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Saturday, April 7, 2007

Hazard Pay

We live in a world where everything is designed to make you want to part with your hard earned dollars. End stands are used to market profitable items you probably don't need but buy because it is there and catches your eye. This is especially true of those "compulsive" items you pick up while waiting in line at the checkout. These same retailers use the background music to make you relax, stay a while and spend that money.

I know that research shows which songs, genre or groups may induce this state of "spend nirvana" but I, dear reader, do not agree. After hearing practically the same fifty or so songs over and over and over and over I do not want to spend money. I want to cry. I want to walk out and never come back to work. I want to slit my wrists in a bathtub. I want to rob a bank. I want to punch the person(s) responsible for this play list in the face and the genitalia. But let us not go to extremes.

A simple solution to this problem for me is "hazard pay." Any time a song is replayed that induces extreme rage or depression it should mandate a pay-out of $100. Since the music kicks out an offending song about every 10 minutes I will be well compensated at the end of a ten hour shift. This compensation will pay for relaxing spa visits and psychotherapy. I won't have to go "postal." It is a simple solution all retailers should look into. After all, I do fill your family's prescriptions. You want me to be happy!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

that is amazing. i work for *cough gag blah* and how many times must i hear Downtown by Petula Clark, Build Me Up Buttercup and practically any song by Celine Dion before I kill myself? by far, the worst is christmas. there is about 14 different versions of My Favorite Things and they practically play back to back. i leave work everyday hoping that my ears are bleeding so that I can for some reason go on workers comp. <3

MrHunnybun said...

I feel your pain. Our system plays the same Phil Collins song as a default when it cannot find the mp3 in the playlist that it needs. We also had a time when we constantly had "Everybody Hurts" by REM on the stereo, not too good as a Pharmacy anthem.

Then I realised that all the files sent from head office were MP3s. So, if you renamed your own mp3s and copied them onto the computer it plays them.......that's theoretical, obviously I wouldn't do such a bad thing :)

Mc RPh said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mc RPh said...

Two words for you honey, "Grace & Gratitude". That shouldn't covered early retirement for everybody when it was in heavy rotation.

Unknown said...

Ugh... Grace and Gratitude... just seeing the words causes my eye to twitch.

Anonymous said...

The worst for me is 4th of July (or insert whatever patriotic holiday) because there is only about a dozen patriotic songs and they have every horrible rendition of them; except Stars and Stripes forever which they only have one-but it is the super extended version. I had to work a 10 hour shift once on the 4th and they played that song 13 times. I was ready to cry by the time it was time to go home.

Anonymous said...

Someone in our pharmacy a long time ago noticed that there was a tiny volume control knob in the center of the speaker stuck in the ceiling back there.

We don't hear Celine Dion unless we go out on the floor.

You may wish to take a ladder back to your pharmacy and see if that is the case with any speakers back there.

Mc RPh said...

Thanks dantech! That little trick with the volume worked. Now when asked if I "Know the Way to San Jose", I can confidently say "No, so screw you Dionne Warwick!!"

Anonymous said...

AAARRGGHH!! Grace and Gratitude! I hate you Olivia Newton-John! I HATE you!

Filet-o-bitch RPh said...

"Everybody Hurts" over and over, Mr. Hunnybun? That sucks! But it is so ironic! I love it!

Anonymous said...

Hearing "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers made me laugh out loud over here in a very large chain store in the UK. Fairly sure the corporate DJ does not know it is about heroin use.

Anonymous said...

In the early days of my retail practice, the company I worked for decided to invest in a chain of video game arcades. In my store, they opened the arcade directly behind my pharmacy. All day long, I heard the undersea battle machine yell, "SURFACE! SURFACE!" And, that's only scratching the surface of my angst.

Sazymae said...

We had this great game that we played with Grace & Gratitude in my old district... somebody figured out if you started dialling as soon as she said, "Hi, this is Olivia Newton John..." the voice mail would pick up right about the time the actual song started. So about a minute & a half later you'd look up and have about 8 new voicemails, all Olivia. And you never knew who they came from, so when it came on the next hour you'd call every store in a 20 mile radius and leave payback. A vicious cycle, but it was the only way to get through it without slitting our wrists with a spatula.

I just found y'all (obviously). Good to know I'm not the only one who drowns my angst with a bottle of jack & a blog.