BS: another postal tragedy...

Subject: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: tarheel
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 11:07 AM

7 dead, including the shooter, in postal shooting, shows how much our society need to improve. This former disgruntled postal employee committed suicide after rampage, police say. Let's just pray for the victims and their families.
and now my response.........

what is it with postal employeees?
are they really under that much stress?
this has happened so many times in our country over the last 10 years or so...
i always thought that would be a great job and one i consisdered even after i began working in tv broadcasting!
now there was a job with stress,but i do not remember any TV announcers,technicians,production crews or management blowing out the brains of their collegues,friends or employees!
(althought the 30 some years i was a tv news photographer,there were times when....oh well!)... lol
tar...

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 11:35 AM

I asked myself the same questions tar. What IS it with working for the post office that produces such a high number of high-profile explosions?

A

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 11:46 AM

It may have a lot to do with the ease with which guns can be obtained in the US!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 12:28 PM

This is the thread for me, a letter-carrier booked off sick today in an attempt to recover some mental health. What makes me so darn grumpy? Physical exhaustion, that's what. I'm down to my last few ragged molecules of seratonin. I don't feel like playing rags and reels and shantys, just mournful gospel songs about suffering and death--"a few more tiring days await us, a few more weary nights must come". If it weren't for the opportunity to socialize with dogs and cats, I'd hate my job. And I love walking, mind you, just not so much of it.

But it's not weary Canadian letter-carriers who "go postal", it's American postal clerks, folks who work in the large mail processing plants. This is one of the few jobs for which junior high school really prepares you--the same sort of constantly shifting silly rules humourlessly enforced by the same sort of power-tripping sociopaths. Given that the US Postal Service functions as a holding pond for gun-savvy former military personnel with post-traumatic stress syndrome (hello there, Mr. Rambo), massacres are inevitable.
To learn more, just ask Charles Bukowski

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 12:33 PM

Oops, expired cookie. The Guest at 12:28 PM was me, or possibly I.

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: kendall
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 12:41 PM

If it's guns, Giok, why is it not more common among, say, beauticians, toy store managers, or proctologists?

This has just recently started since the postal service was no longer strictly federal.

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: artbrooks
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 12:56 PM

I really don't think that there are any more incidents like this in postal facilities than anywhere else. There were several Post Office shootings in close temporal proximity 15 or more years ago and, courtesy of the news media, any violence by a current or former employee of a retail or similar establishment is now called "going postal". Most of these, like the man who went berserk in a Harley dealership here last fall, don't make the national news...it takes something unusual (like the guy with the samurai sword in a German church in April '05) or an attack by a postal employee to get wider coverage.

I haven't heard, BTW, if the lady who supposedly did the shooting was a veteran, with PTSD or otherwise.

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 01:19 PM

A good point, Art. It may be just media highlightiong that makes it appear the PO has a higher ratio of really PO'd people. :)


A

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 01:24 PM

I think that a LOT of what we think are Awful Terrible Things are actually the result of the media's penchant for gory news -- and our own gluttony for gore and more. I don't think that society is going to hell any faster than before, I think it's just gotten more media coverage.

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 01:29 PM

Wisely said, good R.; with the exception of a few environmental crumblings (such as the far Northern permafrost, for example) I'd be inclined to agree with you. Well, then there's the erosion of liberty and civil rights in far-flung states, such as Maryland.

A

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 01:37 PM

Talking about crumbling permafrost, we need less people around anyway to cut down on global warming. So it's not all bad news!
G

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: Wesley S
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 01:54 PM

Where did this happen ?

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: artbrooks
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 02:04 PM

Goleta, California, near UC-Santa Barbara

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: Wesley S
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 05:27 PM

I understand that it was a woman this time - that's different.

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 05:32 PM

Q. What does it mean when the flag is at half staff outside the post office?

A. They are hiring.

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: EBarnacle
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 06:35 PM

Is the very thick barrier between the postal clerk and the customer to protect the clerk or the customer?

Subject: RE: BS: another postal tragedy...
From: NH Dave
Date: 01 Feb 06 - 02:40 AM

I believe it is a combination of being in a public company, lots of pressure from the job, and possibly the fact that former and disabled military are given preference over others with no military service. If you hire former military as a policy, you have to expect that most of them are very familiar with weapons. If you take pains to grind them down in their job, you should expect that they might have some pretty direct means of taking action against these pressures.

   When I worked in a local sorting office as temporary Christmas help, many years ago, things were pretty loose, but these days it seems lik there is much more pressure to perfom up to imposed job sstandards, and everyone is against everyone with lots of backbiting going on. They have a union, so people who feel that they have been badly treated can and frequently do appeal job actions, which can't make the people involved very happy, no matter how the issue is resolved. One of my personal friends, a retired AF polceman, made his life's ambition to get as many of his supervisors rulings overturned as he possibly could, and was later elected to the post of shop steward. I can't say that he was wrong in many of his stands, but the fiendish glee with which he pursued each action must have affected his work area and his supervisor's perceived authority within the work place.

   While I consider this man a good friend I would also take care not to work around him because he brings a poisonous atmosphere into his work area that has to affect those around him each day.

   Dave