Postal Service...most Dangerous Federal Job

Old article, but still relevant.

*I did a search the best I could before posting*

http://www.federaltimes.com/article...ce-tops-list


-IBFS

A dangerous federal job perhaps but hardly a dangerous job. Municipal works personnel are likely 20 times more frequently injured or killed.

I too was surprised. I would think those who do road work in the middle of traffic would be a worse place. But that's what the article said.

I don't writes em, I just posts 'em.


-IBFS

Many of those (not all of them) are independent contractors, not federal employees. Many of them are also state employees, not federal, and wouldn't have been included in the statistics.

Try the boys & girls of the Border Patrol. There are at least 4 deaths per week down there on the Southern border. For that matter any other Federal Police agencies share a certainly more dangerous job than postal delivery...

IBS, Greetings:

Apples'n'Oranges, methinks. One would really need to compare, say, letter carriers with meat inspectors, or other federal workers who do not live behind a desk. I've worked for both the Postal Service and the US Civil Service Commission, and short of getting my tie caught in a keypunch machine (it was a while ago), the latter job was nearly free of opportunities for injury.

I would also look at all cause mortality and life expectancy, precisely because letter carriers *move* a lot, and sitting kills.

You write:

"All science is either Physics or Stamp Collecting."

I understand that Lord Rutherford meant this as an insult, and is more correctly quoted as saying:

"Physics is the only real science; all the rest are just stamp collecting."

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Greetings Ike!




As an engineer it was common to work around rotating machinery in my line. I heard about one fellow who got pulled in (but miraculously not hurt). After that I wore clip on ties!




Ernest Rutherford wasn't really using it as an "insult", just saying that every science is part of physics (chemistry, biology, etc.) but not for example archeology, astronomy, etc. Those are separate and unrelated sciences. (Like separate unrelated pieces of paper?) There are all kinds of interpretations of what he meant by this, but I think this describes it most accurately. In this then, he would be theoretically correct.


-IBFS

I'm not sure that I agree.

Astronomy (as opposed to astrology) is almost always taught along with physics; after all, most of the issues are the same (motion, gravity, light transmission & spectra, etc). Even when a university has its own telescope, astronomy is often taught as a subset/specialty within the physics department.

Back in his day, much of biology was about cataloging & describing anatomical features & behavior; in this, it was very much like stamp collecting. Ditto chemistry.

So, yes, I think that he was comparing biologists to stamp collectors, and in a gratuitously insulting way.

Does not make him right, just rude.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Perhaps I picked a bad example...You are both correct and incorrect. The Physical part of astronomy involves the study of matter and it's motion thru space along with the concepts of energy and force. Physics would not constitute the study of simply the matter part.

Rutherford was eccentric, as most geniuses are, and was known to have a "sense of humor". To judge someone as "rude" wouldn't be fair, without having known the person.


-IBFS

The *most* dangerous federal jobs, i.e. the military, are excluded from this study. I guess including them wouldn't only not be "apples to apples", but more like blueberries to sharks. I'd imagine astronauts have to have a much higher fatality rate, percentage-wise, but I suppose they're included in the military numbers as well since they usually still hold a rank in the Air Force or Navy as the case may be.

Say what you will about postal workers, but they are the only federal employees who go to every single address in the country, and a lot of those addresses aren't very safe to be around.