Saturday, April 27, 2013

Music For Stressful Times

A while back, I moved my entire music collection up to Google. I now have access to it wherever I am - the office, the car, the Catican, etc. I've made some fun playlists, particularly for my cooking so if I'm cooking French, I hear lots of Jacques Brel and Joe Dassin and if it's N'awlins/Southern, I listen to a mix of Buckwheat Zydeco, Louis Prima and Mary Chapin Carpenter. I've got Ratt, Van Halen and Rolling Stones mixes for times where I need plenty of energy.

But what to listen to when times are really, really stressful?

I discovered recently that when the stress meter hits 10, I tune in to Fred Astaire on Google Music or Praise and Worship on Pandora. Don't ask me why, it just happens. Thanks to the pack of ignorant and belligerent SharePoint savages at work, I had a few days this week where our whole team felt like we were under some kind of zombie apocalypse siege*. We were forced to go to meeting after meeting where we were outnumbered and ambushed by drooling, mindless, flesh-eating SharePoint undead. When we finally felt cornered to the point that we took out our guns and started blasting their heads off (an easy thing to do as they mentally move so slowly), we were taken to task for that.

So the needle on the Stress Meter hit 10 and what did I turn on? Fred Astaire and Jesus.

Crazy, man. Just crazy.

A particular favorite of mine.

* - Then we went and did customer support and customer interviews and discovered that the vast majority of the workforce loves us.

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