Grand Theft Audio

Yet another wrinkle in that new dimension of the office friendship - the personal technology conundrum (do you give your cellphone number to a coworker? what about personal email?)- is revealed. New York magazine's Help Desk answers a very important question: What to do when someone wants to "borrow" your carefully compiled and cataloged collection of music for your iPod. It boils down to: "Unless you�re looking to sleep with this co-worker�or owe her some sort of insanely big favor�I can�t see why you should feel any obligation to go out of your way to help her engage in Grand Theft Audio."

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By Jen Chung in News on September 8, 2003 10:36 AM

Comments [rss]

ShinGo

Sometimes,FDL, having your collection of tunes scrutinized is like "having the cops discover the bodies in the crawlspace" kind of bad. The worst part is the inability to defend yourself. And they always try to link your selection of songs into some sort of twisted story or profile. Hmm... Barry Manilow and the Marshall Tucker Band together, does this mean he likes golden showers?

FDL

You may be right, ShinGo - just as irony doesn't translate well in email, often resulting in miscommunication, one's ipod selection is not a good medium for it either. Hence the evil office snickering at the discovery of "Arthur's Theme" on mine.

ShinGo

It's more like showing someone your underwear with the protein stains and skidmarks. If anyone thinks having eclectic taste in music makes you seem more worldly, forget it. They're just going to concentrate on those 5 Donny Osmond songs and laugh behind your back.

Frankenstein

Of course, Apple released a new 40 GB iPod today, making Grand Theft Audio just a little more grand...

Sam

dude, never.

a few songs or an album i could, if i liked you. but i'd never give up the whole catalog. all those hours of burning the CDs? Do your own work lazy.

And get your own CDs to burn.

Jen

Yeah, clearly the questioner's office co-worker is a dummy. I get nervous when people look at the music or books I own, because though things say so much about me. "Hi, here is my soul, bared for you to laugh at, go ahead."