Radio in an open plan office - does the Music get you down?

missbelle

My last job had radios in the office, was quite a large office so there were about 3 or 4 on the floor. nothing annoys me more than Today FM on one radio, versus I Radio on another, versus one not properly tuned in :mad:
And hearing Matt Cooper's show at half 4 - don't get me started :eek:

Shenshen

I have to say, I do feel for you.
I'm in a similar situation... the manager insists on hving a radio on all day, and I absolutely hate it. I can't begin to describe how much I hate it.

I'm not into pop music at the best of times, if given a choice I prefer classical. But I wouldn't ever dream of imposing that on anyone else!
No such politeness in return though... the radio blares away, sometimes making it difficult to have phone calls, or to even just concentrate on the task at hand.
The only option that I (and other team members) have is listen to our ipods, or online radio stations. But thanks to the radio, we have to turn these up so loud we cannot hear it if someone is calling us....

I'll be so glad when I get out of there. :mad:

daigo75

Lando Griffin wrote: »

Radios in offices should not be allowled as they are a distraction.

I agree. Besides, music makes creative thinking next to impossible, as it engages the part of the brain you need to do it.

Lando Griffin wrote:

Usually people in the private sector dont have radios, I suppose you do as you like when in the Public sector.

I actually worked in a private company where, at times, there were three radios, tuned on different stations, playing music. All in a very small open plan. These were days when nothing was done, everybody was distracted by the noise.

ghostdancer

the vast majority of radio stations are absolute tripe, but then again the vast majority of the public like to listen to the same top40 songs over and over again until Rihanna or The Script or whoever releases a new song that gets played to death.

thankfully there's still a few decent radio stations that aren't full of zany chat interspersed with the same awful pop songs day after day.

thank god in my current job i can listen to headphones and not have to listen to sh1t like 2FM/TodayFM/Spin/FM104/etc

mojesius

At least with a radio station, there is some diversity when the ads/dj/newscaster comes on.

Try working double shifts in a restaurant at christmas time (11am - 1am) with two, yes TWO christmas cds on repeat the entire fcuking time.

Mariah Carey, Slade, Wham, Shakin Stevens and fcuking Band Aid every 90 minutes. Again and again, day after day every christmas for years. Also, because the CDs were made especially for the restaurant around the millennium, there was random outdated crap like Alesha's Attic, Craig David and Justin Trousersnake on there too.

I nearly went postal the last year I worked there when I saw the manager pulling out the christmas cds in mid-November.

Or working brunch - Crap mind-numbing elevator jazz music for 8 hours straight, usually with a hangover.

Give me the radio anytime

rubadub

davet82 wrote: »

you need a licence to play a radio in the work place as far as i know, report your office

Then they might get in some muzak cds, I think they need no licence.

Does anybody remember a few years back some stations played 'mad world' off the donnie darko soundtrack all day. Some pirate stations without talking djs were OK, since it was 1 guy with a mp3 tracklist that would not repeat itself the next hour.

Crooked Jack

mojesius wrote: »

At least with a radio station, there is some diversity when the ads/dj/newscaster comes on.

Try working double shifts in a restaurant at christmas time (11am - 1am) with two, yes TWO christmas cds on repeat the entire fcuking time.

Mariah Carey, Slade, Wham, Shakin Stevens and fcuking Band Aid every 90 minutes. Again and again, day after day every christmas for years. Also, because the CDs were made especially for the restaurant around the millennium, there was random outdated crap like Alesha's Attic, Craig David and Justin Trousersnake on there too.

I nearly went postal the last year I worked there when I saw the manager pulling out the christmas cds in mid-November.

Or working brunch - Crap mind-numbing elevator jazz music for 8 hours straight, usually with a hangover.

Give me the radio anytime

Anytime? ANYTIME? REALLY?! Even that time is 1pm and the radio station is BBC Ulster and you have to listen to Hugo fuckin' Duncan. You'd be jamming a christmas CD in the radio within 30 seconds

Odysseus

Lando Griffin wrote: »

Its a Radio today, next week a telly.

Radios in offices should not be allowled as they are a distraction.

Usually people in the private sector dont have radios, I suppose you do as you like when in the Public sector.:mad::mad::mad:

Yes we do:D:D:D

xflyer

It is said that music and radio does help productivity in factories. Not sure about offices though. I worked in a factory which piped in 2FM, we had Colm and Jim Jim:mad: followed by Gerry (cokehead) Ryan! The job was bad enough without those tossers annoying the hell out of me. The only reason I never came into work with an Ak47 and killed them ALL is because I couldn't get hold of a gun!

It was the same in my first job, a very long time ago. I hated the job so much that every time I hear some of the songs now. It brings me back to a bad place.

But it could have been worse. In another place they didn't allow radios on the day shift but turned a blind eye on nights. The result was a nightmare of competing stations and CDs. The worst was a guy who played the Wolfe Tones all night. Most of us have heard their most popular songs but their back catalogue has to rate as one of the most tuneless set of songs ever to disgrace the Irish music scene.

But they're not the worst. I was sent to America to work for a while, on the night shift were a bunch of Serbian refugees who pined for the old country and played their traditional 'tunes' all night. 12 terrible hours. I've no idea what the songs were actually about but it sounded something like: 'My children were murdered, my wife has left me and I'm dying of cancer' set to a folk tune that made the Wolfe Tones sound like Pavarotti. No wonder the Balkans are a hotbed of violence and revenge.

So be glad of the same songs repeated over and over again. In twenty years time, it will be a different set of songs repeated endlessly. But at least it won't be the Wolfe Tones or Serbo-Croat music!

missbelle

xflyer wrote: »

I was sent to America to work for a while,

Is that because you gave out about the radio?