talked about it and then joked at the end about the bloodstained mail still having to be delivered. He was pulled from the radio and we never heard him again.
I used to work for another govt agency and we had a bunch of people migrate over from USPS.
For about 6 months. Then they migrated back. I asked each one of them why and each answer was the same. "The post office is less stress." I didnt stay much longer after that.
After working for the Internal Revenue Service for almost 31 years then going to the USPS, I really miss my time with the IRS. If it was up to me I would definitely choose the IRS over the USPS.
My husband worked for the phone company. It went from US West, to Qwest, to finally CenturyLink. From a prime job he loved to a pressure cooker nightmare. Should see what phone company customer service workers are put through.
"Hi there. Would you like to sign my petition?"
sure
no way you freaking pinko
The Postal Service has also tried to stop the use of the term “junk mail “. They prefer instead to use the term “book mail.“. That still doesn’t change the fact that it’s useless junk.
It’s “Bulk Mail”
As someone who orders books by mail regularly, I object.
Books are what I WANT to get.
@@mindycatriz5195 Actually it's BBM.
The reason this centered so much on the U.S. postal service was because the application gave extra points for being a veteran and for having a disability (where "shell shock" or drug addiction counts a disability). Also, a disproportionate number of postal workers were infantrymen, because it's not like that specialty has many transferrable skills.
I work in law enforcement & this is the same EXACT thing with us.
Vets get a 10% addition to their test scores which almost always ends up with 99% veterans hired that WEREN'T qualified but overtook the actual qualified candidates with the 10% favor.
It's blatant discrimination against the people who scored well & you end up with mostly unqualified people being cops, firefighters, postal workers etc.
@@ClickClack_Bam good ol' "V band"
@@ClickClack_Bam There are definitely a lot of stupid cops, I'll give you that.
Show starts at 1:37.
The stress is in part, unreasonable workloads due to volume that can make your workday last until dusk (or later) with no overtime pay. On the flipside, some days are light and you can finish early. Though it can balance out that way, long days are still stressful and inconducive to driving safety. You also can't plan anything around work (appointments,events, etc.) because, until you get there, you have no idea the weight of the workload you'll have that day. So at best you gamble if you plan anything. Another factor however can be the decision makers that sit behind desks (not all, like any place of employment, it's the individual people that make the difference). Though it can be pretty frustrating being asked for every detail of your route to be put on paper for them (which no one knows better than the route holder) for restructuring or sortation improvements only to have them ignore it and change every aspect of it to an unsafe and unworkable mess that you end up talking in circles about trying to fix. It happens consistently and communication up the chain of command isn't always successful. It is the death by a thousand envelope cuts that can push an unstable person over the edge. It really does take a "water off a ducks back" type of person who does the work for the sake of the customer (most are wonderful people) to not let it stress you out. An experienced postal worker can easily spot whether or not a new employee will be able to handle it. I'm confident that every postal employee that sorts and delivers is familiar with this but the general public may not be because it's not the work itself that is necessarily difficult, but all the little things that add up around it. In work as well as in life, some cope better than others. A salute to all of us (in any job) with the patience of Job and deepest sympathies to the mourning families forever affected by the tragic actions of others.
The movie "Postal" is a work of art
(a retired postman here)
When that stuff was going on, I said they needed to investigate NOT why it was happening, but how it occurs so rarely.
Simon, you entertain my whole family! Thank you. Also, my husband is a school bus driver and the little students also know and love your shows! Love from Texas
Your starting their addiction to Simon young lol He would call you a Legend
@@samstevens7888 They found it on their own!
@@h2oteen You will have to excuse my joke Im British the same as Simon. The only difference between me and him is I actually know about my home country lol
Thats a little disturbing to say considering the current subject.
I'm imagining a bus full of kids listening to facts about mass murders.
Interesting fact at 11:19 that our very own paper, The St. Petersburg Times, was one of the two that first used the term "going postal." I do work for the Postal Service here in St. Pete and while some of the managers have been very capable of driving their subordinates to murder, as far as I know (in four decades of service) it hasn't happened here.
As a former assistant (part time) rural postal carrier for a city in North Carolina, I can confirm that the job is extremely taxing and is very fast-paced. I'll never forget that my first 2 weeks I did not get a single day off, and even before I was trained on how to drive the LLV trucks I was forced to take one out to deliver packages. My mental health has never been at a lower state than when I worked for them, and I would not wish that job on my worst enemy.
As a carrier I think everyone who has worked with USPS has come to realize why someone might feel the urge to go postal. The American people expect perfection, the organizations are often short staffed, you have some carriers who refuse to help anyone else or do even an honest days work, you have some supervisors who use intimidation instead of actual leadership, and a million different other reasons. The job asks for your whole life, you have to sacrifice relationships to work here and that’s why almost everyone who has been in the post office for more than 10 years has relationship issues, substance issues, health issues, or is depressed. It can be a great job, but the pressure to perform at every level just makes the job very difficult a lot of times.
sounds like being a cop. and we carry guns every day....
I went to University at UCO in Edmond, Ok. I went to that post office many times but didn't know it's history until I saw a documentary about people "going postal" on the History Channel (when they had real history). I was thinking, "Man, that place looks familiar." Next time I went I looked closer at the memorial statues there. I had heard about postal workers killing their coworkers but I had no idea it happened so near in location and time to me.
Edit: I didn't know he had worked at the FAA in OKC, my grandfather and dad both worked there.
Excellent video as always. One slight inaccuracy, though, is that Fedex isn’t associated with USPS. Sorry for being “that guy”.
If you're sorry why do you go out of your way to be "that guy" wouldn't it be easier to just ignore it and carry on with your life
That's fine, but would you sign my petition?
@@kninekhaos LOL... you are now "that girl." 🤣
@@nathannewman3968 She's Marlo Thomas?!
George: "Aren't those the guys that go nuts and shoot up the place?"
Newman: "...sometimes"
There’s a current list of ‘perpetual offender’ supervisors that have had multiple EEO allegations and cosy the USPS tens of thousands in settlements. They’ve all been promoted or just moved to office jobs where they don’t interact with employees. A current case I know of has 8 employees being harassed by one coworker and the USPS has done nothing (except exclude the victims from altering their schedule, a privilege every other employee has). A former co worker left because of harassment and years later, the person accused of harassing her is sitting in jail for her murder. The workplace is poisonous and I’m surprised these aren’t happening more often.
They never signed his petition
I was alive during this time. The Postal Service were none too pleased about the moniker. (Before I finish the video) The even made a video game about going psycho. It was right around the same time as Grand Theft Auto 1 & 2.
And it's because of this episode, and others, that I always have an exit plan at my office. And why we get those safety videos.
Yeah, I've never understood this - when people who know absolutely nothing about video games want to think of a violent game, they immediately go for GTA. And all the while, Postal was around, and nobody said a thing about it. And that game was simply messed up. I mean, I enjoyed it, but it was seriously messed up.
35 killed in 11 shootings since '83 and this stat was written in '93, so 3-4 people a year were killed in those 10 years and it got a name, but since 2013 there were at least 925 shootings on school grounds which resulted in 295 deaths and 621 injuries nationally.
I grew up half a block away from where Larry Jasion, the 1993 Dearborn, MI, shooter lived. I passed his house, along two sides because it was a corner lot, every day on my way to school for years. Every single kid on my block knew not to linger nearby, though none of us could have said why. You'd see him in his backyard sometimes but he never interacted with anyone. It was just one of those unspoken but universally understood neighborhood things. The boogie man's house. My brother delivered papers there, and never went on the property, just pitching the paper from the sidewalk, rules be damned. We all knew the house windows were completely blocked and covered over from the inside, but you still had the creepy feeling that the weird guy living there could see you. There were no trees or bushes or flowers in the yard so it was always bright and sunny, but still felt icky and creepy.
In 1993 I had graduated from school, so no longer passed the house every day, and never really thought again about the weird guy. Until I looked up one morning from the horrible news on the TV and saw a dozen police cars on the street. I knew instantly why they were there. :/
Really brings home the concept of working from home to avoid work place violence.
i would love to know how we are supposed to deliver mail from home
@@missconstrued827 The comment was obviously a general statement about toxic workplace culture.
Oh, and your name is hilariously appropriate in this case.
Running with Scissors should've sponsored
The good news is that when Simon snaps he won't be able to hurt any of his coworkers, since they're all remote. Except Danny, down in the basement. Poor Danny...
I loved working for the Post Office but we had a great Postmaster to work for.
So I just watched a video where the presenter told that he was sitting with a group of friends, all former combat vets, and read aloud a tweet from somebody, something like "Is it normal to have recurring nightmares about my previous workplace"? So everybody had a good laugh, but then one of them noted that in addition to having nightmares about being deployed, he actually also had nightmares about his job at Home Depot. And another had nightmares about his job at a courier service. And so on. Basically all of them had had nightmares about their jobs. And when the presenter had tweeted about this, he had gotten flooded with answers from people whose workplaces were horrible and who were having nightmares about them. Among them combat vets who said they'd rather go back facing actual bullets than working at that home improvement store or restaurant... So yeah. Apparently horrible working conditions are the norm in the US.
Pretty much from what I can tell. And then some people still wonder why some employees snap. Really? How about extremely stressful workplaces.
Population pressure and the stress of modern life may cause an increase in violent tendencies. The urban environment is the incubator for all sorts of undesirable behaviors. However much this atrocity disgusts us, he may actually consider himself a hero. This is common among those who are, referred to by the popular slang, "going postal". In his tortured mind, he may feel he was battling against impossible odds. It is not unusual for some individuals to believe that the entire fate of the world rests in their palm. In the end, our subject displays all the classic symptoms of a paranoid delusional. We may never know exactly what set him off but, rest assured, we will have plenty of time to study him.
My ex was a carrier who filed a grievance. He went out to deliver mail, parked in his usual spot. The homeowner had just gotten a movie camera. Shortly after he began taking video of the morning outside his home, a P.O. car pulled up behind my ex's delivery van. The homeowner filmed my ex's supervisor break into the van with keys, leave it open by unlocking the doors & window, & leave. A fireable offense, even after 10 years of employment. My ex finished his rounds & upon returning, the customer/homeowner explained what he saw & offered him the vid. To make a long story short, my ex was exonerated , & the supervisor was given a golden handshake and is now the Postmaster of that same office. My ex is now retired. That is just one chronic bs that's pulled to get back at employees filing a grievance when nothing else works. They don't pay like they did back when my ex started. Now you can make more at McDonald's per hour.
Not surprising only one of these stories was at a Fed Ex site. No professional standards equals no employee stress.
I live in Edmond, OK. That PO still has a very bad vibe when you go into it.
Hello from a fellow okie!
Probably haunted.
Agreed. Never was comfortable going in there after that happened. The “new” one over on 33rd was a godsend, AND it had a drive-thru!
This is still accurate to this day and the supervisors brag " its great after you make it through the bullshit"
I’ve been a letter carrier for about 6 years now. Management has not gotten any better, the union/contract is walked all over, and they are resistant to make any attempts to stop their “cost-saving measures.” Upper management tries to micro-manage everything from a distance, everything is understaffed, and they pile on more work and say “oh there’s not a lot of mail, do your route AND this other work in 8 hours.” Daily. Treat your postal people right, because their bosses sure don’t!
Their truly is a widespread discontent amongst postal workers. My step-dad was a carrier for 30 years. Most of them have nothing good to say about management, workload, and policy and procedure in general. I know of a woman who crashed the truck and was subsequently found out to be shooting up in the truck. She went to rehab, was moved to another post office and promoted to Management. Ahhh the USPS
The mother of a childhood friend of mine was a letter carrier. Probably the most aggressive, stressed and easily angered woman I've met to date.
I always felt old whenever someone said going postal while knowing it's origin. Thanks for evening the playing field.
Mailman Dale is the best. He only asks that I trim my giant bushes every year. I trim them promptly. Mailman Dale is the best, but you never know
I was less than a block away when the zerox office mass shooting in honolulu happened in 1999. Not a post office, but still “going postal”. We got stuck in the area because the had it barricaded and blocked off. It was chaos and so scary.
The problem hasn't changed as a matter of fact a lot of people at work who have stayed it's gotten even worse and worse if they don't stop the problem especially with the postmasters you're about to see Postal taken to an entirely new level!!
Simon I love all your videos and being born in 1988 I grew up seeing these news stories on tv when they happened and it's interesting to hear the stories again
I was reminded of an old placard about how "It takes *three* things to start a fire - heat /air / fuel"; take any one away and your house doesn't burn to the ground. There are three factors which contributed to all these "going postal" tragedies, our pathetic inability to deal with find and treat mental illness, free access to high-powered firearms, and a toxic work environment. Fix ANY ONE of these unbelievably glaring problems and there are no slaughters.
In any event, it really says something about us as a nation when our collective response to any horrifying tragedy is to _crack jokes._ I mean, _geez._
In a way, "cracking jokes" is a stress response. You don't really know how to deal with the news, so you joke about it.
Reality is you are probably terrified about that one guy at work, and not sure what to do.
My mom worked for USPS for about a week before she got the hell out of there. Super unethical. The thing that blew me away was that if you left sick....you lost your entire day's wage. You work 6.5hrs and leave sick the last 1.5? You don't get paid for any of it. It's honestly a wonder this doesn't happen more often.
" I regret NOTHING. "
I laughed so hard at the end of this video well done Simon hahahahaha
The reason for them is how bad the post office is to it’s workers and over stress them, especially carriers. They do target and mess with employees also. This is all made worse when you consider how many people are disabled vets some of who all ready have ptsd.
So I used to work for the government once, I worked in the IT but once I was called to "repair a PC". Went there, it was one of these public government offices, you know where you go to get a new ID Card and passport and such. Found the room absolutely trashed, like everything from PC, desk and shelf was completely in pieces.
When I asked what happened there the lady who worked in the office told me. Apparently a customer wasn't happy with their service. So he came back a few hours later with a basebal bat. He walked straight into her room, told her to please get up and leave the room, said she'd be fine and this was nothing personal. Then once she stood in the door he proceeded to decimate the furnishing in that and the next room until police arrived, at which point he just dropped the bat and went with the police without putting up any fight.
Needless to say that PC was not repaired. There was barely any PC left.
Rage against the machine
I'm surprised working for the USPS doesn't include hazard pay and included in the top most dangerous jobs.
likewise for teachers and other school employees in the states.
"Would you like to sign my petition"
Why the post office? A documentary I watched several years ago which interviewed many of the survivors and families of shooters and examined many of the shootings made a compelling case that a lot of it had to do with the way the post office chose to handle automation. Much of the work the post office does can be automated, such as sorting the mail, categorizing it, putting it in the order necessary so that a deliveryperson can walk down one side of a street, then turn around and walk down the other side (or drive), etc. But since these letters and packages are often addressed in handwriting which varies in the ability for machines to recognize and read (especially in the 80s and 90s, they were at the forefront of tech then but the tech just wasn't stellar), there would always be exceptions and things the machines needed a human to handle. So when the machines were rolled out to the various post offices, postal workers were paired with them. The machines, being machines, were very fast. They could chew through huge stacks of mail extremely quickly. And the post office either did not care or did not realize that the humans paired with these machines had extreme difficulty keeping up. When the machine encountered something it could not sort, it had to stop until a human could address the piece it couldn't handle, otherwise the sorting could get all wrong, mail would go to the wrong place, etc. And at least as far as management at the post office was concerned, the machines should never stop. So every bit of wait time was tracked, and employees were punished, their performance evaluations suffered, etc based upon what % of time the machines were able to process, and every delay reduced that number. So that meant no bathroom breaks. No chit-chat with other employees. No breaks to stretch their legs. They were basically just chained to this machine, and expected to work and perform like a machine themselves. And... that broke some people. Many of those people, also, did not start working alongside those machines, they were introduced after the people had already worked for the post office for years. And as a federal employee that meant if they simply quit to seek a different job, they would be sacrificing their pension benefits which they had been working towards for years. They had to put in 25 years to get their pension, so if they were 10-15 years in when the machines were introduced to their facility, and suddenly their job became an inhumane torture where every second of every day had to be utilized... yeah, that hurt. I'm honestly surprised we don't see more workplace violence in Amazon warehouses, as they seem to behave the same way, attempting to maximize work output of human employees without any considering of the fact that they are human beings and human beings function differently than machines.
I've often wondered about the origins of this... I always took what Newman said in Seinfeld as canon "the mail just keeps coming and coming! It never stops!".