Hear Music, Drink Coffee, Eat Food

Good morning... What can I get for you?

Let's start off this morning with a little story about the music from the stores. Nowadays, they have XM Satellite and CDs that play all of that coffee-complimenting music that is piped into the store. There was a time though when the music was provided by AEI music. The store received all sorts of tapes with loops of music from different genres. How is that different from now you ask? I'll tell you... The partners were able to pick the music they wanted to hear... they had the power to set the tone in the store based on their own personality. I kind of enjoyed the fact that when I heard a certain song for a 2nd time, that I knew it was time to take my lunch. Auditory clues are nice in such an environment.

There was a downside to this however. At Christmas time... Yeah, I said "Christmas" and not "Holiday"... I'm old fashioned. At Christmas time in the stores you had about 3-4 Christmas tapes that you played for a 2 month period... over and over and over... by December 25th... everyone was done with the music. So, for fun, I developed a little ritual... I always worked Christmas Eve. I felt I needed to to ward off any bitching about taking advantage... so I worked it. When we would close, any partner that wanted to participate could do so... We would lock up the store, gather up the tapes, go into the parking lot... and smash the hell out of the Christmas Music... and I mean "Smash" it... Then we would go back in and have some real eggnog and give each other presents... Ahhh... the Holidays were over... and so was the music. If you're a customer reading this and you are appalled right now... you should work the 2 months of Holiday in a retail environment and adjust your perspective.

So whatever happened to AEI? Why did it go away? Well, as the story goes... Howard got into a pissing match with the owner of AEI and pulled the service... who then pulled the coffee service from his hotels... That gives me another story idea...

We'll see you tomorrow for your usual.

Pat Nerr..