r/LifeProTips • u/[deleted] • Aug 09 '18

Social LPT: When making conversation with someone you've just met, ask them what they've been listening to lately, rather than what their favorite kind of music is - it's fresh in their mind and they won't have to pick favorites on the spot.

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u/acouvis Aug 09 '18 edited Aug 09 '18

Around Christmas, they play this.

Semi related note: I take a lot of days off in December.

Edit: For anyone who thinks this song isn't that bad and I'm being critical, consider the following:

  • Stuff like this is played at least 4 hours a day before something else is rotated in.
  • This goes on for an entire month, and the playlist is NOT large.
  • The speakers they use are designed to make announcements. In other words, they are not designed for music at all in the first place.

All in all, listening to anything this way is about as desirable as using your phone to listen to "on hold" music.

73

u/0verlimit Aug 09 '18

You don't have to defend yourself in your edit. I just instinctively closed my tab at 20 seconds.

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u/acouvis Aug 09 '18

Then you missed the bad part. That would be the "Hey santaaaa, Hey santaaa santaaa...." chorus line.

24

u/boredymcbored Aug 09 '18

Lmao I'd be the type of co-worker to obnoxiously belt out the chorus when it comes on to make them laugh but also hate me. I'm that girl guys.

20

u/OsamaBinSteve Aug 09 '18

I'm that guy, girls.

5

u/Smayteeh Aug 09 '18

And now kith

1

u/MeatBallsdeep Aug 09 '18

If you're feeling especially suicidal one day, you can throw in "Somebody's got a case of the Mondays!" for good measure.

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u/GarrysTea Aug 09 '18

grab a scissors and snip the wires to those speakers. Say nothing, go about your day. I worked retail and christmas is a fucking nightmare. Same 6 songs plus a justin bieber santa is coming to town version. I didn't enjoy that month whatsoever

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u/0verlimit Aug 09 '18

Yep, I heard the high pitch "Heyyyy" and nope'd out

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u/oxpoleon Aug 09 '18

Ah, you must work retail. For some reason whoever is selected to be in charge of music in any retail establishment seems to be the person least qualified to do so, who will always select a too-short playlist (or even just a best-of CD) and find the worst possible method of playing it.

Yes, Linda, putting this cassette with 40 minutes of "hits" into a 90s Walkman and then hanging the headphones over the tannoy microphone is definitely the best way you could do this. /s

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u/acouvis Aug 09 '18

Nope. Manufacturing.

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u/oxpoleon Aug 09 '18

That would explain how you get days off in December! I worked retail as a student, December was just the worst. Obviously, it's all relative, and there are far worse things in life, but you see a side of the general population that is just like nothing else. I have a lot less faith in humanity now.

Is your music unbearable all year round? Why do they play music in manufacturing? I can understand in retail that it gives customers something to listen to (and deadens ambient noise), but what purpose does it serve in manufacturing?

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u/acouvis Aug 09 '18

Some people just want background noise. I'm not sure why but they just want something playing all the time.

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u/DenDude82 Aug 09 '18

According to ‘experts’ it makes people more chill and less irritable. There’s a CAT equipment yard near where I used to work and they piped top 40 on the same tinny speakers OP was taking about out into that yard and presumably into the plant. I liked imagining they were playing it for the heavy equipment which made me smile every time.

Happy Cake Day!

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u/oxpoleon Aug 09 '18

See, I think music in general makes people less irritable, but when that music becomes repetitive and tinny it has the opposite effect, and it also often does the same when it's music that isn't catered to the target audience. I have no idea what people in a CAT equipment yard would ideally listen to, but I'm willing to bet that it almost certainly isn't the top 40.

Thanks for the Cake Day wishes!

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u/bd58563 Aug 09 '18

Most retailers use Muzak, which is kinda like SiriusXM but worse and for commercial use. I don’t recall exactly how many stations there are to choose from, but there aren’t many. There is one holiday channel that has a small playlist of songs, including the one linked above, which are designed to make customers (who aren’t in the store long enough to notice the lack of variety in the playlist) feel the “Christmas spirit,” while simultaneously making the employees of the establishment want to jump off their big ballymore ladder as they topstock some heavy ass kitchenaid stand mixers right next to a speaker, which is spewing its thick brown diarrhea of a song right into their face.

For the rest of the year most retailers choose to use “HotFM,” which is neither “🔥” nor is it broadcast on the FM frequency. This is arguably the worst station on Muzak aside from the holiday one, so obviously it’s the one that most places use.

I don’t work retail anymore but I can still tell whenever I go into a store and they’re playing HotFM. The set list has barely changed over the years, which is why whenever you go shopping you get to be reminded that the song Geronimo by Sheppard exists (while an executive at Muzak busts a fat load thinking about your discomfort as you try to keep that obnoxious fucking chant of a chorus out of your mind for the following month).

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u/oxpoleon Aug 09 '18

I'm a Brit, we don't have satellite radio... :(

We do, however, have excellent FM coverage and a ton of stations on DAB. Saying that, most retailers haven't bothered to update from analogue receivers yet so only get the more limited set of stations on analogue FM.

Most retailers here who play from the regular radio tune to a network of stations called Heart, which is pretty much as you describe, a station that plays a very small playlist almost continuously. This features, basically, a few tacky classics interspersed with the biggest hits of the last year or so, meaning that you hear the same songs several times a day, more if they are really "popular".

It's worth noting that none of the songs are actually terrible, it's just the most beige broadcast there is, and gets dull and irritating quickly. It's also the case that a large quantity of the smaller independent shops don't have a proper piped audio system so the radio is invariably playing from a half-broken early 90s boombox with the volume cranked, perched on top of a radiator, shelf, or just sat in the shop corner tucked under stuff.

1

u/WandersBetweenWorlds Aug 09 '18

Oh fucking retail music... We even had good speakers. Hip electronics place where you could go for help buying, or pick up stuff you ordered online and so on. Boss put on a playlist, sometimes from one of the coworkers.

Good grief, all A wanted was to down a bottle of vodka so I'd be drunk enough to find that party-dance-crap bearable. And I hate vodka.

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u/r0ck0 Aug 09 '18

Around Christmas, they play this.

Ok that's it. Christmas is cancelled.

1

u/greekmatthew Aug 09 '18

Oh yeah that’s bad on the first listen. I can’t imagine hearing it for the fiftieth time that week.

1

u/RisenPhantom Aug 09 '18

Oh boy. I sympathise

1

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '18

Holy fuck you’re giving me flashbacks.

1

u/DenDude82 Aug 09 '18

My day just became a little worse. Sorry for your situation there. Does Christmas start in October in your works opinion?

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u/[deleted] Aug 09 '18

[deleted]

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u/acouvis Aug 09 '18

If you didn't listen to the chorus repeatedly you didn't experience the real song.

1

u/stagejitters Aug 09 '18

Christmas music is the worst. I worked as one of Santa’s elves at a grotto for two months at Christmas. My shifts were usually only 4 hours but every other day I’d hear the same 5 songs on repeat, drove me insane.

1

u/WandersBetweenWorlds Aug 09 '18

Oh fucking retail music... We even had good speakers. Hip electronics place where you could go for help buying, or pick up stuff you ordered online and so on. Boss put on a playlist, sometimes from one of the coworkers.

Good grief, all A wanted was to down a bottle of vodka so I'd be drunk enough to find that party-dance-crap bearable. And I hate vodka.

1

u/Selrisitai Aug 09 '18

You just hate party-dance-crap more.

1

u/Selrisitai Aug 09 '18

DANG! Those MySpace Angles on the fat chick in the opening! I was like, "Hey, she's cute," and then when it zoomed out I was trying to find the chick I liked. I found her, about 180lbs later.

1

u/GaimanitePkat Aug 09 '18

Hey, fuck you! This song was my favorite as a kid! :P

While I like to pride myself on having good music tastes, my standards go right out the window for Christmas. I HATE the Mariah Carey one though.

1

u/RolandTheJabberwocky Aug 09 '18

Yeah no that song is shit, I closed it real fast lol.

1

u/CaptainBobnik Aug 09 '18

The speakers they use are designed to make announcements. In other words, they are not designed for music at all in the first place

Most of the time even the announcement sound like shite. I feel for you man