me (20f) and my coworker (21m, i’ll call him J) got into an argument this morning
we work at a place with a speaker (i don’t want to be specific) the employees connect to it and play our own playlists as long as they’re clean. an issue this summer is a different coworker will play nothing but country for 5+ hours straight. unfortunately J has also recently started playing nothing but country even though i’ve literally never heard him play country or even talk about liking it
the country music has gotten to the point that one of our managers has said in the work gc to not play “only country” for a whole shift (it’s fine to play a country song every now and then just not the WHOLE time) unfortunately they both still do
this morning when J connects to the speaker he starts playing country and i give it like 30ish minutes for a non-country song to play (it was only country) so i decide to just add enough stuff to the queue that i’ll be off before i have to hear another country song
luckily the jam popped up so i started adding songs (older songs and 2000s pop music) when my songs started playing he turned off his jam so i connected to the speaker (multiple people can be on it at once) and tried playing my music and he kept pausing it and it was like this for a while to the point other people told us to cut it out and he gave up at that point and let me have the speaker
i did kind of laugh when it was happening because i guess i wanted to convey that i wasn’t upset and i was trying to be lighthearted but maybe he took offense to that?
when it was happening here’s my best recollection of the convo
J “give me a good reason that i can’t play country.”
“i’m not listening to nothing but country.”
J “no give me an actual good reason why you don’t like it and i can’t play it”
“okay fine you want an actual good reason why we shouldn’t play country music? what if i played classical music? country is for a specific group of people and isn’t what the majority of people like”
J “plenty of people like country. also country pop exists”
“no because the majority of people know and listen to pop music so we should just play that. also your manager, your BOSS said not to play nothing but country and that should be enough of a reason”
J “it wasn’t only country music”
“the playlist was called ‘country music’ so yes it was only country music”
he wasn’t yelling at me but he was pretty upset.
Did i make it a bigger deal than it needed to be? Country music makes me feel homicidal and at first i thought it was funny but i guess he didn’t but i’ve had some of my favorite songs skipped or have been booted from the speaker before and ive never made a fuss
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me (20f) and my coworker (21m, i’ll call him J) got into an argument this morning
we work at a place with a speaker (i don’t want to be specific) the employees connect to it and play our own playlists as long as they’re clean. an issue this summer is a different coworker will play nothing but country for 5+ hours straight. unfortunately J has also recently started playing nothing but country even though i’ve literally never heard him play country or even talk about liking it
the country music has gotten to the point that one of our managers has said in the work gc to not play “only country” for a whole shift (it’s fine to play a country song every now and then just not the WHOLE time) unfortunately they both still do
this morning when J connects to the speaker he starts playing country and i give it like 30ish minutes for a non-country song to play (it was only country) so i decide to just add enough stuff to the queue that i’ll be off before i have to hear another country song
luckily the jam popped up so i started adding songs (older songs and 2000s pop music) when my songs started playing he turned off his jam so i connected to the speaker (multiple people can be on it at once) and tried playing my music and he kept pausing it and it was like this for a while to the point other people told us to cut it out and he gave up at that point and let me have the speaker
i did kind of laugh when it was happening because i guess i wanted to convey that i wasn’t upset and i was trying to be lighthearted but maybe he took offense to that?
when it was happening here’s my best recollection of the convo
J “give me a good reason that i can’t play country.”
“i’m not listening to nothing but country.”
J “no give me an actual good reason why you don’t like it and i can’t play it”
“okay fine you want an actual good reason why we shouldn’t play country music? what if i played classical music? country is for a specific group of people and isn’t what the majority of people like”
J “plenty of people like country. also country pop exists”
“no because the majority of people know and listen to pop music so we should just play that. also your manager, your BOSS said not to play nothing but country and that should be enough of a reason”
J “it wasn’t only country music”
“the playlist was called ‘country music’ so yes it was only country music”
he wasn’t yelling at me but he was pretty upset.
Did i make it a bigger deal than it needed to be? Country music makes me feel homicidal and at first i thought it was funny but i guess he didn’t but i’ve had some of my favorite songs skipped or have been booted from the speaker before and ive never made a fuss
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA. When it gets annoying enough that the boss has to document it in an email, he done f*cked up.
ESH
>the majority of people know and listen to pop music so we should just play that
um, no… I would be miserable myself if only freaking pop music was playing. And I could also understand why people would have enough of country music (I wouldn’t, but if I don’t see myself listening to pop music for an entire shift, I can understand that others wouldn’t like it if I was playing only rock or country music too for example).
So, you are both wrong.
But the biggest asshole is your manager IMO.
I think the management should be in charge of the music. They should be the ones creating a playlist with a variety of songs and not let the employees choose.
That would avoid any conflict between the employees and the manager would also stop complaining… I mean are they not in charge?
NTA
This is a great way to get the speaker removed if you continue to disagree on what type of music to listen to, but it will cause some tension between you guys, knowing because of you the speaker gets taken away. They aren’t being fair but are stubborn and won’t see any other way. Sorry OP
ESH – you two are going to be the reason that non-managers will lose access to picking the music
NTA they are literally doing what your BOSS said not to do. I don’t hate country, but more than 30 min will have me turning it off.
ETA: even my kids know “sharing is caring”
If the boss said no and there’s a rule then that coworker should be abiding from it. As long as you are both aware of it and trying to follow it, which it seems you are from your post, you are NTA
Esh Both of you are behaving like toddlers
NTA but I do think you’re being dramatic about your dislike for country music. He’s definitely TA for not letting you mix in other songs or take over aux for a bit of time but in a work setting it’s definitely important to pick your battles and it sounds like this was your hill to die on. Also, no one needs a good reason to dislike something so that’s just stupid.
That being said, saying country music “makes you feel homicidal” is super dramatic and everyone has to listen to music that isn’t their favorite some time.
NTA, but the company may need to put together the playlist. Something to take the choice away from you all. This is how policies get put in place. NTA
NTA but this will always be an issue with a public and shared speaker. When I worked at a factory that had satellite radio, every six months they would have the employees vote on their favorite stations and have a different genre for each day of the week. Would that be a compromise? They get a country day or two and the rest are classic rock, 90s, 80s, 00s, popular music, figure it out among yourselves.
ESH
NTA. Manager said stop. He didn’t. You fixed it. His ego’s bruised, but that a him problem
NTA. I listen to old western and bluegrass music. I can’t STAND country music. It’s awful.
OMG, ESH! Just get yourself some headphones and be done with it! I hope your manager treats you like the toddlers you are and takes away the speaker.
ESH. You’re on a work site, not a kindergarten and you’re both acting like babies. I absolutely despise country music and all it stands for, but you’re going to end up with the manager picking all the music if you don’t learn to play nice.
ESH.
Info: what music does the “majority of people” like?
NTA. Don’t get on the boss’s bad side. The boss said not to play exclusively country music or even mostly country music, but he did anyway
ESH.
You are being ridiculous when you say things like “country music makes me feel homicidal”. All music is specifically designed to be pleasing to the ear. Sure, every has different preferences, but come on.
Don’t be the person whose entire identity revolves around hating something other people like.
With that being said, if there is discretion over what music is played, everyone should get equal time to choose what plays.
At the end of the day, though, you’re at work. It sounds like all of you need to focus on actually working instead of arguing about music. It is just background noise. Focus on doing your job.
I have been in this situation so it become a race to see who got to work first. It happened this way because he would not agree to alternate days. It was just the 2 of us in our department
As a long time manager, this is the kind of thing that drives me crazy. You try to let your team have some simple autonomy and one person has to be a difficult jerk. Now they have to have rules about what music genre everyone listens to? WTAF. NTA.
What kind of workplace is this where there is a speaker anyone can connect to and play? Usually I assumed people have their own headphones. This looks like a recipe for disaster like what if someone started playing songs in a different language or dubstep or something
ESH. You’re punching above your wage. Make a complaint to the manager, don’t be this childish in the work place. It isn’t up to you to enforce workplace rules, or petty your way out of a situation. Chill out before YOU get in trouble.
Every time he only plays country, lodge a complaint. Make it your manager’s problem.
NTA
This is how y’all lose the ability to play your own music. ESH.
NTA. ‘Boss said not to play ALL country songs, them last two were Western’. Break the damn speaker at this point.
Personally, I would hate, hate ANY background music while I work.
ESH
You all sound like a bunch of children who can’t share toys in the sandbox.
Also, you lose your battles when you start throwing out fake facts that make no difference to the argument at all. ‘The majority of people don’t like country music’. Now you’ve just created a point for J to argue that doesn’t even matter. Everyone should share, boss doesn’t want all country, so maybe all employees contribute to a ‘clean’ playlist including everyone’s faves and put it on shuffle. I mean, teenagers can figure this out.
NTA. The fact that he suggested pop country as a compromise shows that his musical taste is a crime against humanity.
ESH. I would go crazy with both of you. If you can’t behave with a speaker, it should just be removed.
Tell him to find lofi versions of his favorite songs to play at work. That way it will be tolerable to everyone
98% of country music gives me a stomach ache. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t raised on it, maybe it’s because it’s so…white bread. I don’t know, but 5 hours of country music and they’d have to remove sharp objects within my reach. To be fair, I’m the same way about most Christian music, and I’m Christian. (I’m not talking hymns; I’m talking the so-called “Jesus is my boyfriend” genre.) And an hour of heavy metal makes me want to pierce other people’s noses.
Some people undoubtedly hate the kinds of music I love. The point is, nobody should have to listen to hour after hour of music they hate. Instead of letting workers choose their own music, maybe your boss would consider a subscription to a music streaming service for businesses. Or they could ban all music.
So you are both TA because you are acting like little kids who don’t know how to share. Your irrational hatred of country and declaration that the majority of people listen to pop (like where did you even get that from) is you trying to assert your desires just as much as he’s doing.
What you should do, before your boss cuts you all off, is make a schedule or have everyone in the office give a list of songs that will play on rotation.
Not everyone wants to listen to only pop either. I like lots of genres of music and listening to all one genre everyday would drive me crazy. You both need playlists that have variety or the manager needs to take control so the customers aren’t stuck listening to whatever you guys want all the time.
Eventually management will do what ours did when we couldn’t agree on a station, turned the music off altogether. ESH
We had a TouchTunes at the bar I used to work at and I constantly had to just turn it off because people fought over it all the time. ESH. If I was your boss there would just be no music at all.
NTA but you need to let your boss handle this. Everyone should get an opportunity to play music and no one should be monopolizing it. If everyone keeps fighting over it, you’ll get it taken away though.
ESH, the boss is going to take over the speaker with an approved playlist that gets recycled a couple times a day every day and everybody is going to hate it and it’ll be y’all’s fault.
NTA. Having to listen to country music = hostile work environment.
ESH
I’m an avid country music listener and your coworker is right. Country is now country pop. It has been since Taylor Swift emerged and changed the landscape of country music. Most country music isn’t country music like it was in the 90s and early 2000s.
He should be open to listening to other things. You shouldn’t be picking fights at work. Your manager should control the music.
Give this one a go next time it’s your turn:
https://youtu.be/UwmAMwmV4fg
ESH, you’re both being equally dramatic. Both of you are passively aggressively fighting over the speaker by hijacking it while the other is playing their music to play your own. You then got into an argument over it, creating a hostile work environment.
This whole thing could have been avoided if you just had a conversation with him like an adult. An easy solution would’ve been to just make a joint playlist where you both can add songs you like and put it on shuffle.
ESH. Pick a theme for an hour and then, switch playlists with someone else. That way it’s fair for everyone. That’s what my workplace did.
Here’s a simple solution…how about everyone gets headphones and listens to their own music? See problem solved. If you don’t like headphones either get over it and shut up or get freaking headphones.
I mean damn, I’ve worked at a place that played music I hated…I simply got headphones and listened to my own stuff and did my work. It’s not rocket science guys. You’re all adults there…or at least should be.
YTA for adding to the immaturity
NTA – I also cannot stand country music unless it’s country “pop” and even some of those are pushing it. He can listen to his country music on his ride home. If the BOSS said not to do it all day then and hour is more than enough
NTA. I would have done the same. I like classic rock, nu metal and show tunes. I don’t play the genres and artists I know are contentious or if someone has already expressed that they don’t want to hear it for more than 3 songs at a time. It’s just common courtesy
ESH. This is how everyone loses music privileges.
NTA. Country music is a scourge. It’s been known to drive people to murder or stabbing their ear drums with a fork.
ESH
Yall on the quick road to losing music privileges if you can’t solve this on your own without dragging a manager into it.
I’m guessing you work at some electronics/phone store because this is almost word-for-word an issue my housemate had while they worked in-store sales for a major phone company lmao
I’m gonna say NTA because five hours of one person’s preference, especially a genre so polarising, is annoying as hell. But this conversation should have been your manager’s job, not yours.
NTA. I worked at a place where this woman (who was a real piece of work) insisted on playing pop radio all day. I’d go switch the radio to classic rock and then she’d switch it back. This station played the same Taylor Swift song every hour of every day. I couldn’t take it! I decided I was leaving that job at that point.
ESH – The manager needs to take responsibility for the speaker and pick a neutral playlist.
This is precisely why most shops have a no-radio policy.
Play nothing but your own music,give him the same energy
NTA. You pushed back in a reasonable way and he/they need to deal with it. Everyone can listen to what they like in moderation, as long as it’s appropriate to the work environment.
ESH
This is why we can’t have nice things.
NTA like you had mentioned above, using a jam would he the best compromise. Where everyone can add what they want and then shuffle the rest. Playing exclusively country would drive me up a wall, but when it’s mixed in makes it easier to tune it out.
ESH. You can certainly tolerate someone else’s music tastes for a while, as can others.
Why don’t you set it up so you each take turns for a certain number of songs? I don’t understand this huge swaths of time you each seem to be taking, nor this trying to take each other’s songs over. Just establish turn-taking, you did learn that in kindergarten, right?
NTA. Country Pop is an insult to both Country and Pop music.
I dunno, I’d probably rather listen to nothing over country for more than an hour but did you try to talk to your coworker first? If not, YWBTA. I am so glad I’m not in your situation though.
NTA – country music blows goats
Nope, country music all day everyday would suck. My job requires us to wear hearing protection. Alot of us have Bluetooth earmuffs and it’s so nice to be able to listen to what you want.
At a job a while back, we played music in the lab space we all shared. The rule was, if anybody objected, the music gets changed.
Since we were all friendly, we would put up with musical tastes we didn’t care for (for example, one guy was Chinese and liked Chairman-Mao-red-army-type choral stuff – really strident) at least for a while.
But when enough was enough, anybody could go change it without protest from the others.
Not to mention the fact it’s depressing and horrible. You should play music more balanced. What if you came in there and only played heavy metal all day? Is he cool with that?
>Did i make it a bigger deal than it needed to be?
Kind of? My response to
>give me a good reason that i can’t play country
Would have been something to the effect of “I ain’t giving you shit” because I don’t need to prove him wrong
Had a similar situation working in an office with various ages and backgrounds. We split days into 2, and each person had control of the music for a half day at a time. No conflicts and listened to a variety of music each week. Even though I don’t like country, knowing that it was only going to be 4 hours made it tolerable.
Lost 15 IQ points reading that exchange.
NTA
ESH
headphones… they’re not just for breakfast any more.
NTA they need to learn how to share like it’s kindergarten. Not everyone likes the same music you do. The fact that they were trying to argue it with you as well when it’s obvious you don’t like it and that should be the end of it.
ESH
Bring this up to management. They already have dealt with it once, so this time of you bring it up bring up solutions, and ones that are fairest to all. (You’ll never make everyone happy but your can get most) Explain how they are fair.
Do a solution like :
-everyone gets to pick a station per hour / day / whatever time period you want
-maybe random music chosen at the beginning of a shift, like a music lotto (this one could get skewed as random means one person might get chosen more than others and one may rarely get chosen causing grief)
-one radio station in town gets played, no personal playlists
-ask if using OSHA complaint headphones or earbuds work (our shop banned them (boo!) for “safety reasons” and instead now everyone has their own large Bluetooth speaker playing conflicting, loud, music. Sooooo much better /s)
-no music what so ever
Easy solutions are there if you’re willing to look into them other than “I hate country music”. I’m with you on that one, but dealing with it properly and fairly so must people are happy is the only way or you’ll lose the privilege all together (it is a privilege not a right to listen to music at work.)
Yes, YTA. Grow up.
>“give me a good reason that i can’t play country.”
“Doesn’t matter, we’re all allowed a turn and you kicked me off for mine”
> but i’ve had some of my favorite songs skipped
This right here. He’s not allowed to skip your songs but cry when you do the same. Did he give you an “actual reason” he didn’t like your songs? Sounds like you guys should just not be skipping each other’s songs.
NTA. But I am biased because country music also makes me homocidal… I have literally walked out of businesses because I couldn’t stand the country music. So, you’re also preventing loss of customers!
Just turn all the music off if you can’t behave like adults.
ESH
This is how you end up listening to the soft rock radio station or nothing at all
Your boss is either going to ban the speaker, or connect it to easy listening on the radio
You all need to figure this out amongst yourselves like adults
ESH. Have you thought about people who don’t want any of your music? Obviously other people can hear your speaker shit. Use headphones.
Here’s what you do. Queue up nothing but The Highwaymen, Willie Nelson (he has a song Cowboys are Frequently, secretly fond of each other), Orville Peck(a gay, vegan cowboy), Roy Clark, Yola, Dolly Parton, and the like. He wants country?
Give him country.
Info: how often do you rotate?? You need a clear music schedule and time limits. An hour MAX per person and then switch to someone else’s music.
If I were there, I’d make an offer, “let’s switch every 10 songs.” And then I’d play nothing but 13+ minute (each) prog metal songs. Hope “y’all” like Tool.
ESH. Use earbuds. Problem solved.
Letting individuals have direct control over music is the worst policy.
You need a third party here. My shop plays radio only. We have 2 local stations and it was decided decades ago we would just alternate. We play one for 24 hours then switch to the other. This has not changed in over 20 years. One station is country the other is pop. The young people complain, but there is no grunge or indie station near by, and we’re not about to allow them to literally play any song they want.
Your shop is being truly stupid for allowing this, you need an impartial DJ to play the actual music for you.
Better come up with a solution amongst yourselves before it escalates or management steps in.