Is it true U.S. Postal Service workers are more likely than other occupations to “go postal” on coworkers? Or is that just a perception from media reporting of these events? –Scott, via e-mail
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If I may speak on behalf of the nation’s media, while we certainly deserve some of the blame for making the postal service sound like a psycho hothouse, you ain’t sticking us with all of it. True, “going postal” is first known to have appeared in print in the St. Petersburg Times of December 17, 1993. However, the newspaper was reporting on a symposium on workplace violence organized by . . . well, read for yourself: “The symposium was sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service, which has seen so many outbursts that in some circles excessive stress is known as ‘going postal.’ Thirty-five people have been killed in 11 post office shootings since 1983.” In other words, while the USPS didn’t coin “going postal,” it provided the platform, not to mention the data set, for the term’s national media launch.
a In October 1991 in Ridgewood, New Jersey, former postal clerk Joseph Harris shot and killed his old boss, two other USPS employees, and a fourth person more than a year after being fired.
These incidents were widely covered in the media, the Sherrill case in particular, for the obvious reason that they were shocking crimes. However, even a casual reading of the facts would tell you the problem was exaggerated, and some news outlets said as much from the start: in the same 1993 symposium story that brought “going postal” into print, Saint Pete Times reporter Karl Vick wrote, “Rampages in the workplace . . . remain a relative rarity.” There had been about 1,000 workplace homicides in 1992, but most involved ordinary crimes such as convenience store stickups. The FBI estimated roughly 24 worker/boss killings a year; judging from the reported numbers, the USPS workplace murder rate was about 3 or 4 per year–admittedly a sizable fraction of the 24, but still a minuscule percentage of workplace slayings overall. It was the era of downsizing, though, which presumably led to a “toxic work environment,” as one consultant put it, and the experts didn’t want to talk about armed robbery, they wanted to talk about stopping the rage.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.
