Going postal, in American English slang, means becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a post office or other workplace environment.
The expression derives from a series of incidents from 1983 onward in which United States Postal Service (USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, and members of the police or general public in acts of mass murder. Between 1986 and 1997, more than forty people were gunned down by spree killers in at least twenty incidents of workplace rage.
Other articles related to "going postal, postal":
... have found that the homicide rates per 100,000 workers at postal facilities were lower than at other workplaces ... The homicide rate for postal workers was 0.26 per 100,000 ... However, not all murders on the job are directly comparable to "going postal" ...
Famous quotes containing the word postal:
“none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1985)