Hey, there! Log in / Register

It's not the receipts at CVS that are driving one psychiatrist crazy

WBUR reports on Dr. Steve Schlozman's campaign to get CVS to change its hold music.

Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

Once worked at a small company that had a Panasonic phone system. The main unit had a small switch for selecting hold music. One setting was for a aux jack you'd wire up to an FM radio. Other setting was for a version of greensleeves that sounded like it was being played on a touchtone phone.

I really liked that setting. Then again, I worked there so never had to listen to the hold music myself.

up
Voting closed 0

I love yet hate the touchtone phone sounding hold music. I'd love to know the story behind how that came to be. It actually doesn't remind me of dial tones but of the music that plays with musical Christmas tree lights.

up
Voting closed 0

I once worked for a gay hookup website in the IT department, which means I was in charge of the hold music. So one day I was tasked to do so. Since the owner didnt care too much about properly licensing the music, I put every gay diva and dance anthem in the play list (converted to 55hz mono) on a mp3 player and plugged it in. So it was a lot of Madonna, Donna Summer, Cher, Whitney, Deborah Cox, and on and on...

We would get so many compliments on our dance music. Sometimes at night, the staff would dial and put themselves on hold just to listen for background.

up
Voting closed 0

The hold music for the specialty pharmacy is a sort of blues with a noodling electric guitar.
"I've got arthritis and I'm not walkin' too fast, but I'm gonna get along, yeah/
so I guess I won't take it out on the lady who lost my prior authorization/
and can't be bothered to call my doctor, yeah man"

up
Voting closed 0

the music reminds me I’m holding for CVS and not Comcast. The static helps me imagine some person putting the vinyl record on just for me.

up
Voting closed 0

maybe they could get rid of their damn in-store music, especially around Christmas. I find it terribly distracting when I'm trying to remember what the hell I came in for.

(which is probably why they play it, frankly -- in the hopes that I'll stay longer and buy something I *didn't* come in for...)

up
Voting closed 0

          ( liars! )

up
Voting closed 0

No shit.

up
Voting closed 0

There is service following directly behind us.

up
Voting closed 1

They should pipe in Eagan and Braude, then people will beg for the boring piano music to come back.

up
Voting closed 0

I generally dislike hold music of any business. Those that play classical of any sort is at least not unpleasant.

But I dislike store music in general. It's annoying. Now it's outside seemingly everywhere. People playing their cell phones at full volume without headphones, or the mosquito buzz from earbuds (at least they guarantee business for hearing aid manufacturers) on buses and subways. Boom boom cars playing junk noise that pretends to be music or the Latin beat that Latin folks have to spread in their vehicular serenade. Bikes with radios at full blast.

Add the outdoor serenades. The pseudo-sophisticated managers at the two Seaport buildings by the Envoy playing cheap music to the plaza and sidewalk.

I'm waiting for the folks who whine, "If you don't like noise move to the country." To which I can only say, "If you like the noise of the circus run away to the circus."

Pollution from trash at least in cities is somewhat manageable today. Air pollution is less than it has been. But now we have new forms of pollution for compromising and assaulting city life. Noise (and the insanely bright street lights).

It's as though as a society there are always folks who are determined to make life for everyone else gross.

up
Voting closed 0