Christmas time is a period of joy and excitement, and perhaps a healthy level of stress, for most.
Yet, for some members of society - those who work in retail or in customer-facing roles - Christmas is a time to be be hounded by a seemingly 247 in-store Christmas soundtrack, put on to keep customers, who might each spend only minutes listening as they pop into the shop, satisfied and feeling festive.
But what about those who have to spend whole shifts helping serve perhaps hundreds of customers a day with the same 12 or so Christmas songs on repeat? What about those who go home with a tinny echo of Jingle Bell Rock stuck between their ears.
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Some retail workers said they're haunted by their store's Christmas soundtrack, particularly those who don't get the priviledge of Chris Rea, or Michael Buble, or Mariah Carey songs but instead either a copyright-free playlist or a cheaper mix of covers or popular Christmas hits.
Jason Pownsey said: "I worked in a leisure centre and they had all the classics, Driving Home for Christmas, Wizard, Do They Know it’s Christmas, Merry Christmas everyone. But [my employers] refused to pay for the real artists so we had all those songs on a loop but they were all covers.
"Made the whole thing 10 time worse."
Apart from the constant festive nagging from the store's speakers (you could listen to Driving Home for Christmas about 125 times if you played it constantly during a nine hour shift - or I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus about 180 times), there's another downside to the in-store Christmas soundtrack. That's the fact it can so easily, in a matter of hours not even days, turn a certain festive jingle, into something more haunting.
Tracey Hillard said: "Years ago I worked in a petrol station. We had one Christmas Cd that was played all day.
"The one song I got really fed up of hearing was Driving home for Christmas, by Chris Rea.
"I used to say I wish he'd hurry up and get home."
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