The Dark and Gruesome Origins of Going Postal

This video is #sponsored by BrightCellars.

Love content? Check out Simon's other YouTube Channels:

→Subscribe for new videos every day!

[grapeshot]

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.

[dbockcac]

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.

[pompe]

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.

[YaBoiCornbread]

"I regret nothing."
- Postal Dude

[Unforgivingness]

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.

[aprilvinyard]

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

[FedoraDog]

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.

[Boyso]

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.

[joantaylor]

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.

[AuntyProton]

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.

[cameronjadewallace]

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...

[bamacopeland]

“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

[MeTaLISaWeSoMe]

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.

[iPhoneeditor]

Fallout New Vegas has taught me to never test the sanity of a mailman.

[tinastitzer]

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.

[InquisMalleus]

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.

[mrtlsimon]

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.

[blackwolf]

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.

[One.DeSanctis.]

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.

[chickenjail]

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.