“Going Postal” became a euphemism for an employee who has a psychotic break which culminates in violence that is generally aimed at the workplace. This is because much of the work of mail sorters simply drove them to increased inclinations toward psychotic breaks. Much has been done to improve the working conditions of postal workers since a string of incidents indicated that the particular work, not the postal field as a whole, was the cause.
There is a tendency in society to create symbols from the most powerful real world examples of behavioral excess. Sometimes, these symbols develop when humorists and comics develop them, and sometimes they are part of the rapid ways in which words that summarize a condition become popular and are incorporated into the general language. There is, in no way or form, a tendency to minimize the individual tragedy or horror of the event, but such terms can be considered as society’s nervous giggle, just as individuals might break out in hysterical laughter or giggle in response to external stresses that they just cannot process well.
Calling someone who behaves strangely an “axe murderer”, or a white van a “molester mobile” are social references that may seem humorous, but which are based in fact, and which help to communicate facts. Individuals who turn out to be serial killers or who eventually act out violently do not usually do so without having demonstrated certain emotional and social upsets that have been witnessed and remembered.
These terms are the way in which people provide information about potential troublemakers. They ask why a van is called a “molester mobile” and learn more. It is common for human predators to use vans which can easily conceal a victim and mix into traffic as just another anonymous service vehicle. Later, the individual pays more attention to windowless vans in areas where there are women and children walking around.
Unexpected and horrific violence is occurring these days in ways that need to be classified and known, so that the precursors can be identified and so that increased safety and security measures can be taken. No one is minimizing the almost daily disappearances, rapes and murders of women and children. But no one expects such events as a recent rape that lasted for hours after a school dance to occur. No one expected students to watch and to not report the incident. No one expects for their child to be stolen from their bed in the middle of the night, or for a disgruntled employee to show up at the workplace with a gun and to shoot anyone who is available.
These are violent expressions of dysfunction that is so sudden, unprecedented, and severe that signals are broadcast long before the individual acts out. But society is forced to minimize those signals. Reporting the signals results either in complete inaction and threats of legal sanctions, or in the reporter being labeled as hysterical. Almost every built up community in the nation houses so many registered sex offenders that just investigating all of them after a missing persons case can take weeks.
There are no official mechanisms for preventing sudden and violent events based on reports of odd behavior, or based on the fact that a person with a history of violence is simply suspicious because of their past behavior. There are simply no preventive measures possible for sudden, violent events, and the nervous giggles and humorous symbols are everyone’s way of dealing with the impossible and the overwhelming: society is entering a time when certain disturbed and predatory individuals see increasing opportunities for introducing chaos, anywhere and at any time.
So “going postal” is a shorthand that warns people that any person who is under enormous stress from the job may be headed for a psychotic episode which might culminate in violence toward the self or others. Or, it classifies the type of violence: as resulting from overwhelming rage and stress that is related to, or directed at the job.
