Random As Rhyme

Having worked in a retail environment for about three years I thought moving into an office environment would mean that I no longer had to endure the pain of listening to music I could not control. I figured I had left the weekly top 40 and the monotony of seasonal music behind me. Fat chance.

At my first job one of the big wigs had a decent computer speaker setup that I assume lacked a headphone jack since I don’t recall him ever using headphones. He had quite an eclectic taste in music, one day Jack Johnson, another Alanis Morissette, and on Fridays Cypress Hill.

On the other side of the Office another big wig would crank the free Jazz music which meant us grunts stuck in the middle got a weird sonic mish mash of music that didn’t really match nor did we like. It was terrible, listening to a mix of two types of music you don’t want to hear when ie6 is being an incompetent bastard is a great way to become red in the face.

At my new job I briefly sat near the accounting department that loved to listen to Easy Rock or something of the like… I LOATHE Easy Rock. I will probably do so until I am 65 and my hearing is so muffled and brain so frazzled that I have the radio on to keep me company.

While some of the problem is they type of music conflicting with my own personal preferences the bigger issue is that I have no control over the volume or content of what’s being played.

If someone was playing my itunes library aloud it would annoy me just the same because I might not want to be listening to the song that is currently playing at that time of the day, or maybe I don’t want to listen to any music at all, few things are worse than taking off your headphones and being greeted with this.

I am all for music at the workplace but I wish people would purchase and wear headphones. I wear headphones 90% of the day, heck they are on right now and nothing is playing, as a courtesy to my fellow employees and as a way to tune them out. I encourage you to do the same.

If you are in a position of power at your workplace and you can play your music out loud without any one complaining please, please, please at least have the decency to turn it off when you leave the office leaving it on is a serious dick move. I already know you make more than me, that is evident by your car, condo, hot wife.