Is this one of the dangers of working retail?
Repeat-a-short-playlist-itis.
I sometimes wonder how they can stand it without going mental from the music.
Two grand and I know someone who can stop that for ya.
I’m mentally ill, but I don’t like listening to the same song even just twice in the same day, whether it’s a song I love or hate. Maybe because I’m a musician?
Was that the Live Song Remains the Same version?
Yep, especially when the boss determines the playlist or radio station.
In one store, the owners said “Play an easy listening station on the radio” (and no, they didn’t worry about any legalities of this). My manager, who was really not too bright but an excellent saleswoman, thought that “easy listening” meant Big Band. Unfortunately, the city did happen to have a station that played Big Band hits 24/7. I blame this for many of my mental problems. 
Then there are the electronic devices that are motion sensitive. You know, the Santas that chuckle “HO HO HO” at you when you walk past, or the tree that jingles. Christmas is the worst season, but there are also some Halloween versions that cackle or moan or creak at you. And the clerks are not allowed to turn them off.
I also can’t stand Salvation Army bell ringers. If I absolutely positively MUST go into a B&M store during December, I will avoid any store with a bell ringer, even though my exposure is limited.
Oh, hell no. I don’t know about the mental health of the person who does it, but it would destroy my mental health to have to listen to the same few songs over and over and over again. That’s worst-part-of-the-car-crash torture. If they were songs I really liked, it might be worse, cause it’d ruin the songs for me.
I worked at a Staples one year at Christmastime. It was usually relatively quiet there. Most of that year was fine. I actually really enjoyed the job. But Christmastime…
I swear the Muzak system had like five Christmas songs. I endured SIX HOURS of the same five our six Christmas songs over and OVER…
Still not as bad as what happened to a coworker. She used to work third shift. The boss would leave the stereo on for them before locking up the office. One night it was three Christmas CDs. Bad enough, right? Well, he had inadvertently set it to repeat ONE SONG instead of the three CDs.
Imagine listening to dogs barking jingle bells for EIGHT HOURS STRAIGHT.
She still eye-twitches when she hears it.
See now, when I read the thread title, I thought you were talking about my 14 yo son.
Lately it’s this weird eclectic group of songs…over and over:
Down on the Corner
Ballroom Blitz
Stray Cat Strut
Enter Sandman
Ride of that Valkyrie (yes, Wagner)
We’re Not Gonna Take It
That’s called “practicing” and “studying”.
I remember my younger sister and Journey’s “Escape” album. Well, every record she ever bought, but that one in particular. Remember how, with the old record changers, if you left the brace arm (I don’t know the proper term) up, the needle would get to the end of the record side and then automatically go back to the beginning? Yeah, over and over and over and over … I learned as a teenager to hate Steve Perry’s voice. So now I cooooooome to yoooooo, with ooopen aaaarms…
Julie, Julie, Julie do you love me? was my little sister’s favorite for a while.
It must not be one of those labs with large vats of acid.
She’s not crazy, Leaffan; she’s trying to drive you out of the house. Odds on she doesn’t do it when you’re not around.
..did you HAVE to do that?..
..Julie, Julie, Julie do you care? Julie, Julie are you thinkin’ of me…? YES I AM NOW DAMMIT!!! CONTINUALLY!!
Annecdote is not evidence, while I am a mental health nurse now, I wasn’t then…etc.
My boyfriend in university had a roommate who was prone to some mental health issues. (At the time we were told “stomach problems” until we visited him and discovered it was a locked unit. The stomach problems were that his needed to be pumped." Right before he went into hospital he spent an entire weekend listening to Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty album.
When he started that again in the spring I phoned his friend and told him that Chris was getting a bit “like he was in the fall.” His friend who had been close since childhood contacted everyone who needed to know. Chris went back into the hospital again, but without the “stomach problem” issue of the previous autumn.
Sure, it could be depression. It could be to annoy you. She may be unaware of anything except her own need to hear this song RIGHT NOW!
You really need to not live with her. Chin up. This too shall pass.
…and it can be just as irritating to bystanders subjected to hours of a musician practicing and studying as any other bit of music or sound repeated over and over and over and over…
When I studied music at McGill, you could always hear the trombonists in the practice rooms, because they played very loud instruments. They would always practice the same three pieces of music (they were required to by the school) : Ride of the Valkyries, Ravel’s Bolero, and a march by Berlioz. Any moment of any day, if you were anywhere near the practice rooms, you could hear a trombonist practicing one of those three pieces of music. I got tired of those 3 pieces of music very fast.
Brian Wilson spent years listening to “Be My Baby” over and over again, so the syndrome could be a mental illness…or a sign of genius.
Hell yes, it is. I worked at a chain clothing store and we would get a CD from corporate every month or so. That playlist was to be played every minute we were open until we received the next one. These weren’t mp3 CDs, either, so they’d repeat every ~45 mins.
The worst was the Holiday CD. It played from Black Friday until near the end of January. 
Some of us dealt with it (and horrible Christmas shoppers) by first unconsciously lip synching the beginning and end transitions, which we noticed everyone else was doing. So in particularly punchy moments, it would morph into animated lip synching duets or trios, sometimes with some dancing in place.
My introduction to this marvel was a truck ride from somewhere in the middle of Yugoslavia to the Dutch border. A madarsed Dutch lorry driver in clogs singing along to ‘Kansas City, Kansas City here I come’ over and over. Lucky it’s not a very popular song so I haven’t heard it much since.
The two are not mutually exclusive.