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Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts. A writer says it's a workers' rights issue | CBC Radio
You may not give a second thought to the tunes spinning on a constant loop at your favourite café or coffee shop, but one writer and podcaster who had to listen to repetitive music for years while working in bars and restaurants argues it's a serious workers' rights issue.
"[It's] the same system that's used to ... flood people out of, you know, the Branch Davidian in Waco or was used on terror suspects in Guantanamo — they use the repetition of music," Adam Johnson told The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti.
"I'm not suggesting that working at Applebee's is the same as being at Guantanamo, but the principle's the same."
Earlier this year, irritated Starbucks employees took to Reddit to rage about how they had to listen to the same songs from the Broadway hit musical Hamilton on repeat while on the job. One user wrote that if they heard a Hamilton song one more time, "I'm getting a ladder and ripping out all of our speakers from the ceiling."
Johnson argues it wouldn't take years of research to understand that "yes, playing the same music over and over again has a deleterious effect on one's mental well-being."
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 04 2019, @05:13PM (1 child)
Depending on the sound track, it wouldn't take but a couple of repeats for insanity to occur. When you find yourself having fits of rage over that kind thing, it's likely not due to the music. Much more likely, you're under a lot of stress, and / or need more sleep. What does get really old, really fast, is a song on repeat, or a handful of songs on repeat. Rather than having a playlist set on random, I would say a long playlist, set on repeat, would be much better. That way you could "curate the collection"/design it/whatever DJs do, and it would be "fresh again" once it came back around to that first song. 1000 songs, times 3 minutes average, is 3000 minutes of songs, divided by 60 minutes, leaves you with 50 hours of continuous music. I think something like that would be fairly sufficient to provide reasonably fresh music for the staff, if you're going for a specific atmosphere. I doubt most people go through that many songs in a week. Most people have their own playlists, and listen to them on repeat. Though, perhaps that's the old way, what with likes of Spotify, etc.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday March 04 2019, @06:37PM
For people who develop hearing loss later in life, the continuous nonstop ringing sound (tinnitus) is often a source of more stress than anything else. In extreme cases it leads to suicidal thoughts, but in general, it typically causes various problems associated with stress. Usually the best solution is counseling.
Probably, this applies to any sufficiently relentless sound. A playlist with 1000 songs, when you are there only 8 hours a day, I would suspect just takes longer to grate on the nerves because it takes longer to observe the pattern.