At 11:33 AM 6/8/00 -0700, you wrote:
>>Today, I went to the local branch of the US post-office to expedite the
>>mailing of a letter. I hadn't been there in a long time, so I was
>>impressed by two things: (1) the clerk asked if I wanted to buy stamps
>>while I was there and (2) they had set up think [i.e., thick] plexiglass
>>barriers between the customers and the clerks, to prevent robbery.
>
>I thought it was to protect the people against workers going postal...
maybe, but I read an article about the US postal service awhile back that
suggested that the move toward privatization that began under Nixon had
driven some workers (who had sought out the USPS as a place where they
could get job tenure and a good pension) over the edge, pushing them to "go
postal." If this report is correct, there is a link between
commercialization (innovation 1) and the "think" plexiglass barriers
(innovation 2).
BTW, according to my Sternite sources, it was the dreaded Howard Stern who
coined the phrase "going postal."
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
