It's a couple of weeks after Christmas, but the auditory assault, courtesy of Britney Spears, is still fresh in Emily Marchino's mind.

Marchino, who works at clothing store New York & Company at Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines, Iowa, had to listen to one music tape (sent from headquarters) during every eight-hour shift she worked — for about a month. The Britster sang three of the songs piped throughout the store for the holiday season.

"I was like, 'Can other artists make Christmas music?' " recalled an irked Marchino, 19.

Thankfully, yuletide Britney has since been banished. On a recent morning, Marchino was enjoying a mixed tape with renditions from Maroon 5 and Jason Mraz.

But the novelty of the fresh set of tunes probably will wear thin soon, too, Marchino said.

"I like this music, but when I hear it repeated in the car, the last thing I want to hear is 'work music.' "

Marchino has company among those nettled by a Britney-fest.

Proud new mama Federline tops the list as the most annoying musician that British retail workers have to endure while at work, according to online recruitment site Retailchoice. The company polled about 1,400 employees and assembled a Top 10 list of auditory offenders that included Usher and Kylie Minogue.

A third of the respondents said they too had been abused by the same CD played up to 20 times a week, according to the news release.

For workers such as Marchino, being subjected daily to a loop of mind-numbing music (or even worse, Muzak) is just part of the job. But it's easy to see how listening on the radio to Mariah Carey's "Don't Forget About Us" for the 23rd time would send anyone screaming from her work station.

There's a conflict of interests when specific music is piped into businesses, said Paul Lasley, an Iowa State professor and chairman of the sociology department. At issue is finding a balance between the ambience a business wants to create, and the varied musical tastes of workers and customers.

"You might find the perfect set of music to create exactly the kind of mood you want to create," Lasley said. But "perfection" played several times over often spells monotony for employees. Monotony can breed unhappiness.

A deeper issue is choice, he said. Employees subjected to specific music at work don't have a say in the tunes they listen to. That lack of choice could affect productivity.

Lasley pointed to workplace studies done in the early 1900s. The "Hawthorne studies," conducted at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Chicago, analyzed how a variety of working conditions (i.e. lighting, group size, etc.) affected productivity.

The result? "They found ... essentially ... that whatever you did that demonstrated to the employees that you were paying attention to them increased the productivity," Lasley said. "Which is somewhat commonsensical — that if you have happy employees, then they'll be more productive than unhappy employees."

Variety is one solution, Lasley said.

Some workers at Merle Hay Mall say it's just a matter of tuning the music out.

PacSun sales associate Travis Ramsey, 18, listens to satellite radio piped into the store. The catch: It's set to one station.

"It's good music. But after awhile, you learn to block it out," Ramsey said.

Marchino concurred. She said that after three weeks of the same music, you "space it all off."

Roger Stanley, who works at the Global Cellular kiosk in the mall, sits at a musical crossroad — in the center of a cacophony of sounds coming from the radio at the nearby Merle Norman shop, mall music emanating from speakers, plus the techno music from the Personalized Gifts kiosk adjacent to Stanley's.

"Sometimes, I'll get two or three different music sources here," said Stanley, 35, who, personally, is a rock 'n' roll kind of guy.

At Personalized Gifts, Thomas Thammavong was quietly enjoying some mellow Korean music. Thammavong said he likes to start off his day by playing slow music to stay relaxed and "thinking straight."

In the evening, he shifts to R&B and techno music. The beats reflect his clientele's taste and also energize Thammavong, 25, to create his custom T-shirts and picture-engraved dog tags.

"The music makes you happy. And when you're happy, you can do more stuff — you can sell, work on your projects," Thammavong said.