[/caption]Carol Forsloff - "Going postal” is a term that originated from workplace violence of postal workers against their work conditions. These days it is associated with rage against bureaucracy or conditions that create a perceived "no win" condition, and these wider implications have a serious impact on not just mail service but other matters too.
In Honolulu postal workers involved in delivering the mail can be seen in office buildings and shopping centers, a good distance from the mail cart, delivering letters and packages to individual consumers. The cart is open and ready for theft under these conditions A letter or call of complaint to the post office may or may not impact future behavior.
In Natchitoches, Louisiana businesses and individuals have regularly found mail delivered to the wrong address, even to vacant buildings, or even dropped on the grasses on a street corner in some rural location somewhere. Complain to the local post office, and the situation may or may not improve as a result.
For those who use commercial mail boxes, a catch 22 can risk non delivery of personal mail or complications that creates long delays. For example, “the United States Postal Service is unable to forward personal mail from a business address," specifically a mail service or mail forwarding entity. The explanation is this: "We are prohibited from accepting a Family or Individual change of address from a business address." This means that an individual who uses a private mailbox service in order to avoid the delays and wrong mailings from the US postal service or for personal needs isn't able to have mail later forward to a private residential address. This locks in the mail to the commercial address, even if an individual moves out of the area or even out of state.
The solution presented can create that ‘going postal’ condition. The consumer is advised to alert all correspondents to arrange forwarding of personal mail. The problem is, however, if you have had the personal mail originally forwarded to the commercial box and then wish to have it forwarded to a new residential address, the US postal service won’t do it. So the old service retains the responsibility of forwarding the mail, since new correspondence will continue to follow the original address, the commercial service, since the government postal authorities will simply direct the new correspondents to that old address. Asking businesses and friends to send letters and business mail to a personal address will simply mean those new letters and business mail will be undeliverable as addressed or sent to the commercial address.
Multiply these problems during government budget crises and add to them the policy that makes it virtually impossible to change the post office behaviors or the conduct of employees because of their government worker status. The power becomes absolute, thereby creating a condition that goes beyond ordinary frustration, especially when there is no solution to the problems created.
Frustrations within the post office itself create conditions for workplace violence, that continue to spread in different locations, so that employees themselves are impacted as well as the public, when the rules and conditions create an impasse that has no reasonable solution, as the documentary about the Royal Oak post office revealed.
Going postal, as one website tells us, is really no laughing matter.
While politicians labor over private versus government solutions to ordinary problems, and the budget crisis looms overhead, ‘going postal’ rage increases when there is no solution, and the advice will continue the problem. Experts it becomes the “perfect storm” for violent response to occur. There can be a "fight or flight" response. The solution is likely to allow individual considerations and options where solutions can occur, something large bureaucracies have difficulty doing and corporate chieftains unwilling to bend rules. That rigidity we find in daily lives increases stress in the culture, where ‘going postal’ may include an aggressive acting out.
Solutions to managing bureaucracy are critical to avoid aggressive response, either internal or external threats. One website describes how manage these issues. The advice is to seek help from advocacy groups and support from friends and family. In other words, whether it's the post office or some other bureaucracy, don't go it alone and risk 'going postal' instead.
