I got my hearing professionally checked today and all is normal. But I have difficulty hearing people I am dining with, talking in restaurants. Is it me, or is the music just too damn loud?!

  • tetris11@lemmy.ml
    16·
    5 months ago

    exactly, hence why coffee shops in particular play the same three obnoxious Christmas songs on repeat during the season. They don’t want you to stay, they want you pay and leave.

    I will say that this tactic is just forcing people to invest in better headphones, but I lament that we’re now in an auditory arms race for merely existing in a public space

    • JimmyBigSausage@lemm.eeOP
      2·
      5 months ago

      At one restaurant this week a woman was playing and watching a video on her phone very loudly, oblivious to bothering everyone, and a foodworker came and asked her to turn it down. The woman replied, “You can here THAT?!” She turned it down and the foodworker went back to her station screaming orders are ready out to other customers. The video-watcher proceeded to walk around and stand near people’s tables to watch her video.
      What is going on with this world?

      • tetris11@lemmy.ml
        2·
        5 months ago

        I think the world has become decidedly louder, and people having TV on in the background all day every day has desensitized them to the idea that sound travels further than they think. I genuinely believe her surprise that she could be heard.

    • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
      1·
      5 months ago

      This could be solved by a system of reservations. You know… “Ok, one coffee and a sandwich. You have three seating choices: 15 minutes, 30 minutes and 1 hour. Which one do you want? 30 minutes? Ok! Here’s your hourglass.”

          • tetris11@lemmy.ml
            1·
            5 months ago

            “Hey homeless guy, I’ll pay you 10 dollars if you get in line early at this store and claim the 4 hour sofa until my friends come a few hours later.”

        • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
          2·
          5 months ago

          Those scenarios can be solved. From “4-hour sofa slots are reserved for groups of three or more people” to “Sofas are reserved to 1-hour max.”

          In the end, as it is now, people are overstaying anyway.

          • tetris11@lemmy.ml
            8·
            5 months ago

            Let them. Either provide public spaces for people to just chill, or let them spend the entire day at a coffee shop after buying a coffee.

            I’m sick of this “pay-to-live” society we’ve built around us.

            • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
              2·
              5 months ago

              I… actually agree with you. It would be nice to have a cozy indoors public space. Sort of like an “indoors park.” But you’ll have to yell at your city hall reps, not a small business owner who, like us, also has to make a living.