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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: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 04 2019, @04:59PM
Been there, and I empathize with you. I'm the employee, not the neighbor. We started out with 4 outdoor speakers. I couldn't figure out how to turn them down, so I cut wires to two of them. Those are the two that pointed toward the little subdivision across the road. Even after cutting those wires, the neighbors bitched to the city about being woke up at night. FINALLY, the bosses had a rheostat installed so they could cut the volume down to something reasonable.
Inside the building was just as bad. The speakers would blast your eardrums out if you were close to them. Investigation showed that some of the speakers could be dialed down, and others, like those outside had no dial. I cut some wires, and dialed the rest down. It took some time to get things "right".
Unlike most people, I got away with my alterations because I'm maintenance. No one had reason to be suspicious when Runaway was up in the scissor lift, messing with lights, and wiring.
And, I have no explanation for the previous occupant's need to blast out announcements at leventyleven decibels. It made no sense at all.
The sole mitigating circumstance for all that noise is, the subdivision was built after the plant was built. Meaning, the previous occupants didn't install all of those speakers with the intention of blowing away the neighbors.
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