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Distracting

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I feel like a horrible old curmudgeon for saying this, but I find listening to music intensely distracting while I'm at work.

I work in an office. In the sales part of an office, to be precise. As it's a publishing company there's a lot of floaty creative types around in the other departments, and so they have the option to have iPods pumping out music all day to keep them energised and motivated and all that stuff. Classic rock and Britpop indie tracks roll down the corridors as they get on with their work, it sounds great.

So, because it would not be 'fair' otherwise, we also have an iPod dock belting out tunes in the sales office. The members of the sales team who own iPods (clue: not me) take it more or less in turns to plug their devices in. Their personal music players, playing their music libraries while we work. In a telesales office.

Obviously it's distracting. My entire job requires me to be on the phone to people all day, and to be able to hear what they're saying. The Killers and Britney Spears screaming in my ear does not help with this. And I don't think clients are too impressed on the other end of the line.

Not only that but this is the personal collection of colleagues, not family-friendly radio. We're constantly having to charge across the room to change track because Eminem is about to launch into an uncensored swear-fest while we're trying to close down a 20,000 deal. It just doesn't give a good impression of our professional demeanours.

Then there's the inescapable fact that we all have massively different taste in music. The age range in our office is probably only about eight years, but we've got chart-obsessed teenyboppers, RnB enthusiasts, gangster rap wannabes and... me. I'm happy listening to Leonard Nimoy and the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins with its tube middle eight, or to the entirety of Bat Out of Hell, but put 'that' Katy Perry song on again and I swear I'll put someone through a window.

I may have some of the weirdest tastes in the office, but I'm not the only one who objects to the songs that are played. Overplayed rubbish from Katy Perry, Kings of Leon, The Killers, Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse spews on and on until even the people that like that sort of tosh can't take any more. It starts arguments, it keeps people from focusing on work and it just really annoys me.

I find music at work a constant source of irritation. A positive barrier to productivity and an endless source of petty arguments and distractions. I can appreciate people working in other fields might find it calming, but it's ridiculous in a sales environment. So there.

Learn more about this author, Kenneth Andrews.
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