Musical dispute in the workplace: who is most correct?

Bob is the new hire in a small office. As the boss is showing him around and introducing him to his four new coworkers, he explains the rules about the music playing in the background. Each of the five people in the office get one weekday every week to play whatever they like. Each employee gets their day in turn to ensure that everyone gets a fair chance at listening to what they like. Since the staff person that Bob is replacing had their music day every Friday, that will be Bob’s day as well. The staff of the office are tasked with monitoring a wide variety of inputs and need to be able to respond quickly and cooperatively in a fluid business environment. With that being said, the staff doesn’t deal with people outside the office except through e-mail or text message so the content and volume level of the music played is largely irrelevant to the boss so long as internal communication within the office is not impeded. For similar reason, the boss has also decreed that personal music systems played through individual headphones are not permitted. His view, correct or not, is that headphones and personal music systems disrupt communication and teamwork much more so than ambient music played for all.

The boss appreciates the improved morale and working environment for his staff that music can bring. He also appreciates that he has five people bringing in all kinds of new music for him to sample that he would never find on his own. That aside, the work must go on. If you’ve got problems with the music, figure it out collectively, quickly and without disrupting the workflow. If the staff can’t figure it out, the boss will do it for them by shutting off the office music entirely. That’s your warning, you will not get another.

Monday through Thursday, Bob listen to his coworker’s music with polite acceptance, saying virtually nothing good or bad about what is being played. NPR, Texas swing music, hard core death metal, classic Motown, Klingon opera and everything in between - nothing gets a more dramatic response than Bob’s inflection free “That’s nice.”

Friday, Bob’s turn as office DJ, and he chooses…nothing at all. Silence is echoing from the speakers as Bob quietly and pleasantly goes on about his duties. When asked about his choice, Bob explains that he has no problem with the music policy be he would prefer to have it off entirely. He considers the music to be slightly distracting especially now while he is still learning the job. If he gets a day to choose what he likes then he would prefer a quite environment to help him focus on the work.

Monday say: “Eh, Bob’s day, Bob’s choice. I don’t really like it but I can hardly claim offense or injury as a result of it. If I expect Bob to accept my choices then I need to accept his. I guess it’s ‘restful Friday’ for a while. Lets get back to work.”

Tuesday says: “Bob, please play something, anything,. Find something that you consider minimally intrusive and let it go. Light jazz, classical guitar, local news and weather (now with traffic on the ones, threes, fives, sevens and nines), ‘Mitch McConnell sings the Blues’. Pick something.”

Wednesday says: “Auction it off. High bidder gets the day with the proceeds going into the office coffee and snack budget.”

Thursday says: “I’ve got the most seniority. If Bob doesn’t want his day then it falls to me. More of the music I like, we all win!”

[/hypothetical]

I’m dealing with something very much like this at work right now and I’m seeing all of these people. Thursday can fuck right off. Beyond that, I’m not sure I hugely care about how this shakes out although I am enjoying the show. What’s your choice?

Poll coming

Gosh, what a nightmare. “NPR, Texas swing music, hard core death metal, classic Motown, Klingon opera and everything in between”? Goodbye concentration, goodbye productivity. I’d disrupt the workflow just to get the boss to shut down my coworker’s idiot ideas about what we should all be forced to listen to.

Forget everybody getting a day to pick everybody else’s torture, I’d threaten to make a huge stink and get all music canceled (just to get their attention), and then suggest that people bring in items to propose for the playlist, and then have a secret vote on the individual tracks. A single vote against cancels the track. And if the final results end up with less than eight hours of music, then we get only silence.

This would result in the various coworkers adopting various tactics:

  1. Bringing in their own track list of discordant screaming and nails on chalkboards and downvotes everything else. Silence ensues.
  2. Bringing nothing and vetoing everything, wishing to have silence to work in. Silence ensues.
  3. Bringing in a reasonable mix of what they consider good music. Some of it probably survives, if there are no 1s or 2s.
  4. Bringing in a collection calculated to be as inoffensive as possible. Most of it probably survives, if there are no 1s or 2s.

If a person doesn’t want to listen to music they shouldn’t have to, but if everybody can agree on a playlist, then that would be fine. (Well give or take that broadcasting music like this at all is probably in illegal violation of copyright. Minor detail, that.)

And the boss is an idiot for thinking that headphones are a problem. They’re not all noise-canceling.

Wednesday would be my choice. The money could also be used to donate to a charity. A few years ago, I was awarded a VIP parking spot. I don’t drive so I auctioned it off for charity.

Obviously, it depends on the office. I’ve worked some jobs in the past where you wouldn’t want everyone buried in headphones but some background music was nice.

I agree with Monday. Bob’s day, Bob’s choice. He listened to everybody else’s music without complaint. He respected their choices, they should all respect his.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are all being reasonable. Thursday is being a bit of a jerk.

Bob is also being reasonable. He feels that the music is distracting but is holding his tongue because he recognizes that complaining would lead to it being shut down altogether, which would be bad for everyone. Bob is making the decision that is most beneficial to him and also least harmful to his coworkers. Bob’s being a good dude. Hopefully Bob will be willing to put on something that he considers minimally intrusive once he’s become comfortable with his duties, but he’s under no real obligation to do so.

I’m with Bob (and Monday). If he picks the sound of silence as his choice, that’s his right.

Agreed. And having worked in places with music forced upon me I would vote for silence all the time.
It would be hell for me to have to listen to someone else’s music four days a week, every week. I couldn’t do it.

Agreed. My productivity would plummet. For sure.

Hey? Don’t polls usually have little round ‘bullets’ to choose? How did you manage to get little ‘boxes’?

It’s because you can choose more than one response.

With the bullets, you can choose just one. With the boxes, you can choose multiple.

I voted for Monday. I don’t know that I’d last too long in that office. I would have to really like my co-workers. I could listen to a little death metal. A little NPR. A little pop. A little country. Whatever. But none of them for an entire workday.

When you’re creating the poll there’s a box you can check that says “Allow users to select multiple options” or something to that effect. If you check it, you get the check boxes instead of the “bullets” (technically they’re called “radio buttons”, because they work like the buttons on an old car radio).

Silence is a perfectly fair choice.
As for this idea of letting employees play their choice of music, it’s one of those things that sounds good in theory but horrific in practice. It would destroy morale and productivity; what one employee loves as their earworm can be aural Guantanamo torture for others (even if played quietly.)

Tuesday is the best answer, assuming headphones really aren’t acceptable. A new person coming into a workplace shouldn’t just decide to change the way things are done.

Apparently Bob is a big John Cage fan. I’m with him (and Monday). I couldn’t work in that environment the rest of the week.

I got peeved at having to listen to sports instead of music at one job, myself and 3 others in the office of 10 people, and we asked the guy nicely if we could get some music for a break instead of back to back to back sports radio. He said that he could choose whatever he liked … saturdays it was him, me and our boss. I put on a borrowed collection of Bollywood soundtrack albums. It was my choice day … he objected, the boss said he and I liked Bollywood, the next Saturday it was the boss’ turn, so saturday after that he could put on sports again if he wanted …

It is beneficial to be flexible in a group environment … I wouldn’t put on something really antichristian if I know I have a devout christian around, I would probably go with something more mellow - light jazz combined with soft pop is pretty neutral.

I think Bob should get to wear earplugs Monday-Thursday, while everyone else gets to wear earbuds on Friday.

Seriously, it seems to me that the personal music devices rule is the problem here. I like listening to music too. But sometimes it really can be distracting, especially when I’m doing something challenging.

I think Bob should be in charge of the programming all week long. If I was forced to listen to anothers music selections all day at work, I’d be homicidal by Thursday (who is an asshole, BTW).

I’m with Bob and I am damned glad I never had to work in such an environment.

I can’t imagine having to listen to music all day every work day. Doesn’t anyone have to concentrate on anything? Even music I like (and I’m a musician!) gets old after a while. It’s a really stupid system, IMHO.