(Written when I was a consultant working in the Muzak-infested office of an anonymous major retailer, whose name starts and ends with “s” and has “ear” in the middle)
I think that there could never be a Muzak tape made just for me.
Muzak with its sound so thin, of saxophone and violin,
Its oboes reedy, trumpets brassy, Muzak’s anything but classy.
Who possesses such a quirk that Muzak helps him in his work?
Where is the management consultant who stated that we’d be exultant
With Muzak hurting every ear? He never, ever shows up here!
I know the company nabobs believe they help us do our jobs
By playing Muzak all day long. Who dares to say that they are wrong?
To tell them this I have no heart, although I feel we’re in K-Mart.
Muzak is OK for shoppers while they spend their dimes and coppers
But Muzak makes my brain gyrate when I try to concentrate.
While it tries to be subliminal it makes my concentration minimal.
I find it very hard to think, and productivity starts to shrink!
I cannot code a simple loop, my data structures wilt and droop;
I can’t remember rules of Boole, I’m drowning in the literal pool.
The old bit bucket I often spill (the client sends the cleaning bill).
Each program takes three times as long to write, because of Muzak’s song.
Oh, that I could choose the sound that while I work would be around.
Would I choose a snappy beat, to stir the heart and move the feet?
Would I choose some rock & roll, country/western, blues or soul?
Would I choose a sweet romance, cha-cha, waltz or, country dance?
None of these would be my choice, if I were asked to give my voice.
I’d have the sounds of aging stones, or melting chocolate ice cream cones;
Or sounds that truly are subsonic, like slowly moving plates tectonic.
No sound would from the speaker come, and from my ear I’d take my thumb.
I wish the company would try it, and let us work in peace and quiet.
I offer up this resolution, to stop this awful noise pollution:
To make my daily stress decrease, please, turn it off and give me peace!
