There’s a guy where I work that fancies himself as somewhat of an audiophile. He has a home-made amp and speaker system hooked up to his office computer. Once or twice a week I’ll come in (around 7AM) and he’ll have it blasting so loud I can hear it from two rooms away. I have asked him multiple times to turn it down or close the door to his office. He apologizes and turns it down, but he never seems to get the message. I can count on having to listen it again next week, and the week after that…)
I’ve complained to management, but in their view, I’m the one who’s being disruptive. (There are only two of us in the office that early, and “nobody else is complaining!”) I know if I raised a bigger fuss, they’d likely fire me for not being a team player or something. :mad:
Been there: done that. I was forced to listen (over ceiling speakers) to the same radio station for something like 5 years. I complained but nothing happened. Most people can apparently hear the same 50 songs over and over for years without it bothering them. I was almost developing facial twitches.
It was an oldies station, so it literally was the same play list forever. You’d think with 3 decades to draw on they could find a bit of variety, right? Wrong.
Peter and Gordon
Elvis
Tom Jones
CSNY
Joni Mitchell
CCR
Beatles
Guess Who
BTO
etc.
I’m not complaining about the era, or the groups! But the same damned songs over and over really, really wore me down.
This was 15-20 years ago and there are still certain songs I cannot listen to ever again.
I feel your pain. For years I worked for a corporation that played Muzak, which nearly drove me around the bend, especially at Christmas. My coworkers and I tried all sorts of tricks to defeat that crap: ear plugs, radios to drown it out*, clipping the wires to the building’s speakers, a petition to turn it off. Nothing but the radio approach worked, but sometimes you just want quiet so you can think, and that was not to be had. Finally after 6 years, it went away. Our relief was short lived, though, since two years later they fired everybody.
*This was back when people had offices, so bothering your neighbor was not an issue. If you don’t know what an office is, have an older person explain it to you.
Where I work, only one station comes in clearly. Yep - Lady Gaga, Beyonce, etc. And I’m the only one who doesn’t dig it.
Hearing songs twice a day? How about 7 or 8 times a day?
All the single ladies! (all the single ladies)
All the single ladies! (all the single ladies)
All the single ladies! (all the single ladies)
There is so much good music in the world; why must I be forced to endure bad music?
I totally feel ya. I had this same situation years ago when the biggest hit of the day was
(spoiled so as not to offend the feint of heart)
We Built This City on Rock and Roll
I tried negotiating for shared station rights, but the biggest problem person complained that my preferred music offended her, while hers offended nobody. She finally tried the nuclear option by saying that if we couldn’t agree on a station, we’d just get rid of the radio altogether. FINE! Great! Throw the thing into the damn river! “But that’s not faaaaaiiir!”
She was a good person on everything but the radio issue. On that, she was just incapable of getting it.
Could you use the fact that you’re on the phone a lot to make the point about it being disruptive - if you can hear it, the person on the other end of your phone can hear it?
How about anonymously tipping off the Performing Rights Association? Or their American equivalent. They’ll contact someone senior with a demand for money, at which point radios will likely be banned.
Get one of the little FM transmiter adapters for a IPOD/mp3 player that allow you to listen to your mp3s thru your car stereo and tune it to the same station as the other radio and play what you want to hear. Problem solved.
The cigarette smoke analogy is actually a very good one. Might be a helpful line for the OP to use when complaining to the boss **IF **the boss is a health nut/rabid anti-smoker.
On the other hand, if the boss (or whoever you’re complaining to, since OP said there’s no HR) steps out for a smoke now and then, I’d reconsider.
Otherwise, I’d have to agree with Cosmic Relief. Had to listen to craptacular radio music at a couple of jobs, totally understand the impulse to kill, but have no ready solution at hand to offer.
Thinking back, I think it was the craptacular commercials even more than the craptacular music (which was itself pretty damn bad.) But it’s the car dealership radio spots that really bring out the “Must Kill” in me.
… and as far as I can see that’s where you made the fatal error, now that you have your objections known no amount of ninja subterfuge can help.
Having said that, I’m on your side due to a similar experience, but if it were me I’d just sledgehammer it and deal with the consequences, if it’s not going to be turned down how much longer are you gonna be able to work there anyway?
I don’t think so. If cigarette smoke was only annoying and headache inducing like bad music can be, then the analogy would have merit. But it’s also a legitimate health hazard and, as far as I know, lousy music has never killed anybody (it only makes them wish they were dead).
I guess I’ve been lucky. I’ve only had a few jobs where we could listen to music at all. The first played standard oldies rock and, since I was only just exploring that era myself, I absolutely loved it. My current job plays classical music, which I also love. As a bonus, repetition doesn’t bother me at all since classical often rewards close and repeated listening. Except for Eine Klein Nacht Musik. I never, ever want to hear that piece again.
My only complaint is when the boss gets antsy when something modernist or atonal comes on like Bartok, Schoenberg or Stravinsky because that’s when the syrupy elevator music is put on. Uggh!
Believe me, it’s the wonder drug that works wonders. Awkwards for the OP to deploy givenher job duties, but since it takes such a small dose, it’s worth losing that half-hour’s productivity the first week to make that firm initial impression.
In this day and age of widespread personal music players it’s crazy for any supervisor to permit non-headphone audio players at all. Once one person complains everybody out of the pool would be my response.
Use a stereo bluetooth headset with microphone, and pair it with both the phone and the radio/MP3 player giving the phone priority. Then you’ll get phone audio when on a call, and the music when not. Might not work with all devices, but it’s worth a shot.
H/R could care less, they are not there to settle petty disputes, they are there to stop the company from being sued.
You can complain to H/R but be prepared to have the radio yanked. And all that that accomplishes is now you have an office full of people hating you. And you have to work with these people, so you know how fun that’s gonna be and on your review you now will be marked as “not a team player” and uncooperative.
Sabotage is the only answer. I’ll leave it to you to figure out how.
When I worked the truck gate a few years back, the young man there used to listen to a local “rap” channel. Now I put that in quotes because what I found it to be was a local “play as many commercials as we think we can, wrapped around a handfull of songs that we’ll repeat endlessly” station.
I don’t think I heard more than 10 different songs within the entire 8 hour shift. The most popular ones would be played every 20-45 minutes. Seriously. They played an Eminem song, played a bunch of commercials, played one other song, a bunch of commercials, then the same damned Eminem song again, etc.
The next day I forced him to listen to something else while I was there. Being the supervisor, I could do that.
