OK United. I like the Dead more than probably most people. More shows than I care to admit. “Box Of Rain” happens to be my least favorite song by them, but that’s not your fault.
What IS your fault, however, is that for the last several months this appears to be the only song you play during the “find your seat while boarding” AND the “get your bags and deplane” portions of the flight.
Seriously, I’ve been traveling for work quite a bit lately, all over the place. I can’t fucking escape it. “Whaaaat do you waaant me to dooooo…”
I flew for the first time in nearly four years last month, and I was mystified by the music on the plane. Did they always pipe it into the cabin like that? I ended up on the tarmac for about half an hour/forty-five minutes before we could take off, and I wanted to just absolutely kill whoever came up with this idea by the end of it.
It’s like the airlines took a cue from my mom from when I was a kid.
“Attention passengers, this is the Captain speaking. The sooner you find your seats and sit down, the sooner we can take off and the sooner we can stop this horrible bloody music. I can wait as long as you can…”
I remember getting on a Virgin flight a few years back and they were piping in LOUD music of some annoying R&B/pop female variety. Apparently, some passenger getting on asked them to change it to something hipper, so they changed the channel to some kind of rap/hip-hop. At which point, my friends and I complained because we couldn’t think of anything much more miserable than sitting trapped in a plane with LOUD rap playing. So the stewardess, sounding completely exasperated, gets on the P.A. and announces that “Since we have been receiving so many complaints about the type of music we’re playing, we’re just going to shut the music off.” Gee, like that was some kind of punishment.
Seriously, any given plane has 100-300 people with a wide range of ages, cultures, and tastes. How delusional do you have to be to think that you can find a musical genre that doesn’t annoy the shit out of the vast majority of them?
When I worked in a bar, I was CONSTANTLY being asked to put on something or other. You have to get used to saying yes to these people and then not doing what they want. It’s pretty easy, really. That’s the stewardess’ fault because if she’d been around longer, she’d understand that you can’t please everyone and it’s better to not mess with things like that. I mean really, it’s not like you have to even listen to it for that long anyway.
Again! They just did it AGAIN!! Box Of Rain!! Am I really going to have to start using a different airline because of this? CHANGE THE FUCKING MUSIC!!!
Right, so it makes more sense to go ahead and play music that actively annoys most of your clientele rather than turn it off? In a situation where they can’t leave? And they shouldn’t protest?
Wha? They play music on planes? I only fly 3 or 4 times a year (for about the last 20 years) and have never, ever, not even once noticed music on a plane.