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hush
Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653
Ohio, USA

0 posted 2006-12-23 06:28 PM


I know this will sound like a PMS-rant... but it's not (I checked the calendar). Tell me... am I heinous and judgemental and nasty?

I've only been in the "real" work force for 6 months (i.e. full time job with benefits and all that jazz). And... I like my job... but the one thing that is driving me nuts... is the music! It's like an unwritten law that all nurses stations must play the blandest, softest, most inoffesive soft rock station available. (Stephen... am I wrong??)

I don't understand how... for six months now, I have had to hear the Fray's "How to save a life" song from Grey's Anatomy at least 4-5 times a night... HOW ARE MY COWORKERS STILL SINGING IT???? How can they not be sick of Sheryl Crow's "Soak up the Sun?" I was sick of it 4 years ago!!! They're even ruining some songs I like, like the acoustic version of "Layla," and "Because the night" (Thank god they're only ruining the 10,000 Maniacs version and not the Patti Smith version, because then there'd really be a problem.)

I'm not asking anyone to like or listen to my obscure indie rock... I'm not forcing L7 or Xavier Rudd on anyone. I don't even expect them to like NIN or the Cure... and they're like, practically not even alternative, y'know? I'm not even foisting popular bands like the Killers or Franz Ferdinand on them... but I mean COME ON! You cannot be serious when you say Hootie and the Blowfish is your favorite band. DEAR GOD, PLEASE TELL ME YOU ARE NOT SERIOUS!!!!

But wait, I gotta watch the offesniveness level. I've been chastised for dropping JC's and GD's. Okay, fair enough... even though my inner eyes were rolling, I apologized... I can understand why that might bother someone... but are people seriosuly this inoffensive and bland? Have I shielded myself from reality? Do I read too much Rolling Stone? I mean, I thought I was blase... I was thinking OMG, I am such a loser! I don't even have any Bikini Kill albums! How can I call myself a feminist? But on the outside, my only mildly culturally aware co-worker was saying something to the tune of: "Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda are supposedly starting a radio station together... Who'd want to listen to what two feminists have to say?!?!"

Eh? Please... am I being totally unreasonable? I mean.. I'm not too good for People magazine... I don't constantly look down my nose... I enjoy bubblegum pop culture, I think it's an interesting reflection of our collective cultural viewpoint... and I like it for the shallow voyeuristic reasons, too! I swear it! I just want somebody to care about something, anything(!) besides K-fed and Britney or the last epsiode of Lost. I'd even be happy if someone there liked Emo! C'mon... Emo! I'm not asking for much... or some classic rock? I'm not hard to please... or am I?

-Rant complete-

© Copyright 2006 hush - All Rights Reserved
serenity blaze
Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738

1 posted 2006-12-23 08:11 PM


*laughing*

I'm not laughing at you either.

You have my total sympathy. You brought back memories for me--and the horror of my day of realization that the brainwashing technique had been actualized when I found myself humming to Beatles medley muzak while I was filing...

I just watched a movie, "Bent", and there's a part in the movie where they show two of the prisoners "working" in the yard under the ever watchful eye of Nazi guards. Thier task was to pick up rocks, one at time, and move them to another pile of rocks. When they were done? They had to move them all back again. When one of the characters asked the other the purpose of this he was told "It's designed to drive us mad."

(I don't wanna spoil the movie, but, um, it worked.)

Try to keep that in mind, hugs, and Happy Holidays. (I'll be glad when the Christmas Carol stuff is over too.)


Huan Yi
Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688
Waukegan
2 posted 2006-12-23 09:10 PM


.


Well, if you come to a ward where you hear the first movement of Beethoven's
"Symphony #6 (The Pastoral)"  through the doors don’t go in;
there’s some things you don’t want to know.


.

jbouder
Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534
Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash
3 posted 2006-12-26 08:47 AM


Amy:

Why don't you look at this as an opportunity?  I experienced similar pangs while working at K-mart during my college-day summers.  "The Fray" of that day was Barry Manilow and I thought the endless looping of that guy's songs would be the end of me.

So I starting singing "Bird, bird, bird, bird is the word ..." just loud enough for my coworkers to hear.  I then took a count each day of how many of my coworkers I caught singing the song themselves.  It really was sadistic, now that I think about it.

Hope this is helpful.

Jim

Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
4 posted 2006-12-26 06:59 PM


I've seen a few sexy bald chicks!  


Edward Grim
Senior Member
since 2005-12-18
Posts 1154
Greenville, South Carolina
5 posted 2006-12-27 08:12 PM


Lol, I hear ya hush. Every time I'm in the hosptial I just want to throw on some Rammstein and rock it out German death metal style, lol. I feel for ya.

And I said to the devil, "You better leave my spleen alone."

Stephanos
Deputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Elite
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618
Statesboro, GA, USA
6 posted 2006-12-27 11:01 PM


Um ... yes finely polished pop culture is boring.  But ... subcultural rant is still offensive for a reason.  


I tend to be offended at both.  Amy, you just haven't seen through the other yet.  


Congrats on your nursing job.  What kind of nursing are you doing?  You could come work a few of my shifts for me if you want.  





Stephen.

hush
Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653
Ohio, USA
7 posted 2006-12-28 02:56 PM


Oh, Stephen, I can make the same stereotypical jokes at my own expense. My boyfriend says I'll only listen to stuff that nobody else knows about... which I think is unfair, but I guess if mainstream is fair game, then my stuff is fair game too, right?

Med-surg step-down... and what I find amusing is that my coworkers, generally, are somewhat similar to me... we are beyond irreverent, we are downright crass. Believe me, our patients lend to that sort of attitude (The detoxer's, the "chest pain" pt's who rip the nitro drip out so the can sign out AMA, after you do the admission paperwork of course..., the "chest pain" people who oughta go straight to psych...). But... despite our offensive, sarcastic collective sense of humor... let's keep the music clean, kids.

Stephanos
Deputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Elite
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618
Statesboro, GA, USA
8 posted 2006-12-28 05:28 PM


Amy,

I am aware of that cynical sense of humor that nurses develop, being a nurse myself.  But I think that kind of humor is due to an observed absurdity or shame that is, in reality, very sad.  Sometimes I think our humor is our own medication ... a "laugh so you don't cry" kind of reaction to something we see.  


At any rate, I've never become totally comfortable with that kind of humor, though as a nurse, I can't say that I don't understand it and sometimes participate.  It can become a barrier to compassion, or even pity.  As I think that pity is appropriate sometimes even where compassion is impossible.  


Mainstream still bores me.  It is mass produced and plastic.
  

And yet other darker stuff saddens me.  Art that is crass doesn't appeal to much beyond our lower nature.  


I'll put it this way.  I'm reading "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky right now  ... a novel which was "shocking" during the time that it was written in Russia.  But its shock had a purpose.  It transcended the deplorable reality it described by making you think.  If art does that I'm for it.


If art is just out to shock people, or to communicate (and spread) a haughty despair, then it ceases to be art.  Social propriety can and should be crossed at times.  Morality should not be crossed just because it can be.


Okay...

off my soapbox now.    


That's my philosophy in general, and has nothing to do with what you listen to, since I don't even know what that is.


I have a hard enough time trying to convince nurses around me that they are too good to read gossip mags, hollywood prattle, and cheesy romance novels.  They look at me like I'm a freak with my thick Russian novels and theology books.  lol.
  
It's not that I'm trying to look or be "smart".  I'm dumb enough to struggle with my material. It's just I think there was a time when a culture understood the importance of those kinds of things ... and that is changing.  We are what we read, and watch, and listen to.  


Stephen.

hush
Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653
Ohio, USA
9 posted 2006-12-30 01:21 PM


Hey, I was just going to say, Stephen... just because my music isn't mainstream doesn't mean it's doom and gloom- I got out of that funk in high school, though I do still have a fondness for certain bands.

Yes, I agree... laugh so you don't cry. But call me mean, sometimes it's just laughing because the situation is funny.

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