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Andrew Tobias

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Andrew Tobias
Andrew Tobias

Money and Other Subjects

YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH

October 2, 1998March 25, 2012

Let’s say you wanted to find a really inexpensive way gradually to drive your customers insane. Here’s what you would do. First, you would find a vaguely Hawaiian sounding endless loop of a saccharine melody. Then you would put it onto the Musak-like system of all your airplanes. At the same time, you would put it on the endless loop of the endless wait customers experienced when calling in to make or change a reservation. Then you would just keep it playing, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over – YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda – for three years.

Or if it hasn’t yet been three years, it certainly seems that way and, at this rate, will stretch into all eternity.

You would tell yourself you are building an unmistakable aural brand environment – YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda – when in fact what you would be doing is gradually driving all your customers slowly out of their all-too-frequent-flying minds.

And what of Delta’s poor flight attendants? And what of Mozart and Haydn and Gershwin?

YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda; YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, YadayadayadaDAAA, YadayadayadaDUHHHH, dadadda.

Has Delta Airlines no compassion? I would like its executives to have to hear that music every morning for an hour on the way to work. Surely things would change within a week.

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