Going Postal
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I had an incident at the local post office one Saturday in the recent past. While I blame the vendor requiring my signature she didn't make the situation any better by thinking that I was her servant.
"Going Postal" is a term derived from so-called pop culture when a man went medeval on his co workers due to the culmination of multiple perceived episodes of overbearing and mistreatment in his workplace.
On this day in 1986 fourteen employees were murdered and six were wounded at the post office in Edmond Oklahoma by one Patrick Sherrill -- who then killed himself with a gun shot to his forehead.
Thus began this American slang concept of 'going postal' whereby workers suddenly become uncontrollably angry with oft times violent results at work. The post office apparently had a culture which instilled pent-up frustration to the point beyond which some could cope.
Nowadays the term is generally used to describe fits of rage which may or may not actually manifest themselves at work -- though most fall far short of murder and are actually mere venting of feelings without any actual intent to harm anyone.
In the final breakdown of 'going postal' one can only say that the workplace is not the venue for violence of any kind. Sure, it's often a pressure cooker with unrealistic workloads placed upon the worker and tyranical methodologies utilized by those in charge ... but it still not the place to exact violence on your cohorts because in the end, we're all just trying to make it.
Yeah, I sometimes feel as if I've 'gone postal'. Nope, I never harm anyone. It's not my place in the scheme of things. Hopefully the work culture of the postal system has learned the 'kinder, gentler' lessons life has taught to me via it's graduate course known as The School of Hard Knocks.
I also attempt to be kind to the people at the post office both employees and other customers. However, the recent episode was distinctly poor customer service and I likely will not forget it in future interactions at that counter.