Rage Against the Sorting Machine

Over at Stats.org, Trevor Butterworth works himself into a frenzy over the latest in rage-oriented trend stories, considers the evolution of "holiday rage," and puts all the blame right where it belongs: on the U.S. Postal Service.

Other recent examples of "whatever rage" include "airport rage," "tip rage," and "gnome rage" (this was casually described by the Swindon Advertiser as a "drunken rage," that resulted in a violent attack on several garden gnomes, but someone has to look out for the little people).

The etiology of "whatever rage" as a syndrome in popular culture owes much to the idea that working for the United States Postal Service was a distinct pathological activity, given the number of times disgruntled postal workers turned up at work and shot their colleagues and superiors….

Thanks to media hype and references in "The Simpsons," the term "going postal" became synonymous with workplace rage even though the CDC found that the occupational homicide rate for postal workers didn't exceed the rate for all workers in the U.S. in the 1980s.

Whole thing here.