It’s good to be passionate about your job and take steps to improve your performance. It is somewhat frowned upon, however, when those steps cause everyone at Washington’s Capitol building to freak out fearing some kind of terror attack.

Doug Hughes, a mailman from Florida, took his dedication to the job to another level when he set about delivering some rather special mail. Here’s CNN:

[He] boarded a small personal aircraft called a “gyrocopter” and flew an hour from Maryland into restricted airspace over Washington and landed on the West Lawn of the Capitol building.

In tote: letters for every member of Congress urging them to reform campaign finance laws.

Those letters still have more chance of arriving than if he sent them with the SA Post Office, that’s for sure.

As more details of Hughes came to light the story grew stranger. It turns out he has been plotting this mission for all of two and a half years and has been questioned by the Secret Service before in 2013. What for? They received a tip he might want to land a gyrocopter at the Capitol, so it’s nice to see he stuck to his guns. CNN again:

He’s upset that politicians can be bought and sold at auction, and I agree with him. That’s the point he’s trying [to make]” [Hughes’ friend Michael] Shanahan said. “Happy he made it alive. I want to thank the people who decided not to kill him.

Hughes was flying in restricted airspace without permission, which as we all know often doesn’t end well.

And what did this mean for the VIPs in the area? Of course all hell broke loose:

..a half-dozen police were running through the hallways, speaking into their radios about a lockdown. In the room waited Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who had stopped by for a photo op and was posing a challenge for officers discussing safe ways to get the prime minister out of the building if necessary.

Moral of the story? Stick to delivering mail the good old-fashioned way – in tight shorts, dogs barking, three weeks late.

[source:cnn]