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Starbucks' Music Is Driving Employees Nuts (www.cbc.ca)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: You may not give a second thought to the tunes spinning on a constant loop at your favorite cafe 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." As a solution, he suggested health inspectors could enforce better working conditions, or a tip line could be created for people to report poor working conditions, like repetitive music. Another solution? Communication, says neuroscientist Jessica Grahn. She studies music, which science has shown to be one of the strongest influencers of mood, she said. It can calm dementia patients struggling with depression or anger, or increase our endurance when we're working out. However, there are downsides to the power of music. Unlike how we can close our eyes to things we don't want to see, we can't close our ears to sound. Having control over one's environment can make a big difference, said Grahn, which is why she recommends employers and employees talk about why certain music is being played, or what they can do to switch things up.
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." As a solution, he suggested health inspectors could enforce better working conditions, or a tip line could be created for people to report poor working conditions, like repetitive music. Another solution? Communication, says neuroscientist Jessica Grahn. She studies music, which science has shown to be one of the strongest influencers of mood, she said. It can calm dementia patients struggling with depression or anger, or increase our endurance when we're working out. However, there are downsides to the power of music. Unlike how we can close our eyes to things we don't want to see, we can't close our ears to sound. Having control over one's environment can make a big difference, said Grahn, which is why she recommends employers and employees talk about why certain music is being played, or what they can do to switch things up.
We used to have a 4 hour tape loop that they used for 3 months at a time. It took a couple of weeks, but you did get tired of hearing the same songs in the same order every day.
Given that a simple old ipod shuffle could hold a couple of days worth of music and change things up automatically, why would any business use a tape loop these days?
"I'm not suggesting that working at Applebee's is the same as being at Guantanamo, but the principle's the same."
Food’s probably better at Guantanamo, for one thing.
#DeleteChrome
(Explained)*
...for A Walk in the Black Forest.
Anyone who has worked in retail knows the torturous effects of Christmas music. It's hard to be festive or jolly when you have heard Jingle Bell Rock too many times.
That song, every hour for months, building up to 12 hour shifts close to christmas. 30 years later I still change the radio if that song ever comes on!
If I want music, I just put AoA on repeat. Hyejeong forever!
Like, you know, I totally, like agree, you know?
The music at, like, Starbucks, is like? you know, totally maddening even when, like, I'm only there for a while? you know?
But I can't help, like, you know? think, like maybe it would, you know, help, if, like, you could communicate? this? better?
Oh, but, woah, like? This is totally, like, the catch 42... if, like, you could communicate? This? Better? you wouldn't be, like, a starbucks counter jockey?
You know?
Loud music is the aural equivalent of lasers and strobe lights. Unless you're operating a club please don't harass your employees and customers with it.
If silence is a problem, textured ambient sounds can give your business far more personality than blaring the Billboard Top 40.
These days everybody carries around earbuds and a smartphone. If people actually want to listen to music, they will.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
What about the theme park employees stuck in the same non-stop single-song loop forever?
Now, for the grace of the mighty heroes and heroines that have survive those Gitmo-like circumstances every day... let us sing a song:
It's a small world after all...
why the hell is there a need to continuously blast music in a coffee shop, to begin with?
have human gotten so used to watching movies that they can't imagine anything in life without a background music track?
or is the the coffee shop's attempt to try to do the same manipulations as clothes stores to try to maximize profits? (playing catchy upbeat music apparently increases the probability of impulse buys ?)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
If silence is a problem,
indeed, what's wrong with silence?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You could try anonymously reporting them to the RIAA and get them to send an extortion collector.
Maybe they already paid. But maybe they didn't...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I can see how both sides have a stake in this issue. It is the Starbucks prerogative to play music that supports the businesses overall goal of making money, however questionable their musical choices are (Hamilton soundtrack?!?), however, it's also important that the employees have the right to not work in a torturous environment. In this case, I propose that if Starbucks is going to loop repetitive music in their stores to the possible detriment to their employees, then Starbucks allow employees to wear discreet Bluetooth earbuds that play the music of their choice. There, win-win.
If I own a business, pay to design an environment, pay to educate employees company standards of service, I also have the right to license music to play in that environment.
There's a simple solution for employees that no longer care to operate per the environment I created, find somewhere else to work. Simple solution, your employment is at will and if you find conditions intolerable, move on.
While I certainly understand and fully support your at will argument, the issue here is one of repetitiveness, which I happen to find completely legitimate, especially in the day and age of nearly unlimited music content to choose from. I've been with the same employer for nearly 20 years now, and we've had the same music system in place for longer than I've been around. Every hour, the music genre changes, and the employees have a choice as to which genres get shuffled in the mix (they offer a casual vote every few months). It works out great.
This is not rocket science, nor does it cost a fortune to do it right. Deploying music correctly has considerable benefit, especially when the work environment itself can be rather tedious and repetitive.
To all Starbuck's employees: please please please rip the speakers out of the walls/ceilings! Oh and clean the toilets. Every 15 mins...
So you have no consideration for your fellow human beings what so ever. Not even the ones working for you and helping you make money.
I hope I never have to work for such a selfish, self centered ass hole as you.
That's why he says "_IF_ I own a business". He doesn't. He never will.
If he ever tried, the employee churn would destroy it soon enough.
Jesus, one blogger mouths off and one reddit user mouths off and suddenly it's an issue?
Seriously, who gives a shit?
I used to visit some Regal movie theaters to collect the money out of the photo booths. I used to hear the same inane bullshit advertisement combined with short clips of music video. I was in and out of that place and it still got to me after a while but can you imagine having to work at a Regal and hear that over and over? Talk about psychological torture.
consumers and customers. People should not be forced to listen to modern versuon of Muzak.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
If the music played in the gyms I go to actually had a decent beat/energy/aggression and made me want to train harder I wouldn't mind, but its invariably a diet of R&B syrup with autotuned wailing woman who all sound identical and sing the same moronic love crap with the occasional special needs rapper chiming in. And the problem is its so loud I can still hear this shit even when I take my own music in.
... but the way the charts are measured these days means is basically the musical taste of young teenage girls.
Isn't it interesting how all the middle class white liberals who push the ideas of rainbow diversity, multiculturalism, inclusivity and tolerance of every medieval cultural facet imported into the west never actually go and live in any of these melting pot ghettos that their beliefs help foster.
... and even I have pondered what it would be like to hear the same loop for months on end, for 8+hours every day.
I'd probably sabotage either the system or its playlist after a few weeks.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
If I own a business, pay to design an environment, pay to educate employees company standards of service, I also have the right to license music to play in that environment.
There's a simple solution for employees that no longer care to operate per the environment I created, find somewhere else to work. Simple solution, your employment is at will and if you find conditions intolerable, move on.
And you're saying you wouldn't give a shit if your employees hate their work environment?
You see, when I was 16 I worked at K-Mart during Christmas. I still hate all Christmas music. Seriously, I fucking hate it, and I never cared or even really noticed it before.
I don't give a shit about Starbucks or the people that work there, but I do understand this situation.
If you're an employer (and I'm guessing you're not) then knowing about the workplace environment should be of interest to you.
isn't confiscating the surplus profit produced by your employees' labor sufficient? do you have a psychological need to be both a sociopathic tyrant in addition to a self-righteous parasite?
Why aren't millions of white people moving to Africa, India and China every year, if we want to live as a minority in a non-white country?
Hmmm.. could be because white people never were hauled there against there will on huge ships...
bickerdyke
Heck, just put Pandora on shuffle all. You'll get a new genre every hour for sure.
Because miserable staff do so much for a business.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Starbucks always has a stack of CDs right next to the register. They have demographically determined that their customers are likely to enjoy the stuff they hear when they are standing in line (the same music used to torture the baristas) so it's another way to extract more dollars per customer. Genius if you think about it.
Moving on is not always possible, we are slaves with freedom, if I can't find a new job, my choice is homelessness, or continue.
And you are forgetting unionization.
It's the superior way to workers rights.
why the hell is there a need to continuously blast music in a coffee shop, to begin with?
I would ask why some people feel the need to have earbuds blasting music into their skull for most of their waking hours. I think the answers are probably related. It creates an environment where people feel comfortable and/or familiar. It's why so many places play top 40 music from 20-30 years ago - it's the sound track their target customers grew up listening to. They play music because it creates a mood and it's what people expect. That matters.
For me I find background music or earbuds remarkably distracting and annoying if I'm trying to work. I don't mind it in a store as long as it isn't repetitive, loud, or obnoxious and is in character for the store I'm visiting. I find the two months of xmas music each year to be insipid and annoying and I feel bad for the employees who have to listen to the same tracks over and over and over and over and over and over and over.... Playing xmas music for the month of December I'm fine with but not before Thanksgiving and it should stop Dec 26.
or is the the coffee shop's attempt to try to do the same manipulations as clothes stores to try to maximize profits?
I don't think it's anything devious or underhanded but certainly if people are comfortable in a store they are more likely to spend money and time there. That relationship has been thoroughly studied and definitely exists.
It's far worse in Japan. I don't know how staff there put up with it. Many shops in Japan have their own theme music. Actually a theme song, with lyrics.
That sounds awful. I used to work at a company in an engineering office that for some reason felt the need to have a 6 song rotation playing on the overhead speakers all day. I don't care how much you like a piece of music (and I didn't like these) you will be ready to burn the place down after enough repetitions of a song. After the literally 200th+ time I heard the theme song to Titanic I came in after hours and disabled the speaker above my cubicle just to get some relief. (No we weren't allowed to wear headphones)
There's a simple solution for employees that no longer care to operate per the environment I created, find somewhere else to work
Oh it's adorable that you think employee opinions don't matter. You have never run a business have you? Piss off your employees and they'll run you out of business faster than you can say "Chapter 11 bankruptcy". Just because you have the legal right to do something as a business owner doesn't make it a good idea. Employee moral matters. More than you can imagine. If you care about the bottom line you do as much as you can to keep employee morale high because happy employees by and large make better employees. If you think otherwise you've never run a business.
For the record I have and do manage people and have been a business owner so I've seen all this first hand.
... and even I have pondered what it would be like to hear the same loop for months on end, for 8+hours every day.
I've lived through that and it's maddening. The worst part is there is no need for it. It's just laziness and/or cheapness on the part of the people choosing the music. To this day there are some songs that get me triggered because I've heard them WAY too often.
I'd probably sabotage either the system or its playlist after a few weeks.
I worked at a place with a 6 track loop. After a few months I came in after hours, got a ladder and disabled the overhead speakers closest to my cubicle just to get some relief. I can't imagine working retail during the holiday season. You'd find me with a gun in my mouth after two weeks.
The music is used by all the major chains like McDonalds to keep homeless riggers from sleeping on the furniture.
I was to Legoland in Florida a few years ago.
"Everything is Awesome"!!!!
If I want music I'll put in my earbuds. Once I saw Starbucks selling CDs I knew this would happen. I feel bad for the employees and the customers alike (although there's plenty to feel bad about the customers, some look like they've settled in long before I got there and are still there by the time I've left).
And when it drives one of your employees so far up the wall that they snap on a customer who then hits you with a nuisance lawsuit, will you change your mind?
Even as a customer, this shit is blood-boiling. If I have to walk into one more fucking store in Southern Ontario to hear CHFI playing, I swear to fucking god...
Who's being hauled against their will to enter the Western world?
Quite the opposite, dummy.
"that their beliefs help foster."
Actually, being a Republican since my junior hear in high school, it's not my beliefs that help foster these melting pot ghettos... And it's certain that my reverence for, and defense of, Constitutional rights for even these 'melting pot ghettos' would have served them well. As it is, they are cesspools of violence and corruption, designed so.
No, not by the Right. Recall that the Republican Party got its start as abolitionist, a civil rights champion. The NRA early on did not merely defend the rights black Americans to keep and bear arms, but trained them.
And so history is forgotten and memory twisted. 'Middle class white liberals' seem to have a particular proclivity for that.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Have to pay a lot of royalties for silence. Seriously why not some white noise?
I worked through 2 years of retail service at CompUSA (remember them? back when they were still American owned?). We had the same deal there; I specifically remember that for a while by the time I had finished an 8 hour shift I would usually have heard Believe by Cher at least 4 times on the intercom. Sometimes if the store was dead enough we would overhead page each other just to interrupt the music (or just initiate an overhead page and leave the phone off the hook for a few minutes to accomplish the same). Some of my colleagues would often take their smoke breaks at the same song every day, some of the songs made me want to start smoking myself.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This is not limited to preset corporate loops, as terrestrial radio is just as bad.
Back when Dido's "Thank You" made it into Top 40 rotation, a friend of mine was working as a cook in a billiards joint. That song played so often that he finally cracked and rammed a pool cue through one of the main speakers.
It would not be at all surprising if the tape loop is quite deliberate:
Oh it's absolutely deliberate. Large consumer product and retail companies don't do stuff like that by accident. Doesn't necessarily mean it's a good choice but it's probably a deliberate one. To be fair, there is only so much budget for music choices and the people selecting the music probably don't have to listen to it all day long. (or if they do they need to get psychiatric help...)
Starbucks(along with most other retail establishments) has clearly gone to a lot of trouble to establish a particular 'feel'/'branding' in their interior and exterior design, staff uniforms, product graphic design, even what's printed on their paper cups and napkins and stuff.
Exactly which is why they are loathe to take needless risks with something as mundane as a playlist. It's not hard to come up with a 6 song on-brand playlist that won't turn off customers. Coming up with one that doesn't repeat for an 8 hour shift is considerably harder. And since the customers aren't usually in there for long, the employees get to suck it up.
Hey, I like the taste of young teenage girls.
Every Chipotle I've been in has very loud music that makes it difficult to have a simple conversation. My guess is they want the patrons to eat and get out as seating is limited.
I thought it was the e.coli and salmonella that made patrons eat and then leave...
I always wondered what's the point of background music anyway? I've been in places where the volume was so high it was distracting to have a conversation. Maybe the problem isn't the music content, but the volume is set too high. I've always wondered why many places of business need background music in the first place?
I think most of the Chinese and Indian immigrants to America were not hauled there....
Africans were 'hauled' to America and the Caribbean, because they were sold out by
their African enemies. Plenty of evil to go around in that story.
Indians were 'persuaded' to go to places like Fiji, but now the indigenous people are
dominated by them, just the same as if they were the colonialists. Huge racial issues.
Same story in places like Uganda, where Idi Amin ejected them by force.
Now, Africans, Indians and Asians are moving to Europe and America voluntarily. That
is causing its own issues. Pretty big ones too. The story is yet to play out.
We have shazaa et al to determine which song plays, so the software knows exactly which sound comes next, minutes in the future, so it should be a piece of cake to create such headphones.
Also for barkeepers, diskjockeys, people who hate xmas-music, the gym and so on.
Why aren't millions of white people moving to Africa, India and China every year, if we want to live as a minority in a non-white country?
Hmmm.. could be because white people never were hauled there against there will on huge ships...
Neither were any of today's African-Americans either.
I already avoid cloth stores, malls and supermarkets that blast music. I am going shopping, not to a disco. Sometimes if I really need to buy something, I might endure it for a short while, but I am out of there really fast. They could get me to buy more things if I had stayed there a bit longer.
As far coffee shop stores that blast music, I can avoid them pretty well, thank you.
When I was a lowly stock boy at Kmart many many moons ago, I had to listen to the same loop of music and advertisements for hours on end. After a while I didn't even hear the music as it became background noise, but since the music stopped when their pre-recorded ads played it always caught my attention as I had to listen for managers calling me over the PA and whatnot. For months afterwords I could mouth the ads word for word and occasionally heard them in my sleep (there was a particularly obnoxious one with Fuzzy Zoeller pimping something that I can still kind of remember). Thankfully I don't think places like Starbucks put ads in their music, but I imagine places like Walmart still do.
isn't confiscating the surplus profit produced by your employees' labor sufficient? do you have a psychological need to be both a sociopathic tyrant in addition to a self-righteous parasite?
There are lots of cushy government jobs waiting for people like this.
I suggest those complaining about the music at their work go find a job working outside in 0 degree weather doing manual labor. It will help put things in perspective for them.
Shaken? or Stirred?
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
I asked the manager why the cheap to license, repetitive music had to be blasting all the time even in an empty gym and he said it's the company policy to make it more attractive to customers and it's hard for you but imagine how it is for me he said, I have to listen to it all day.
I have quit that gym since but left wondering, what was that policy based on? What if customers, occasional and frequent, hate it as much as the manager? Why exactly are we all suffering then?
Recently I heard through another trainer that the manager had also quit.
I am not saying that repetitive music is fun, but let's put this into perspective; try working in factory, or a body shop, or construction, or that place that changes your tires, or work as one of those people who fix your roads....
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Check your receipts from the store to see if they accept feedback. Let them know that the premature Christmas season music was annoying and when you stopped shopping there and when you came back. Tell them the approximate amount of money they lost.
Supposedly, they would be interested and might see you as an indicator of lost sales.
I live the US and have noted that many stores have Christmas stuff out for purchase in October. Back on topic, I rarely notice music at the places I buy groceries, and my department stores have live piano music (I go there for the clothes, not the music).
OMG, seriously? Muzak on repeat has been around for how long now? I think we'd have seen the negative long-term effects of it by now if there truly were any. Stop being little whiners in your warm, comfy coffee-shop. You have it so much better than most people and you just proved that by finding the muzak as something you need to complain about. Totally a first-world, pampered worker problem. If only that was all so many less fortunate people had to complain about. Instead of the dirty, cold, damp, dangerous conditions on many jobs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Obama had 8 years to close it.
Starbucks' Music Is Driving Employees Nuts
A humorous story, or lawyers trying to gin up another class action lawsuit for their pockets?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This isn't new or unique to Starbucks even k-mart employees had to listen to a couple hour loop for a month at a time..
Actually, I give it a second thought, in fact I give it a first thought, and it's one of the things that keeps me out of those places.
I've walked into a big chain supermarket twice in the last six months, the first time I realized they were playing Christmas Music I got out of there as quickly as I could. I just went back the other day, and they had some new pop music running, none of which I'm familiar with, which puts it in the "mildly interesting" category for me-- then they put on a song that seemed listenable at first but was so repitious it had clearly been designed to be Catchy-- it got stuck in my head after listening to only about half of it.
I got out of there mumbling Tension apprehension and dissension has begun.
Iâ(TM)m about to go postal. I *hate* the music at my workplace!!!! And the radio isnâ(TM)t even at a reasonable level. Freedom to not listen to their choice of entertainment?
Shhhhhh, don't point that out, it breaks their narrative.
How can they pat themselves on the back without their narrative?
Recall that the Republican Party got its start as abolitionist, a civil rights champion. And so history is forgotten and memory twisted. 'Middle class white liberals' seem to have a particular proclivity for that.
History is not the present. You can use some sort of twisted No True Scotsman argument for believing the party is still the same (Even though all those earlier members are dead), but it is not accurate.
A Clockwork Latte.
Save that I actually believe the parties are not, in fact, much different from their foundings at all.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
This reminds me of when I used to work at WeWork. They play the same damn hip-hop music on repeat day after day. Oh my god.
âCould be worse - think about the poor operators on the âoeItâ(TM)s a Small Worldâ ride in Disneyland ... that song, playing on rotation, for a full shift ... âShould come under the heading of âoecruel & unusual punishmentâ :-(
And then once they are there they can listen to this
Have gnu, will travel.
In the UK, I generally find Starbucks music pretty calming, as it tends to be soft jazz or the like. It's one of the reasons I like the environment and find it relaxing.
Are the Starbucks in the US playing something different?
I used to go to Starbucks, but the music not only sucked, but the amplitude was so loud that I would have to leave. Perhaps it was to keep someone from sitting and enjoying their coffee for a few minutes before leaving for work.
As a teenager, I worked a summer job at Toys R Us back when they existed.
They played the same music loop, hourly, for my entire stint there. Management was smart enough to know the system was annoying, as they used special cassettes that couldn't be easily replaced.
To this day, I can quote the goddamn Ewok song verbatim, and if I have to listen to another round of California Dreaming, I may kill myself.
If they're not stirred when you taste them you are doing something drastically wrong.
TFA >_ You may not give a second thought to the tunes spinning on a constant loop at your favorite cafe 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.
You don't have to be that verbose... that has a name: payola.
I never heard any Skinny Puppy at Starbucks. Gitmo got it made xD
FTFY
Starbucks' Music Is Driving Employees' Nuts
its a new AI service that twists and turns to the beat.......
Some smaller shops in the 50s used wired wireless with some special programmes without advertising, one was classica muic and the other was pop rock music, and they were produced and broadcasted by the public radio. Nowadays you can receive them and a lot more channels from either satellites, DAB or DVB-T. Some specialized channel are transmitted by satellite for some big malls.
The music gives me a certain familiarity for the place and it dosen't really bother me but YMMV.
This is a real problem. What if one day an employee snaps and goes bananas and shoots up his workplace chums and the customers in there? I'm suprised it hasn't happened already.
They don't need to throw more fuel on the fire.
Back in the day we had a single album on CD if lucky that was 'approved' to be played in the store. Over and over and over. Until Christmas. Which of course started October 1st obviously. Then we listened to that CD for 3 months. But boo hoo. We need a study and an outlet to complain about cruel working conditions. Just turn the darn volume down so it really is way, way in the background. Holy mother of all that's holy. Stop whining about every little thing in the world.