1860 Earworm.




About thirty or forty years ago, the union that represents retail workers in Austria filed a lawsuit that, indeed, claimed that continuous Christmas music constituted hostile working conditions.

Too fucking right it does.

too true

What? I like listening to Christmas music year-round. It’s a celebration of life and cheer.

Unless you have a problem with life and cheer…

Everything in moderation T-Ray. Cheer and life are pleasant experiences in brief intervals, but constantly and oppressively repeating the same four tracks, over and over and over again, changes it into a mockery of the concept. Life is variety, new experiences, and constantly pulling forward in spite of yourself. Cheer is the pleasant parts of those experiences.

I have a few Christmas songs I downloaded onto my Ipod, at the time, they were the only songs on my Ipod, I managed to get through a workweek with them in the background, but after that, in spite of the detail that I do enjoy Christmas music, I was done enough with those songs that I was not listening to more.

And for store workers, it’s four times as bad. They have to listen to the music enough that usually they probably know where it cycles to the point they can tell you the next song after their first few months, or, if it’s a short list, their first few weeks.

Oh, yes, just a few tracks *would* be annoying. My Christmas playlist is nearly 6 hours long — a very different experience.

It’d be one thing if it was even relatable. But it’s all some music from 1950 written by some insane yankee about chestnuts and sleigh bells, laced with a bizarre fantasy of watery dandruff falling out of clouds.
I’ve spent my whole life in Texas, and I’m dreaming of a white christmas because SNOW ISN’T REAL.

Isn’t the term “insane Yankee” a redundancy?

Personally, I tend to think that Texas isn’t real :->

What does the forced acknowledgement of the birth of Christ, the pressure to express ‘good will towards all men’ and the bastardization of Nicholas of Myra have honestly anything to do with life and cheer?

Nothing. It’s a gimmick!

If you really wanna mess people up-
Give your family + friends a medium amount of gifts at Christmas, + [give them each] a BIG amount of gifts, [or a big gift], at Halloween!
It will mess up their thinking.

Him or her- “Um, you’re giving me a bike + equipment,…at Halloween??”

You- “Yeah! Some dudes give their big gifts at Xmas, I do it, at Halloween!

No offense to those who like this kind of music, but- in my town’s area, in [about 2015], it seemed like ALL of the car radio stations, played holiday-type music, all of the TIME.
You couldn’t escape it!

Luckily, I think the c.r. music fans complained very, very much about it, and the stations haven’t done it since then.

But its to put every one in the Christmas spirit! Buy more things! Serve the customer until you die! Money is more important than people! *Evil capitalist laughter*

You know that is redundant or are there really non-evil or even good capitalists?
Who am I kidding there aren’t any Capitalists just like there are no Communists.
Note: Communist Dictatorship is an oxymoron

You don’t get a nice cut of meat because of the benevolence of the butcher. If you’re not driving a Trabant or eating bread (if you have bread) with grains you could crack a tooth on, you’re benefitting from capitalism. Eliminate incentive and you eliminate free will.

In ENGLISH please?

The butcher works because he’s paid, not because he’s interested in your welfare. The Trabant was a terrible communist car produced long after it’s obsolescence, and you were often lucky to have bread of any kind at times in various communist/socialist countries. Capitalism basically means being paid for your effort/time/investment, and being paid more for more of same. When most people decry capitalism, they’re thinking of crony capitalism and sweetheart deals w/ government. This is in some ways more akin to nationalism or socialism. A garage sale is capitalism.

Which is how capitalism ought to be but it doesn’t hurt to have charity every now and then when it counts.

I’m fairly okay with having seasonal music played. The problem is the selection, or distinct lack. Nothing overtly religious can be played, nor anything with an expensive copyright. So you get ‘Santa Baby’ on a loop of covers by different artists, none of them very good.

Wonder if we could get a version of ,” Baby It’s Cold Outside” sung by Bill Cosby?
“What’s in this drink?”

So when I worked at Walmart back in the early turn of the decade (2010) Walmart had music. And it wasn’t terrible. It was largely ignorable in the mind dampening existence of retail labor. However, at 10pm on the dot the satellite radio would abruptly cut and a DJ would take over. I remember because he was heralded by a sort of civil war era war flute. He would play music exclusively for the overnight crew who would start their shift around that time, even taking calls and requests from the employees.

I remember when I couldn’t hear the music anymore. Walmart had terminated all music in favor of a “Distraction free shopping environment”. It was terminated in favor of the customers, not the employees. As far as I was concerned, Walmart had a pretty decent music selection and it was gone because some corporate think-tank decided that no one liked that music would play in stores like theirs. Work became very hard after that. I often wonder what happened to that DJ.

2nd panel, first balloon should be “constantly”, and last panel 3rd bubble is missing a word, J-man :)

also, waffles are good.

I don’t like them.

Back in 2014 I worked at sears. Not only did I learn all 8 songs they played on a loop. When they “promoted” me to electronics I learned every line to Tron Legacy because it played on a loop on the 85 inch tv. It was however their undoing to promote me. I convinced the store manager we needed a sound system area like all the electronic super stores that allowed someone to walk up, plug in their phone, and select the speaker system they wanted to listen to. I did not tell them however, that I wired it so that I could select ALL of the speakers at once to play. I drowned out any music played on their first floor of our store, had employees yelling at each other to communicate, and ultimately made it so they wouldnt take away my set up in the store because it increased sells in audio devices.

Oh man. Looped films! :(

In a toy store that I worked in, I sometimes staffed the info booth.
Near me, they repeatedly played the Disney film, “A Goofy Movie”.

I really, really, like the film,…but- after hearing it, 8 hrs a day, for untold weeks, I can probably say all the words to the film, while it plays. [ Freakin’ retail stores!] ;)


FUN FACT: It was used as a real strategy against the Branch Dividians in Waco.

They didn’t budge though.

The rumor was- that the US Army used loud, rock music, to bother the Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega, and to drive him to surrender.

In store music is designed to slow people down and encourage them to shop more. That’s why it’s either top 40 background noise, or the top whatever of the 50s. And then there’s the Christmas music. You know, it’s not Christmas music itself that gets me; it’s the same 6 songs played over…and over…and over…

There are days where I miss the simplicity of retail. Then I’m reminded of the nonsense that comes with it. I suppose that’s most jobs for you, though.

As far as the new pseudo-Vania goes, it seems like a mix of the Castlevania 3 and the old Ninja Gaiden series. I hear it’s tough, but not nearly as obnoxious as those two.

Speaking of earworms…

I used to work in a video store. Helped during setup, then stayed to actually work the store. It was right around the time that absolutely dumb film “The Stupids” with Tom Arnold came out. Our store ran than damn trailer in a loop of about a dozen others constantly for about three weeks, and Arnold’s theme song from that movie, “I’m my own Grandpa” became my personal horror show.

Still today, the moment I hear part of it, or think about it, it will pop back into my head and start it’s earworm torture. Like right now, telling this.

OTOH, it’s absolutely incredible for driving out other earworms. I just have to put up with it a few days until it finally goes away.

I use “Ninja Rap” to force other songs out. I don’t rightly know WHY it is so damn catchy, but it is.


I LOVE Ninja Rap! Say what you want about Vanilla Ice but this is honestly to me one of his better pieces!

Christmas music doesn’t bug me. What bugs me is that they start playing it BEFORE Thanksgiving now. That’s what drives me bonkers – the pre-holiday BS that happens way too soon.

When I stocked and faced shelves in a grocery store during the days of my youth, they played a loop of 80’s rock and country music. I knew all 20 songs by heart, including all the in-store commercials. I can still remember the one that starts the loop very well:

“Thank you for shopping at Bag and Save. Everything we do, we do for you, our favorite customers. Remember to check out our savings in the local newspaper. We hope you have a wonderful shopping experience.”

Never served time in retail, but I did short time (less than a year) in a 24-hour diner. They had a jukebox system. Customers would mostly select the same 3 or 4 cheesy pop songs all shift long.

I only had to hear it while mopping the front, but the table servers were stuck.

In my (extremely limited) experience, the music loop eventually becomes like any other constant background noise, and the workers don’t even hear it anymore.

I worked on the production side in the toy bizz ages ago, so Christmas rush was August-September. So hot factory floor, lots of students on afternoon shift with a few daytimers taking extra hours. I got stuck since I was Jr QC and nobody else wanted the extra time.
So anyways, a student brought in their boombox and it was fine for the first week, keept eveyones mood up buit week two was different – Like a Virgin on continuous loop – Production managers son’s fave song of the day – it was hell – almost as bad as that year of Stairway to Heaven – I get PTSD like reactions to those songs.

I so hate the music they play at work. Even more so the holiday stuff, which starts the day after thanksgiving. Worse yet are the commercials that various companies, or our company, have on there. Many are exceedingly irritating and if you work there you are stuck hearing them at least once or twice and hour.

In the convenience store I worked they let us play our music on our phones whenever there was empty, I loved to go refill the freezers with The Offspring in the background

I lived through a changeover. I worked at Kinko’s mid-80s through mid-90s. In the beginning, we played what we wanted on the radio or tape player, my male coworker wore black nail polish and bare feet, and I wore whatever I wanted. Later, we had some semblance of a dress code (plain T-shirts were okay, closed-toe shoes), we couldn’t play personal music choice but could still play the radio tuned to a mass-market station.
Right after the Kinko’s vs Basic Books decision in 1990 and all the fallout about copyright surrounding that, we had to install Musak, and worse yet, it had Kinko’s ads in it. We couldn’t NOT play it, either, but we did keep it low enough for the copy machines to mostly drown it out. (It may be my dodgy memory, but I think the ads ignored the volume setting.) Over the new few years, a more rigid uniform code and in-store branding were rolled out. Thank my lucky stars I was gone-burger before Fedex bought them out.

Currently work grocery over night. Most of the music selection is pretty awful, the cheep end of the top 40 so the store doesn’t have to pay anyone for copyrights. Double annoying in that we aren’t allowed to wear headphones any more because the bitch who works up front complained no one was responding to her announcements over the intercom. So we can’t listen to our own music, and she still gets no responce. We can hear her just fine, we just ignore her.

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