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.
They did not like this. For whatever reason, which they refused to explain to me, they insisted I played their stupid mix that had been playing for months. As I was given no good reason, and was paid minimum wage, I just kept doing my thing and playing newer and better music.
One day I showed up and they had duct-taped the lid of the CD tray to the stereo so no one could open it with a note in all caps saying "DO NOT CHANGE THE CD IN THIS STEREO". I promptly went to the hardware aisle, got a box cutter, and sliced that son'bitch open, this time chucking their CD in the garbage, and continued on being DJ.
They gave up after that. lol And surprisingly they didn't fire me, even though they could have easily replaced me with some younger kid who would have done whatever they wanted.
But I quit soon after since the holidays had come and I knew I was going to have to play "Jingle Bells Rock" a thousand times, and I knew I couldn't really get out of that.
When my boss asked me why I was quitting, I said "I found a better job."
Could licensing have been the reason? Not sure about the US, but in Europe, you frequently need a separate license to play songs in stores, bars or really any kind of public venue. I imagine this is probably even stricted in the US. So the crappy mix might have been the only thing they had bothered buying licenses for - and they might have been afraid to get sued when playing anything else.
I still can feel the pain though, and I have no idea why the bosses didn't even bother to give a reason. So I guess quitting was the best thing to do.
Maybe if I like 'x' brand, I'll also enjoy their store playlist... could be the key to finding lots of great music.
It actually is. My wife has the sort of job where she spends a lot of time in high-end retail stores, and at that level the music is very important so she's very aware of it.
It's not just selecting the right music, but making sure your company isn't playing the same songs as the competition.
CBS Sunday Morning had a nice long piece about this last year.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/st...
Because why would you empower someone to fix problems, when you can give them just enough authority to act as a glorified day care overseer and only pay them a couple bucks more than their employees?
My main boss was pretty miserable but loved ordering people around like he was the king. He once tried to convince me to go to a conference about cell phones, on my own time and my own money, because... I don't know, I guess he thought I needed to know more about the devices I was selling. I never had problems selling phones to people or helping people with issues, so of course I didn't do it.
Reminds me of working in a big box electronics store during college. One day I answer the phone and the line sounds dead, but I say "hello" a few times and a woman finally acknowledges me and then goes on a long rant about what the world is coming to and she can't believe it. She eventually gets to her relevant question and I answer it. I didn't think too much of it because strange interactions with customers aren't all that rare.
A few hours later I answer another call and it's a teenage boy and he's just laughing but quickly acknowledges me and we sort out his problem. Again, didn't really think too much of it.
The third call I got was from the store manager. "Oh my god. What is going on over there?" "What do you mean?" "Nevermind, go check the hold music CD and change it to something else. Anything else." "Was that it?" "Ya". I go change the CD and carry on.
About an hour later the night shift restock crew comes in. A few minutes later one of them comes out and asks me if I had seen a CD he left in the warehouse CD player last night. My eyes open like I've seen a ghost and he's like, "What?"
The thing you have to know is that the night crew are all West African and they listen to the most hardcore gangster rap you've ever heard in your motherfucking life. The warehouse stereo he's talking about is actually for the store's PBX (phone system). It was in the back warehouse and there was a small bookshelf stereo system next to it with a CD player that was on loop to feed the hold music into the phone system.
After the store closes and the phones stop ringing, the night crew switches the CD to their music. Apparently someone had turned the volume down to take a phone call so they forgot that CD was still in the transport. The amp volume doesn't affect the line out volume so it was still feeding the phone system.
We laughed. Oh, we laughed so hard. Then I paged all the other employees over and told the story and they laughed too. The assistant manager laughed the hardest, then he went and called the store manager. He already knew of course.
The warehouse crew was no longer allowed to use the hold music stereo.
I've a lot of sympathy for retail people since then.
But what I find interesting is back then you just put up with it. Awful repetition was just an accepted part of a minimum wage job then. Nowadays, we question everything. I do think our questioning is a good thing though.
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
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?
Another thing I struggled to find this year in my local area was midnight mass. This just doesn't seem to be a big thing here either. The best I could find was a 10pm mass, which just doesn't seem to cut the mustard... plus what's with the singing carols to the wrong tunes?
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
and the Shrovetide Football with only 1 rule?! :'D That's insane!
Only in England! I miss you guys :D
Grab a couple of neighbors and go caroling yourself. In my experience it can snowball quite rapidly if somebody actually gets it rolling...
No one ever noticed except for us employees, and it was so, soooo much better than hours of the same five songs on repeat.
Playing christmas music is surely the quickest way to drive me away from your store.
Note: I then got Gold/Platinum ranking, started boarding sooner, and so got exposed to the music even more!
Note 2: International flights have much longer boarding periods and usually large plans, so the time intro music is played is long.
This movie was ahead of it's time. :)