Are Supermarkets making us deaf - Your Thoughts

Mrs_Ryan

I’m deaf anyway so I can’t hear it…

Greylocks

Loud background music annoys me as well. Invariably the levels are set by younger people who can’t live without background noise. The worse example was the music being turned up in a gym cafe and the speakers being directly over the customers heads.

MACKEM99

IvanOpinion said:

It gets really embarrassing when you do the non-original fill-in on tracks like 'Living next door to Alice' at the top of your voice.

Reminds me of a Kareoke a few years back when the host said he would allow the song as long as no one in the pub sang the rude parts - the song lasted about 30 seconds!!!

MalMonroe

I've really never noticed. I don't think the supermarkets I visit have any noise. Just we customers and the staff. But if ever I didn't like it, I wouldn't go there again. 

MalMonroe

MACKEM99 said:

IvanOpinion said:

It gets really embarrassing when you do the non-original fill-in on tracks like 'Living next door to Alice' at the top of your voice.

Reminds me of a Kareoke a few years back when the host said he would allow the song as long as no one in the pub sang the rude parts - the song lasted about 30 seconds!!!

What rude parts? Not in the original Smokie version. But even in the alternative version, with Chubby Brown? It made loads of money for Alan Barton's family, so it wouldn't bother me either way.

turnitround

Our large Tesco has a message which seems to  come over the tannoy every time I am in there.  It says 'There is a caller at the back door, please respond' and it repeats the same thing about 5 times and it's always very loud. 

It's in the most annoying Cockney voice you can imagine (nothing against Southern accents, I'm married to one) but this one sounds like a really badly exaggerated Michael Caine. 

anotheruser

soul1 said:

Therefore if you have normal hearing, or have children who are super sensitive to loud noise, it will just damage their hearing.

Also people are Autistic and noise sensitive.

What about people who are hard of hearing?
Are they not allowed to enjoy the radio or hear the self service checkouts?

A group of people must be disadvantaged somewhere.  Problem is, the UK is trying to make sure nobody is and it simply doesn't work.

Solve the above problem (with supermarket sound) in a reasonable manner and you'll have solved the problem of a lifetime.

pulliptears

I'm partially deaf in one ear anyway, too many death metal gigs over the years and standing close to speaker stacks so I don't tend to notice.
That said, B&M have their own soundtrack which consists of some woman who's warbling is so bad I want to poke out my other ear with a stick when I hear her.  It's absolutely terrible and I don't know how the people who work there stand it.

This is why if I'm on my own my ear buds are firmly in.  Hell is other peoples music.

Brie

I dislike overly loud music and announcements but acknowledge that I may not be in the majority.  What I really dislike is the "Asda Radio" stations where the DJ rants about their products between songs.  I don't like ads on TV so why would I like them when I'm shopping.  

What was really really annoying though was a local Tesco where I actually did go to the manager and complain about the noise in one portion of the store.  It's one of those mega large ones and about a third of it which included the organic food and all the alcohol sections had incredibly loud white noise.  It actually would make me dizzy and feely ill.  I suspect that anyone prone to migraines would have been really badly affected.  I took the chap in charge over to that section and told him where I could hear this noise and where it was loudest.  Oddly this was also the only part of the store that had large TV type monitors constantly playing ads as well.  Once they were removed the other problem was resolved as well.  It was one of those complaints where i was lucky I was talking to a reasonable human (instead of a "this is what head office says we must do" types) and one to whom me saying "I like your store but can't continue to shop here because of this" was considered a valid comment.  

Murphybear

Greylocks said:

Loud background music annoys me as well. Invariably the levels are set by younger people who can’t live without background noise. The worse example was the music being turned up in a gym cafe and the speakers being directly over the customers heads.

There is a big factory outlet village about 20 miles from us.  When we went there recently somebody, presumably the management, had put loudspeakers everywhere outside the individual shops.  Loud music was playing, it was awful.  Even my husband complained and he has started to have hearing problems (he hates it when I use the dreaded word “age” but he is nearly 74).

I don’t know if they thought hearing loud music would encourage people to stay, in our case it encouraged us to leave.  

Like many people I hate loud music.  Maybe it’s an age thing