The NYT reports.
From the store's website, here are the changes during "Quieter Hours":
Dim the lightsI wonder how many nonautistic customers would prefer to shop in the quieter, dimmer environment? The people with autism have a higher sensitivity level about something that might be stressful and burdensome for all of us. I'm not autistic, but I'd prefer to shop during the Quieter Hour, described above. Notice that they don't exclude the nonautistic. They just acknowledge that their normal shopping environment is very noisy, confusing, and ugly, and are doing something about it, every once in a while.
Turn music and radio off
Avoid making tannoy announcements
Reduce movement of trolleys and baskets
Turn checkout beeps and other electrical noises down
Place a poster outside to tell customers it’s Quieter Hour
By the way, what are "tannoy announcements"?
Tannoy Ltd is a British manufacturer of loudspeakers and public-address (PA) systems.... The term "tannoy" is used generically in colloquial English in some places to mean any public-address system or even as a verb - to "tannoy", particularly those used for announcements in public places; although the word is a registered trademark, it has become a genericised trademark...Used as a verb, the internal word "annoy" is even more obvious. And it's not as though the company is named after some person named Tannoy. It was made up out of tantalum alloy (a material used in manufacturing the product). There must be better ways to abbreviate those 2 words, but maybe they did want their customers to think about using a PA system to annoy people.
Tantalum, the element, is named after Tantalus, the Greek mythological figure who is known mainly for his eternal punishment:
Tantalus was initially known for having been welcomed to Zeus' table in Olympus.... There he is said to have misbehaved and stolen ambrosia and nectar to bring it back to his people, and revealed the secrets of the gods. Most famously, Tantalus offered up his son, Pelops, as a sacrifice. He cut Pelops up, boiled him, and served him up in a banquet for the gods....That's the source of the word "tantalize."
Tantalus's punishment for his act... was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any....
Posts
56 comments:
What about austistic people with peanut allergies.
Remove the peanuts.
Our local Target store does not play Muzak. That alone makes me prefer it over all other retailers.
Great tag list.
It would be a heck of a task to get the list and then write the post.
Sunday morning at 6am is good for quiet. Also the best time to visit in flu season.
Tannoy and annoy are two completely different words. I guess if you haven’t grown up with the word you might think otherwise. At the other end of the scale, torch and flashlight are the same thing.
Based on the engineer-golf joke: why can’t autistic people shop at night? It is a *lot* quieter without changing anything.
like most diagnoses in psychology, autism or spectrum is a bit squishy. there is a Polish psychologist named Danrwski whose work on “highly sensitive people” (HSP) is mainstream in the area of gifted children and their psychology. Kanye West talks about how he’s a HSP in some of his songs. basic model for HSPs is that higher capabilities are typically accompanied by higher levels of sensitivity to most if not all stimulus.
took the family to a Yankees game a few weeks ago. was pleasantly surprised that they’ve apparently turned down the volume on intro songs and “tannoy” stuff between batters and innings. not only is the volume down but there seem to be fewer of them. you can talk rather than yell conversations again. was pretty much unbearable a few years ago.
er his name is Dabrowski
I wonder how many nonautistic customers would prefer to shop in the quieter, dimmer environment?
In Price Chopper recently, every few minutes an alarm bell goes off over the PA and shoppers are hectored to buy Oregon cherries. At this point, I have such negative feelings associated with the cherries, I hear those alarm bells whenever cherries are mentioned, that I may never buy them again.
Tannoy and annoy are two completely different words.
OK.
A few months ago, a woman with a baby carriage and cart was following me in the supermarket. The carriage made a loud, painful squeak when she moved it, but no one else seemed to notice. I went up an aisle to let her pass down the back corridor aways, and damned if she didn't come squeaking back to hurt me some more. I'm not autistic, but I do have Obama ears.
Hey, as a Highly Sensitive Conservative Person, I look forward to the MSM applying this method for an hour every week.
No craziness! Just straight reporting! Like, unemployment going down and GDP rising and the military strengthening and U.S. CO2 emissions declining and Janus affecting unions and, perhaps, even a message or two about stuff happening outside the U.S. No illegal aliens, no homeless shelters, no BLM, no Antifa, no climate change, no Russian interference, no Mueller, no Trump, Trump, Trump, no GOPe, no Nancy and Chuck. Wouldn't that be lovely?
What about ordering it online for delivery? The local stores are doing that in in Chicago, now, to compete with Amazon. I suspect Britain has store that do, too.
Another feel good "look how pious I am" corporate ploy. How many autistic people are shopping? Kind of like if every handicapped person were out driving and shopping, only a small fraction of handicap spaces would be occupied.
But, as AA noted, since it the set aside is available to all, it isn't completely moronic. It may serve a purpose as an experiment in retail environments. If the experience for all is less annoying, time spent shopping may increase, ergo more spent per shopping visit.
To truly reduce sensory noise would require much greater change, e.g. carts and cart wheels, flooring, lighting.
“It would be a heck of a task to get the list and then write the post.”
I should make posts that just provide old tag sets and make a contest out of inventing a story that could fit them.
My husband is physically handicapped so I started taking him shopping on senior citizens day in hopes there would be some concessions made for people like him. It turned out to be a disaster for him. Too many people period, too many crotchety people, and stressed cashiers. He likes to participate in choosing the groceries so we switched to online delivery from the same store. He can login and add the things he wants to the list. When the delivery guy arrives, he sees that my husband is physically challenged, and he brings the groceries into the kitchen for him. They chat for a minute or two, hubby tips him well, and they both end up smiling at each other. I don't think my husband will ever step foot in a grocery store again if he can avoid it.
I note that this Supermarket Chain is being talked about. Publicity.
You can't spell "audio" without "autism".
Then there's a tantalus, which is a kind of wire basket with a lockable handle. It holds decanters containing liquor. The lock was used to keep unauthorized drinkers, such as butlers, from taking a drink and adding water so it wouldn't be noticed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalus_(cabinet)
Althouse: I should make posts that just provide old tag sets and make a contest out of inventing a story that could fit them
That is a stellar idea! It would be most entertaining to see what people can create.
@Althouse and interested readers:
Peter van der Krogt has a website with fascinating details about the naming of the chemical elements here. You can click on each element. If you can't find tantalum, here's a shortcut.
Another trusty source of mine has in a footnote: "As Ekeberg [discoverer of the element] wrote in 1802: "This metal I call tantalum ...partly in allusion to its incapacity, when immersed in acid, to absorb any and be saturated."
Does *anybody* like the garbage music, punctuated by announcements delivered by grating voices, blared out in grocery stores and other retail venues? There's probably some research suggesting that music makes people buy more, or something, but I wonder if that's just one of those things that gained momentum and became entrenched practice without anybody following up on whether it was actually doing what it was supposed to be doing. (I always feel sorry for the workers - how can they stand that for hours on end?)
E.g., to follow up on Paco's comment, why does Target not feel the need to torture its customers in this fashion? I doubt they're losing money because of it.
There are things I'd prefer to buy in meatspace (and I don't dislike shopping per se), but most brick-and-mortar retailers seem intent on driving me away by making the sensory environment as unpleasant as possible.
Prof. Lehrer enumerates the Elements
@Eleanor
We are limited in local grocery shopping. The Safeway store is located in another town about a half hour away. It is often packed and crowded with those ginormous shopping carts blocking the aisle by clueless people. The real local store is fairly nice sized but due to our smaller population is not crowded as yours is. It also has smaller carts because most people shop there for smaller/weekly or quickie shopping.
In fact it is actually a pleasure to go shopping locally. Well... except for the sparser selection of goods, especially fresh produce :-( You see people in the store you know. Folks you haven't seen for months or who are visiting from out of town for the summer. It is nice to catch up on what is happening, how they have been.
We know the cashiers and actually almost everyone who works in the store, so there is often banter at the check out stands. Discussing the weather, the upcoming rodeo, some local event, hows the kids/grandkids, homecoming, exchanging recipes. Often everyone in the line will chime in and have a good laugh about something.
No music. No loud announcements.
We are going for our bi monthly shopping this weekend at Costco and Winco (about a hundred miles away) where we buy groceries and supplies, like the Coneheads do....Massive Quantities :-D
How can you not know what a Tannoy is?
Granted, it's a British expression, but I think it's pretty widely known. And it's not used as a verb in the list.
Stores became far noisier when retailers discarded background music for foreground music, as they wished to use music as a form of branding.
So, perhaps some retailer will select "silence" as its brand. Although in today's environment that likely would just bring "can you hear me now?" cellphone loudmouths to the foreground.
So, perhaps "silence" could be interpreted as "comfort noise"? Such as the canned oceans, waterfalls, forests etc. that emerge from those "help you sleep" noise machines?
"n Price Chopper recently, every few minutes an alarm bell goes off over the PA and shoppers are hectored to buy Oregon cherries. At this point, I have such negative feelings associated with the cherries, I hear those alarm bells whenever cherries are mentioned, that I may never buy them again."
I always wondered why retailers thought aggressively advertising at customers was a good idea? Perhaps it's because they can see the increased sales of the advertised item(s), but don't see the shoppers who left just a little bit sooner with just a few less purchases than they would have, had they been in a less annoying audio environment?
Next up: silence CNN in airports?
I was in the grocery store yesterday, and the muzak was so horrifically bad (vintage '70s Styx at high volume) that if I did not have a pressing need for what I was getting, I would have walked out.
Is this sound in Grocery stores a California thing?
At the produce section there are these misters that go off occasionally, for a few seconds, to spray the lettuce and other vegetables.
Right before the spray we hear the sound of thunder to alert you to get your lettuce and stand back...or get misted.
I, like many other posters, would prefer a quieter grocery shopping experience. Which makes me wonder why the grocery store environment is how it is. For as long back as I can remember it has basically been this way. And from what I've gathered of grocery stores, and basically all retail, the shopping environment is a very closely examined and constantly iterated thing that occurs at a corporate level. So who are the people that enjoy a more active shopping environment? Maybe it is just a hold over from an earlier time when everyone wasn't so completely and continuously connected to the world through social media? The iPhone was the first smartphone I believe, and it wasn't launched until 2007. And it must have taken several years for smartphones to become as universal as they are now. Maybe the grocery Store or big box stores in general switched from a place many people wanted to go to see other people, get some different sensory input, and feel more connected to the world, to a place where people want to go to get some quiet and take a break from being so connected.
Hay-Zeus, I wanna shop during Autism Hour for the rest of my life. That sounds like heaven. I have asked managers of stores exactly how they think their screeching, high-pitched music enhances the shopping experience. I get blank stares. It's just part of the world to them. When our local Target succumbed to the music monster, I told the manager I was done - they had taken away the number one reason for shopping there. Seriously, does anyone on earth like loud music coming out of cheap, tinny speakers?
It will be interesting to see if business increases exponentially during 'autism hour'. I, for one, though not autistic, really hate the 'music', usually a woman shrieking as if she's being murdered. Other people tell me they can 'tune it out'. It makes me want out of the store as quickly as possible.
Now that you mention it (Paco Wove @ 7:09) absence of PA jangle is what make Target so subliminally pleasant. Unfortunately it is offset by the insult of the surcharge for paying cash. Avoiding the surcharge requires the accounting burden of paying with Target credit card.
"Seriously, does anyone on earth like loud music coming out of cheap, tinny speakers?"
I wish my hair salon had quiet time! They have ceiling speakers and they endlessly play high-pitched, over-emotive female pop singers. It's too distorted to hear the words, but for YEARS I have wondered what could these ladies possibly be so exercised about? Was it: I have a boyfriend and I can have sex with him? Or was it: I am fantastically independent and strong? I don't know, but somehow I don't think there are other options, and at this point I just want them to settle down.
In some of the versions of the Tantalus punishment story, there is also a boulder hanging above his head in case he gets any bright ideas. This was not an unwise precaution given the Underworld's issues with Sisyphus's jail breaks, not to mention Theseus and Orpheus breaking in.
Let me also note that Tantalus's family plays a large role in later mythological developments, most of them bad. It is a very messed up family. Two of the more notable (and stable) ones are Agamemnon and Menelaus, who are key figures in starting the Trojan War and the chaos that arose from it. Actually, they probably can be blamed for the Trojan War along with Paris and Priam. Menelaus learned the hard way that a trophy wife can be a lot more trouble than she is worth.
What I wonder is how long before the influx of people just wanting out of the sensory overload of your basic shopping experience (ugh) becomes itself high enough to make "Quieter Hour" unattractive to actual autistic people. You might easily end up with an hour meant for autistics populated entirely by non-autistics, while the actual autistics brave the loud music, bright lights, &c. just because there's now a lot less foot traffic. Don't underestimate the annoyance potential of that.
hawkeyedjdb: I have asked managers of stores exactly how they think their screeching, high-pitched music enhances the shopping experience. I get blank stares.
Lol. Yup. It seems to me that it was sometime in the '00s that stores really started to crank up the volume of the audio, at the same time that they were switching from instrumental to vocal music. (You know, to make it even more obtrusive and stressful.)
Back then I took the trouble to politely point out (both locally and by contacting corporate customer service), that, while I had been a regular customer, I could no longer stand shopping in their store. I never got any response but the equivalent of your "blank stare".
Oooookay. I can see you don't want to sell things to me. Suit yourself. I understand. It's business. I'm sure tailoring your shopping environment to the shoplifting demographic and teenagers with little expendable income is a profitable business strategy.
When our local Target succumbed to the music monster, I told the manager I was done - they had taken away the number one reason for shopping there.
Sorry to hear that. I guess my local Target will inevitably succumb, too, and that'll be one more store I'll have to avoid.
Same thing happened to a convenient local Panera that I used to frequent when I was out and about running errands, because they mercifully played only unobtrusive background instrumental music (classical or light jazz). Then they, too, went to loud vocal garbage pop. So to hell with them.
Sometimes I wonder if the all-loud-noise all-the-time model is really for the benefit of younger staffers, who are habituated to an all-loud-noise all-the-time environment, and find quiet "creepy". (As I've heard a teenager describe a quiet dressing room in a department store.)
Bill Peschel, ah, someone brought up the lower-case-noun tantalus. Sort of a chastity belt for liquor.
DBQ, I have to walk/bus to Winco and Costco, but even at my sluggish rate of motion it's not a 100-mile drive each way. Yeesh! No, the misters-preceded-by-thunder thing is not unique to CA; we have them here, too. Though I really wish they'd add a little lightning in advance of the thunder :-)
Angel-Dyne, "The shoplifting demographic and teenagers with little expendable income" (but I repeat myself) is very easily deterred by some sorts of Muzak. You know the sort I mean. There are various solutions out there, from Sinatra to Barry Manilow to "classical" (which means something different here than it does anywhere else; I'd far rather that they put on Bavarian Radio or Norwegian Alltid-Klassisk or, hell, even the BBC than the same thousands-times-played tape of Beethoven 5 (first movement only, natch).)
Angle-Dyne suggests: Sometimes I wonder if the all-loud-noise all-the-time model is really for the benefit of younger staffers, who are habituated to an all-loud-noise all-the-time environment, and find quiet "creepy". (As I've heard a teenager describe a quiet dressing room in a department store.)
Yes, in fact a store manager once confided to me that the music was to energize the staff [at the risk, I proposed, of alienating the customers] and that the policy was not set by the individual store.
”I wonder how many nonautistic customers would prefer to shop in the quieter, dimmer environment?”
{Raises hand}. Unfortunately, there are some number of people who will always fill a void, and it only takes one.
Nothing always loses.
@ Michelle
Re: Costco/Winco marathon shopping. It is a good excuse to get a nice hotel, spend the night, use the hot tub or pool, go out to dinner or order in. We always have a lot of other chores and shopping to do so ....might as well make it into a mini vacation :-)
I worked in the Uk for a total of about 18 months and never heard the word tannoy.
Chuffed, shufty, and squiz, sure.
I am autistic and try to shop at night after 8 PM or online The Quiet Hour concept will catch on once stores understand how much business they are losing to online retailers due to the sensory overload problem.
never heard the word tannoy.
That's because they pronounce it "throat warbler mangrove."
The cardio room at my Y plays doo-wop in the mid afternoons, 70-80's music after work hours. Nothing this century--those people bring their own.
I worked in the Uk for a total of about 18 months and never heard the word tannoy.
I was there for 3 years and we called it the Bitch Box.
The upside of the everybody’s-a-victim movement is that it might unintentionally create more tolerable public spaces for us uptight, White, middle-class, middle-aged males.
https://youtu.be/-ogSHrgQxmM
Hek, who isn’t overloaded! Silence the idiot boxes nattering in doctors’ offices and airline gates!
Robin Goodfellow said...
How can you not know what a Tannoy is?
I'm forty-mumble years old, and this is the first time I've heard the term, though it was clear from the context ("tannoy announcements").
And the speakers in my house were made in the UK, though not by Tannoy.
Original Mike said...
Nothing always loses.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Society even more so.
"...I started taking him shopping on senior citizens day..."
Every day is senior citizens day here at Althouse.
Yes, we are the Althouse Alte Kakers.
Like many people 60+, I have trouble hearing in noisy environments. I'm also more sensitive to loud noises and find it harder to screen out intrusive noise. My audiologist tells me this is quite common for people with age-related hearing loss. I like the idea of quiet time at the supermarket, but my real priority is finding a restaurant where it's possible for me to have a conversation with my husband. No muzak!
I don't have autism, but I do have a traumatic brain injury that has left me similarly hypersensitive to light and noise. I have an accommodating workplace that agreed to turn off the bright fluorescent lights in the conference room (which has an entire wall of windows). It didn't take more than a week for everyone to acclimate, and now if I don't turn the lights off somebody else will. They think it makes for a calmer and more pleasant meeting environment.
Shopping at supermarkets are intolerable to me without dark glasses and earplugs, and even then I have to get my shopping done in 10 minutes. I predict this trend will catch on.
O'Reilly titillated not tantalized.
Belaboring that point belittles.
I hope Aldi goes with a quieter hour. The Aldi where I shop is on the borderline of El Barrio, and apparently it's a Barrio thing to let one's hyperactive* muchachos and muchachas run around like they're Pancho Villa and his Villistas attacking Columbus NM. And apparently it is against Barrio norms for gringos to express disapproval of the noise. A friend of mine spoke to one of the lackadaisical parents at Aldi and asked him to please control his kids. "That's not our culture," the indignant papa told her, looking as if he would have preferred to put a bullet in her head.
*Or under-disciplined. You make the call.
Post a Comment