The Mystery of Kinko's Muzak

I'm at the Kink looking at hours of video on a mini dvd player. So boring. If I were at home, I'd come up with millions of other things to do instead. Nap. Clip my toenails. Count my collection of rubber gloves. Temptations are everywhere. It's better to be out of the house. 

There is Muzak playing here constantly, something I don't happen to mind when I'm doing mindless work.  In fact most of the tunes are from the sixties and seventies when I could not only sing them, I could dance to them too. This whole afternoon has been like listening to an infomercial for every Time Life collection you ever wanted. Well, at least I ever wanted.

I happened to mention I was enjoying the music playing on the Muzak to one of the Kinko's co-workers [no one has employees anymore]. "Am I the demographic they're trying to appeal to these days, because it's working."  He laughed and said nobody in the store had anything to do with what was being played. His best guess is that it's piped in from headquarters, wherever headquarters is. Somebody is dialing the knobs for this Kinko's in a Chicago suburb from a room in another city in another state.

I have heard from time to time that they control the heat and air conditioning that way, too.

"We have no control over the music at all," the co-worker said. "It just comes out of the speakers whenever they want it to. We can't adjust the level or change the channel or complain or anything," he said, laughing.  "I just wish we knew where it was coming from."

What good would that do? 

"It would just be nice to know, that's all."  

Gotta go. They're playing Elton John.