
Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts - colinprince
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-february-25-2019-1.5032165/starbucks-music-is-driving-employees-nuts-a-writer-says-it-s-a-workers-rights-issue-1.5028163
======
rmason
They modernized the gas pumps at our local Speedway by adding video players.
Instead of news like I've seen in California they play endless commercials and
the volume is loud.

I remember stopping one time when it was twenty below zero this winter, no one
was at the pumps and the same commercial was playing and not a single pump's
sound was in sync with another. I felt like I was in a movie about a dystopian
future.

~~~
krrrh
You don’t see these in Canada but I am always flabberghasted by them while in
the US. I noticed that holding my finger over the tiny speaker hole greatly
reduced the volume, and I resolved to carry a roll of duct tape with me so I
could do some public service next time I had to deal with them.

~~~
TheChaplain
Don't. Otherwise you'll end up with a visit from law enforcement for tampering
with the equipment.

~~~
colejohnson66
Except he didn’t tamper with anything

~~~
TheChaplain
Uhm, I know? But he did state the intent to do so, and I just said it would be
a bad idea as they will likely call the cops on him.

At least in my country you'll get into trouble if you tear down billboards,
alter advertisement panels/electronics and alike.

~~~
sk5t
Heaven forbid one to employ civil disobedience, or even to take non-
destructive steps, in order to tamp down offensive, irritating aspects of
daily life.

------
save_ferris
I experienced this working in retail during the holiday season back when I was
in college. The little bell intro to Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas
is You", will forever haunt my dreams. I rarely listen to Christmas music
anymore because of that experience.

Nowadays, I get irritated when I've burned through a 2 hour playlist twice at
work and need to find something else to listen to, but I totally take the
ability to change my music for granted.

~~~
balabaster
I moved from the UK to Canada 20 years ago this September. Back in High School
and University, I worked retail for about 5 years or so. By the time I left, I
haaaaaated Christmas music. Couldn't stand it.

Now after 20 years in Canada, I really miss it. Nothing here is the same as it
is in the UK when it comes to Christmas traditions. There's no carolers, the
smells aren't the same, the shops aren't the same. Everything that made
Christmas Christmas to me is missing. For everything I love about living in
Canada, that's been the hardest thing about living here instead of where I
grew up.

I actually have a Christmas playlist made up entirely of Christmas songs from
when I was a kid to try and kick start my Christmas mood when the season rolls
around :D

~~~
rovyko
>There's no carolers, the smells aren't the same, the shops aren't the same

Growing up in Canada, I thought carolers and olde-timey Christmas themes only
happened in movies these days. Are these traditions still alive in the UK?

~~~
jdietrich
Carolling largely follows a bimodal distribution based on social class. It's
still reasonably common among lower-working-class kids looking for a bit of
extra pocket money before Christmas; for similar reasons, they're the last
stalwarts of the penny-for-the-guy tradition. It's very common for those at
the upper reaches of the middle class, who have a real penchant for old-
fashioned community activities like choirs, fetes and street parties. It's all
but dead for the majority in the middle.

Speaking more broadly, there has been an effort in many rural areas to
maintain and revive particular local cultural traditions. Perhaps the most
spectacular such tradition is the tar barrels in Ottery St Mary[1], but I'm
also rather fond of the Royal Ashborne Shrovetide Football game[2] and the
multitude of mumming and wassailing traditions[3].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8-0wQmPeMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8-0wQmPeMg)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uV1zrZFzZo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uV1zrZFzZo)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEDaRQO5Utk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEDaRQO5Utk)

~~~
balabaster
How on earth did the Tar Barrels become a tradition?! :o

and the Shrovetide Football with only 1 rule?! :'D That's insane!

Only in England! I miss you guys :D

------
maxxxxx
In general I don’t understand why people think that it’s ok to pollute every
bit of space with noise of their choice (aka music). I view it as a big
nuisance.

~~~
jniedrauer
As with many things, it's profit-driven. As a related example, bars
intentionally turn the music up loud enough that conversations are difficult
because this causes patrons to buy more drinks.

~~~
maxxxxx
" loud enough that conversations are difficult because this causes patrons to
buy more drinks"

I know that I am weird but this makes me just want to run away,.

~~~
mrec
That doesn't make you weird, that makes you sane. You couldn't pay me to drink
in bars like that.

~~~
brokenmachine
I'm the same, but I guess we're not the target market then.

They want mindless binge drinkers, not talkers.

It's weird because I feel I'd drink more when I'm comfortable, with music
audible but not loud enough to drown out conversation or be too offensive.

~~~
ABCLAW
>They want mindless binge drinkers, not talkers.

I'm friends with a lot of bar owners, and have had a few bars in the family in
the past.

Owners don't want someone getting plastered. We want the high functioning
alcoholic who orders 3 pints to his partner's 1 and draws his friends to come
to the pub with him every night or two.

~~~
drilldrive
Seeing that you have experience in this sector, what is the purpose of a bar
exactly? I never have gone to a bar, but always have had the assumption that
bars are pretty much for getting plastered.

~~~
ABCLAW
If you want to get plastered, you can buy absurd amounts of alcohol by volume
by purchasing cheap vodka and making it palatable by running it through a
water filter to remove the bitter contaminants, then soak fruit in it to give
it some flavour.

For 30$, you can make yourself enough very nice booze, flavoured to your
tastes, as you would be able to get for $300 or so at a bar.

As for the direct question: different bars have different purposes, which is
why there are so many different types.

Bars in the financial district are often vehicles to waste money as a social
display. Bars in the artistic sector are often vehicles to meet likeminded
poor, but cool, artists and misfits. Bars in residential areas are normally
places to relax and have a few pints. Bars in the nightlife areas are normally
places to meet people. Some bars have good food. Some bars have cheap drinks.
Some bars have great music. Some bars have familiar staff.

There's a bar near where I used to live that offers manicures, male model
servers and foot rubs. A few streets down is a sports bar which seems to
employ exceptionally chesty waitresses. As you might imagine, the target
demographic for each is different.

------
grawprog
I went into a Starbucks the other day early in the morning that didn't have
music playing yet, it was really weird. It was actually kind of disconcerting.
I think that's the only time i've ever been in one with no music. Everybody's
voices echoed really loudly. You could hear every conversation going on and
people ordering from the other side of the store.

As much as I dislike their music choices usually, I kind of understand why
they have it going. Though a redesign of their interiors could probably do a
lot to help the empty echoey feeling without constant music.

~~~
asteli
I experienced this in a Target last year sometime. No music over the intercom,
and the energy in the place just felt more... nervous, restless. I don't know
whether that's an effect inherent to silence in large spaces or whether it was
an effect created by the absence of something we took for granted.

~~~
dawnerd
Wait, target plays music? I've literally never noticed and I was just in one
last night. Only thing I've heard is their movies section playing teasers
pretty loudly.

~~~
asteli
After that one experience, I'm pretty sure that if I walked into a supermarket
or department store and they _weren 't_ playing music, I would _immediately_
notice.

------
sjg007
I once sat in a Starbucks for a few hours and I noticed that the music shifted
with the customer base. So oldies and jazz got played around the time senior
citizens would come in and the vibe would change depending on the demographic
at that time. I thought it was interesting.. Maybe coincidence.. maybe not.

~~~
Nav_Panel
I think some Starbucks have a little more agency. The one near my apartment in
NYC is always playing a mid-00s hiphop/R&B throwbacks playlist. Definitely not
the mainstream suburban mom stuff, but, ya never know, maybe they have
separate "urban environment" playlists.

~~~
crooked-v
I've heard "Dare to Be Stupid" in one and I really doubt that would be a
corporate-approved item, so there's got to be some kind of local variation.

------
hombre_fatal
Obviously "cafe has music" is going to be a popular comments section on HN
where we all relate our horror stories of working at places with nonstop
music.

But this is a surprisingly terrible article. Guantanamo bay, really? Quoting a
no-name Adam Johnson with a head shot, unrelated to the source, to weigh in on
music? Focusing on Starbucks as linkbait when this is ubiquitous?

~~~
so33
Sure, comparisons to Gitmo might be unwarranted, but this article is not about
cafes merely playing music nonstop (which is indeed ubiquitous), but about
Starbucks playing the same few songs over the speakers repeatedly while
denying employees the ability to control the playlist (and therefore the
environment around them). FTA:

> 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."

At a smaller cafe, I'd imagine employees would get much more control over what
music to play (often I've noticed it's just some employee's phone plugged into
the speakers).

------
hnruss
I experienced this on another level while working retail at a musical
instrument store for a few years. People would pick up any instrument and play
whatever they wanted for however long they wanted-- at whatever volume they
wanted. Although some people are quite talented, most are not. One lady would
sit at the piano for hours, playing the musical equivalent of nonsense.

Around that same time, I had my own home recording studio and sometimes wound
up recording musicians that were on the scale of bad to downright terrible. If
I reacted negatively to the sound they made, that would only make them want to
re-record it, which meant I'd have to hear it again. I quickly learned how to
keep a straight face and mentally treat the music like background noise or
focus intently on the parts of it that weren't too bad.

~~~
PascLeRasc
I was just wondering if music instrument store employees would be affected by
everyone playing. I'm learning guitar and my housemate says it's disconcerting
to hear me playing parts of a song he recognizes without the full
instrumentation/song structure. I can't imagine if 5 people were doing that
all at once for an 8-hour shift.

------
throwaway413
When I was 16, I spent 3 months working at a Hollister store in the nearby
mall.

They had the same 6 songs playing on repeat all damn day, every single day. It
was tortuous.

That was the second worst thing about that place. The first being the hourly
spray of chemical fumes everywhere for their signature smell.

~~~
cwkoss
I wonder if any Hollister workers have had adverse physical effects from
working in an environment chronically saturated with their fragrance.

------
galago
When I was in high school I worked in a Pizza restaurant that had a CD player
in the closet. There were two CDs--The Carpenters Greatest Hits, which was
used January to November and The Carpenters Christmas album, which they used
in December. I must have listened to the Greatest Hits hundreds of times.

~~~
baldfat
That sounds like my childhood. We had an 8 track with Mamas and the Papas
California Dreaming and Random MARCHING MUSIC. The radio was broken.

It was Russian Roulette with the revolver loaded when mom ask what music you
want to listen to. You want audio arsenic or audio cyanide?

~~~
lesss365
Similar experience. It's why I can't stand to listen to Led Zeppelin and
absolutely despise showtunes...

------
barrister
I work at Starbucks and I completely disagree with this article (as it
pertains to Starbucks). Starbucks has a partnership with Spotify, all
employees get a free Spotify account. Every Starbucks has an iPhone used to
handle inventory & play the store music. This iPhone has the Spotify app
installed and a fairly large collection of Starbucks playlists which accrue
over time. Each playlist varies in size but some are quite large, e.g. the
"Chill" playlist is likely over 50 songs. Moreover, I consider myself a
_hipster_ when it comes to music and can tell that each of these playlists has
been curated in the same manner as Apple playlists, by using people "in the
know". What that means is that many songs are extremely new and underground. A
good example of this are songs like "High 5" by Sigrid, or "Lucky Girl" by
Fazerdaze listed when they're released. So, any employee (at least at my store
and those in the surrounding area) can simply change the playlist at any time.
Don't like the Hamilton playlist?, go change it to the "Dinner Party"
playlist. Not only can we change the playlist, we can simply use our own
iPhone and play are own playlists with our free Spotify account (as long as it
doesn't contain profanity). The one gripe I have is that some songs on the
Starbucks playlists are completely inappropriate such as "Get Out" by
CHVRCHES. If you haven't heard this song, go listen to it on Youtube and
figure out why this is an awkward song to play around customers. So, imo
Starbucks likely has the most lenient music policy of similar shops as well as
the best music selection.

------
overthemoon
I worked at a movie theater and we were supposed to get a new CD every month
from corporate to play in theaters before the movie started, but in the year
or so I worked there it never changed. I don't remember all of them, but the
ones I do remember are a cover of Convoy by Mannheim Steamroller, which is a
godawful treacly piece of shit to begin with, and a cover of Girl You'll Be a
Woman Soon by Urge Overkill, which I utterly loathe to this day.

This makes me think of Groundhog Day, and how brilliantly the film used the
repetition of I've Got You Babe to show how the protagonist was going crazy.

~~~
DrScump

      cover of Convoy by Mannheim Steamroller
    

Did MS actually do a cover of Convoy? The original "C.W. McCall" Convoy stems
from the same people, but I didn't know they redid Convoy in the MS style.

The 1980s McCall-branded reunion album ("Comin' Back for More"?) is good.

------
tjpnz
This seems petty in comparison to what many store clerks in Japan have to put
up with. Bic/Kojima Camera (perhaps comparable to Best Buy) normally has the
same 10 second long jingle playing on auto-repeat all day everyday. That is
the definition of real torture.

------
bogidon
An elementary school I attended from first to fourth grade would play
Beethovan's Moonlight Sonata in the lunchroom as the song that signaled "quiet
time," when we'd have to eat our food without talking. Occasionally we would
get another song, something by Chopin I think, but in my memory 90% of the
time it was Moonlight Sonata. Whenever I hear that song now, ten years later,
I get teleported back to fourth grade quiet time where all I could do was
stare into my carton of sometimes half-frozen strawberry milk or prod
miserably at my collard greens (invariably quiet time came near the end of
lunch when I had already eaten everything not terrible). I have an almost
physical revulsion when I hear it.

~~~
Synaesthesia
The first movement is overplayed. The second and third are really awesome
actually.

~~~
heegemcgee
The third movement is a banger. Should sound familiar to anyone who played
Earthworm Jim. I believe it also made an appearance in Looney Tunes in one
form or another.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zucBfXpCA6s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zucBfXpCA6s)

------
sevensor
I attended university in the very early days of MP3s. In a microcontroller
lab, the TAs hooked one of the lab computers to a pair of speakers and set up
their collection of MP3s to loop indefinitely. I still remember the whole
playlist:

* _White Wedding_ by Billy Idol

* _I Am The Walrus_ by the Beatles

I may have the order reversed.

~~~
PascLeRasc
You'd appreciate this John Mulaney bit:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnkrL42R7gk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnkrL42R7gk)

------
781
Some guitar shops have a list of songs which you are absolutely forbidden to
sing if trying on their guitars:

[https://i.imgur.com/Pzd3lIk.png](https://i.imgur.com/Pzd3lIk.png)

[https://i.imgur.com/qXkEUZl.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/qXkEUZl.jpg)

~~~
qrbLPHiKpiux
I'm also sick of Sweet Child O' Mine.

------
s_c_r
I worked at Chick-fil-A in high school and experienced this but with Christian
contemporary music. If I never hear "Jesus Take the Wheel" by Carrie Underwood
again it will be too soon. I feel the same way about steel drums after a
summer working at Bahama Breeze, a Caribbean themed Olive Garden.

~~~
eigenstuff
I always feel so bad for people that work at Hobby Lobby, it's just nothing
but the WORST elevator music versions of Christian shit. I give thanks
everyday for the Michael's we got a few years ago, so much better in every
single way. Every time I'm forced to go to Hobby Lobby when Michael's doesn't
have what I need, I can't get out of there fast enough.

------
heegemcgee
This isn't really a whole article, is it? It's an anecdote.

I don't doubt that this is a problem, but this isn't a good look at it.

~~~
mbostleman
Yes. Any premise can be created if all that is needed is the argument of
"...one writer and podcaster...".

------
GuB-42
I don't know about Starbucks but have you ever been to a Family Mart
convenience store in Japan? I'm wondering how the music didn't drive the
employees mad.

The Family Mart welcome song is probably the most recognizable but the same
goes for stores like Bic Camera and many others.

~~~
jpatokal
The Japanese take this to another level. Imagine listening to these all day,
every day:

 _Don don don, donki, don quijote..._

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJyYrrDKYZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJyYrrDKYZE)
(Don Quijote)

 _Kamera wa yodobashi kamera!_

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4QSu1ZHunw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4QSu1ZHunw)
(Yodobashi Camera)

~~~
dTal
Dear god. Listening to that first link all the way through was a poor
decision. It won't go away!

How do marketers come up with such reliably earwormy stuff? Are there papers I
can go read about this?

------
christophilus
The local Target used to be music free, and was the only big chain shopping
experience I’ve ever enjoyed. I’d go out of my way to go there over
competitors. Then they renovated, and now they blast the same terrible noise
that every other retailer does. It sucks. I haven’t been back since.

------
cableshaft
I worked at a department store for a year in the gifts department (think
Hummel figures, Precious Moments figures, candles, lava lamps, crystal dishes,
various crap like that). There was a CD player that had a single CD in it that
played on repeat. It was a CD of showtunes, like Oklahoma, etc. The only song
on there I could tolerate was "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof,
all the rest drove me nuts. I could escape it though, by going to a different
corner of the department, so it wasn't too bad.

There was another time I worked in a factory job for a year, and the forewoman
would blast the local Top 40 station throughout the whole factory all day
every day. I would hear the same songs 3 or 4 times a day every day I worked
there that entire year. To this day I get flashbacks whenever I hear Kylie
Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head" (specifically the "la la la, la la,
la la la" chorus. Drove me nuts hearing that all the time).

------
thirdsun
Probably just a sidenote and maybe not that relevant, but I think 80s Japan
had the right idea of environmental music which was considered as a meaningful
part of a location, building or space - regardless of if it served artistic
purposes or corporate interests. The reason this comes to my mind is this [1]
recently released, utterly fantastic compilation that focuses on this very
topic: Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music
1980-1990

Roughly explained in this excerpt:

> "Corporate big bucks and avant-garde music aren’t the most obvious
> bedfellows — but throw user experience into the mix, and you’ve got a viable
> cultural phenomenon: kankyō ongaku. In 1980s Japan, as the country continued
> to enjoy an unprecedented post-war boom, it became the world’s second-
> largest economy; companies like Sanyo and Muji pumped cash into the arts to
> enhance the experiences for its consumers."

For anyone interested I highly recommend the physical editions of the release
as they include twice as many tracks (digital rights for japanese music are
very complicated), some of them very rare and released for the first time
outside Japan. In addition they come with a hardcover book featuring extensive
liner notes and an essay explaining the circumstances and setting. However
there are digital versions with a limited track selection: [2][3]

[1] [https://lightintheattic.net/releases/4088-kankyo-ongaku-
japa...](https://lightintheattic.net/releases/4088-kankyo-ongaku-japanese-
ambient-environmental-new-age-music-1980-1990)

[2] [https://daily.bandcamp.com/2019/02/15/kankyo-ongaku-
japanese...](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2019/02/15/kankyo-ongaku-japanese-
ambient-environmental-new-age-music-1980-1990-review/)

[3]
[https://open.spotify.com/album/0rrRvu7ObcLgxbuGGkx3Rn?si=V5Y...](https://open.spotify.com/album/0rrRvu7ObcLgxbuGGkx3Rn?si=V5Y6xKvRR66rFbovYml_jw)

~~~
DoingIsLearning
Not sure if it is interely relevant for the thread. But I really enjoyed the
music and also learning more about the genre so thanks for sharing.

------
MiddleEndian
I wouldn't be surprised if the real goal was to make customers spend less time
sitting around.

In the last year or two, I've noticed Panera has been playing godawful music
that makes it nearly impossible to sit down, relax, and work on something.

It works of course, but now I just don't go at all.

~~~
hanging
Almost _every_ Panera I've been in was poorly run. Poor service and bad, old
coffee more often than not.

SF at 4th and King was the lone exception.

~~~
MiddleEndian
Perhaps. I don't drink coffee, I liked their fruit smoothies, and bagels are
bagels. The music used to be generic enough (probably something quiet and
instrumental but I honestly cannot recall) that it was not something I
registered, but more recently they've played loud country/pop (observed in
both Massachusetts and Maryland) that I now avoid them.

------
noarchy
I am never in a Starbucks for long enough to really notice the music. There
usually isn't any place to sit, as the place seems to turn into an office or
study space, with Macbooks (rarely something else) taking up nearly every
seat.

~~~
chrisseaton
That's the whole idea of Starbucks - it's the third place.

~~~
noarchy
I have never been the kind to want to work from a cafe, but I know plenty who
do it. Fair enough. I'm more of the kind who wants to meet friends to have a
conversation at a cafe, which we really can't do when the seats are gobbled up
by people who are camped out there all day long. There are cafes where this
doesn't happen, and they seem to be the ones without free wifi. I guess
there's a market for each.

------
paxswill
In the specific case of Starbucks (at least in the US), the employees _do_
have a bit of control over the music. They're able to curate a playlist of
store "favorites" and are usually able to change the playlist from whatever's
playing to the "favorites" playlist. The problem is not very many employees
know about it, and it requires using a specific piece of hardware (an in-store
iPod also used for inventory). They playlist will also switch roughly every 30
minutes or so, so they have to keep switching it back.

------
jread
I spend about 2 hours in Starbucks every morning before taking kids to school.
Usually the playlist is tolerable, but every once in a while it's absolutely
horrendous, particularly for 5AM. A couple years ago they had a 70s Soul Train
playlist including Love Train which drove me nuts. I can only imagine being an
employee on an 8 hour shift and not able to put on noise cancelling
headphones.

------
nvr219
Of course CBC would report this, they're in Big Tim Horton's pockets

~~~
frosted-flakes
Incidentally, most Tim Hortons I've been to don't play any music at all. I
love it.

------
wodenokoto
Let us spare a moment of silence for the poor souls who had to work the floor
and register at Japanese we-sell-everything store Donkihote, who had to listen
to this piece of art on repeat, day or night.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJyYrrDKYZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJyYrrDKYZE)

------
tartoran
Reminds me of Yellocabs in NYC. The screen can be muted but you're still
staring at a lit blue screen while riding in the back of a cab and it's very
unpleasant at night. Try relaxing if you can. I don't take yellow cabs anymore
but last time I experienced this I was thinking of taping a a cloth as a
curtain.

------
mgkimsal
worked at a music store for a couple of years - part time, but the company-
provided playlists did grate after a while. upside was it was fairly chart-
driven, so you'd generally not get the same things for more than a few weeks
in a row. it was mostly just very... popularity driven (of course, they're
trying to push new stuff). We did generally have some down time each day which
was 'staff choice', but even then they still wanted it to be from their
approved list. We _mostly_ followed that rule. It was a big corporate chain
store thing, not a hip indie place.

At some point they moved in to promoting video in store, which got worse. The
CDs they'd send were samplers, but the "now play this VHS tape"... the Garth
Brooks concert VHS... ugh - however much you like him, having to listen to it
2x/day for weeks... (at least it seemed like weeks)

~~~
hanging
That's one thing I miss about record stores like Tower. The music was chosen
by workers on shift, a full album side at a time. I discovered some great
music that way, including "popular" artists _before_ they were popular.

------
post_break
I worked for Toys R Us. The crappy music they played was synced to the hold
music of the store. It was really weird.

------
berbec
I owned a Domino's and put up a LCD in the customer waiting area. I bought a
BluRay player and a copy of Finding Nemo.

It took two shifts for me to fill a disc with <cough> backups <cough> of
dozens of Disney/Pixar/etc movies. Once I broke 50 hours of video, I stopped
being able to recite it at will.

~~~
Pfhreak
We can hem and haw about piracy for personal use. But piracy and public
playback of pirated media at a business you owned seems like a totally
different beast to me.

~~~
berbec
I owned the blurays/dvd for everything I showed. I got the backups from the
"usual places" because it was easier than ripping them myself. I had every
single disc in the office.

------
sunshinelackof
I experienced this in college when I worked as a cashier at a grocery store.
One particular "song" comprised entirely of whale noises. I probably heard it
15 times a day and it was always the target of employee aggression. For some
reason the manager just refused to put on something else.

------
spsrich
Try finding any public space in the USA where there is not blaring background
music. Good luck. I always felt the reason Starbucks plays deafening music is
to discourage people from lingering. It certainly has the effect on me, and I
pity the poor employees.

------
ceedan
I worked at a coffee shop that played a fixed set of songs which included the
Sarah McLachlan song from her SPCA commercials. Every time it came on somebody
would run into the back to change it, because we all grew to hate the "sad
puppy song"

------
philip1209
I had similar feelings in an open office. When it got loud, the suggestion was
to put on headphones. But, in effect, that was just using more noise to drown
out other noise. All I really wanted was some peace and quiet!

~~~
mayank
The new generation of noise-canceling headphones can block sound without
playing other audio. It's not perfect, but it's much better than the "noise
canceling" headphones from a decade ago.

~~~
mitchellgoffpc
The newest cans from Sony and Bose ARE pretty good, but the pressure always
bothers my ears after a while, especially when I’m not playing music. There’s
no real substitute for a quiet office, other than maybe working remotely.

------
ryanmarsh
One weekday morning I decided to take my wife and daughters (I was working
from home, and we homeschool) out for breakfast at a new breakfast joint. The
sun had just risen, they weather was perfect and they had a patio. We were
seated outside and blasted by classic rock, really great songs actually, but
not loud and at 8am. I asked the waitress what the deal was, she said it
wasn't them, the property management company had them installed (it was in a
strip with 4 other businesses). What benefit would it be to the property
management company? I'll never know.

------
mysterydip
When I was in Japan, most of the bigger stores played one song, their 30ish
second long theme, on repeat. It's been 15 years and I can still remember Bic
Camera's, Yodobashi Camera's, and Geo's.

------
benbristow
The Starbucks I frequent often (a kiosk at Glasgow (Scotland) Central Train
Station) seem to have their own music on their phones or something. Always
hear something different.

I suppose it depends on the type of Starbucks.

~~~
johnvanommen
> The Starbucks I frequent often (a kiosk at Glasgow (Scotland) Central Train
> Station) seem to have their own music on their phones or something.

In the United States, a venue can be fined for playing music without a
license. An acquaintance of mine has a restaurant and was sued for playing
music that was unlicensed.

~~~
benbristow
In the UK there's two main licensing companies called PRS/PRL. Businesses
primarily have licenses with them that covers 99.9% of bases when it comes to
licensing.

------
zxcvbn4038
I certainly have sympathy - I used to work with a woman who watched Gone With
The Wind three times a day, every day. That’s twelve hours a day, eighty-four
hours a week, every week. Best part of quittin’ time was not having to see or
hear Gone With The Wind until the next day - weekends were never more
appreciated.

I quit listening to radio when a local recruiting agency bought every ad slot,
day and night, for six weeks. I’m not going to say their name because I don’t
want them to ever know anyone listened to their ads or remembers them.

~~~
drilldrive
Let me guess, the US Marine Core?

~~~
bacondude3
FYI, that's the correct pronunciation, but it's spelled "Corps" \-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps)

~~~
drilldrive
Ah thank you, that always bugged me.

------
harshitaneja
Oh god. This. I work out of starbucks(prefer the white noise than my office)
and the music is becoming so irritating now. The same small number of tracks
on repeat the whole day.. everyday.

~~~
peapicker
While I have nothing against coffee shop working (done it myself plenty) I
respectfully submit that irritating worker-sitters is the actual reason for
the repetition and irritation. They'd rather free up our seats.

------
Sutanreyu
I remember going to a mall once and being in an altered state of mind...
[Mainstream] music felt like something used to get people in an almost
hypnotic state of ignorance, an acoustic bubble to encourage shopping,
mingling... I don't know how to quite put a finger on it. It wasn't anything
particularly negative, but it was the thought of it being some sort of mood
manipulator, setting a scene for those who were well off enough to be a part
of it.

------
egypturnash
I've noticed that the music a coffee shop plays has a big effect on whether or
not I want to come back regularly. It doesn't have to all be stuff I'd have in
my own playlists, but it needs to have _variety_. It's even fine if
_sometimes_ it's something I actively dislike.

Working in a place that plays the same corporate-approved playlist forever is
hellish, though. Having it be your actual job to be there is even worse.

------
supernovae
The Starbucks I visit doesn't even seem to play music. It's been a while since
I've been to a store that did and when they did it was just coffeehouse
playlist with Spotify integration so it was kind of cool what they had set up.

I imagine working in an environment where you hear the same music regardless
would cause some pain if you focus on that aspect of your work environment.

Just imagine being alive in the 80s with muzak and really crappy jingles play

~~~
dingaling
> Just imagine being alive in the 80s with muzak and really crappy jingles
> play

I worked in a chain supermarket in the 80s and to this day I know the words
and melodies of all the hits of that decade, but not the names of the songs or
the artists.

------
mcgwiz
Reminds me of my (second) stint working there in the mid-00s, deciphering the
format of their PlayNetwork discs.

[https://club.myce.com/t/starbucks-playnetwork-playdisc-
aud-f...](https://club.myce.com/t/starbucks-playnetwork-playdisc-aud-
format/63734/67)

Unfortunately, within a year they happened to transition to satellite feeds.

(Kudos to myce, formerly CDFreaks, for keeping this content online all this
time.)

------
fallingfrog
I used to work in the back room of a Target and the stereo was always tuned to
the same radio station. They just played 12 songs, in a loop, 24/7\. I always
knew which song would come on next before it did. I think most radio stations
are like that- they just have a loop of about an hour of music that they play,
and most people aren't in the car long enough to figure out it's just the same
songs over and over.

~~~
DrScump

      They just played 12 songs, in a loop
    

Sounds like Muzak, not regular radio.

~~~
fallingfrog
Hm, no I don't remember the frequency but they would do the standard thing
where the announcer would come on and say "This is WSUK 99.7 playing the
biggest hits!" and so on.

------
accnumnplus1
This is really a no-brainer. The music annoys me as a regular customer. The
choice of music can also be peculiar - country and western in London...?

------
peterwwillis
The music is also a factor of what the manager feels like playing. I know that
sometimes they can change to a different station and change the volume, though
they'll always claim they can't.

I've had to leave Starbucks on several occasions because the speakers were
blaring. Other times the musical selection is the opposite of "easy
listening", like you're working in a club or something.

------
s_r_n
This seems like a problem that could be solved by noise cancelling earbuds
that could allow people to filter in things like people talking to them, but
filter out background noise.

I've experienced a similar problem at work actually, but with people with loud
voices. I've wished for an earbud set that could let me dial the volume down
or run certain voices through a vocoder.

------
aboutruby
Reddit thread:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/starbucks/comments/ah2m1d/if_i_have...](https://www.reddit.com/r/starbucks/comments/ah2m1d/if_i_have_to_hear_hamilton_one_more_time_im/)
(I couldn't find any other one than the one linked in the article).

------
sonnyblarney
I read an article recently that telling children what to eat doesn't work
well, neither does letting them pick everything. But - if you give them a
choice of 'A or B' \- it seems to work better.

Perhaps stores ought to a) provide some variety and b) let the staff have at
least some influence.

'Here's a massive list of music - you make the playlists from this'

------
ridiculous_fish
During my early Apple days, I worked in a lab with around 30 Macs engaged in
automated restart testing. BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG

------
josefresco
Stayed at Disney this summer. Visited a gift shop /store for some milk and the
Disney employee asked me if I noticed the music. Confused I was like "uhhh
sure", she excitedly told me they just updated the music and it was clearly
making her day.

------
ng12
I spent years working retail in a CVS. Hamilton's got nothing on off-brand
Christmas music.

~~~
dmonagha
Worked at Walgreens during high school. I'll take waterboarding over having to
hear 'Train - Drops of Jupiter' ever again.

~~~
chrshawkes
That's a bad one, but I got one better... Pompei by that terrible singer I'll
never listen to voluntarily. That song is worse than Kars for Kids.

------
fishingisfun
noise pollution is a real problem at my work place as well. The whole open
concept and crappy ventilation system has caused me many headaches. I dont
even listen to the radio on my way back home because how exhausted the whole
day at the office has made me

------
padseeker
I totally agree with this. As a high school kid I used to work at Toys R Us,
we'd broadcast a mix tape that would be changed maybe once every two months?
This meant hearing Margaritaville 3-4 times a day every day I worked. It could
drive you mad.

------
eeeeeeeeeeeee
I've noticed this same thing when I go to restaurants or some cafes to work,
especially chains. I find myself so annoyed by the music in just a few hours,
I have to leave. But maybe that is the point? I feel sorry for the employees,
though.

------
jameane
I still have a reaction to the Proclaimers 500 Miles, because my boss at my
bookstore job played that virtually every shift. Or Garth Brooks. I go to the
bathroom or excuse myself from the room when either comes on.

~~~
bobbean
I really hope you've seen the How I Met Your Mother scene with that song.

[https://youtu.be/QYpSniiZhpg](https://youtu.be/QYpSniiZhpg)

------
Thermolabile
The worst job in the world if you hate repetitive music would be working in a
shopping mall. For 3 solid months before Christmas they play every Christmas
song you've ever heard over and over again.

------
kawsper
This does not surprise me at all, I sometimes work from a local pub during the
day maybe once every 14 days, and even I can memorize the playlist and it
drives me nuts if I'm there without headphones.

------
commandlinefan
Customers, too.

------
southphillyman
This is a normal part of working retail. I'll forever have Smooth by Carlos
Santana and Rob Thomas etched into my memory from my time working at
Blockbuster Video in the early 2000s

------
iambateman
I once quit a job in part because the building manager insisted on playing one
playlist of 90's soft-rock. He said it was part of the "brand".

Same songs...every day.

------
brycedorn
it's only a matter of time before we all have bone-conducting headphones and
can wirelessly receive/send sounds to each other (and choose our own music at
work)

~~~
brokenmachine
We have headphones now and people still rudely insist on broadcasting their
music to everyone.

------
albemuth
Relevant comedy skit:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnkrL42R7gk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnkrL42R7gk)

------
busterarm
"Paid for by Tim Hortons"

------
dgzl
I sympathize with these employees, but isn't this somewhat unimportant in the
grand scheme of things? It's not like Starbucks is trying to brain-wash their
employees via the Hamilton soundtrack.

~~~
JeremyBanks
Isn't eveything somewhat unimportant in the grand scheme of things?

~~~
dgzl
No. There are real abuses in this world that need our attention much more than
this.

------
basic6
There's nothing worse than quirky alternative music.

------
cheesymuffin
I'm going to teach you all a hack.

You can ask the employees at Starbucks (and most semi-reasonable coffeeshops)
to turn the music down.

Yes, I know, it's amazing what you can get by using your words.

~~~
iamjaredwalters
Do you recommend a condescending attitude at all times or just this time?

~~~
cheesymuffin
Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the music at your local Starbucks.

------
tamaharbor
If you don't like it, don't work there.

~~~
baldfat
I am guessing you also have an issue with people being on unemployment?

