Keep pickin' and tickin'

Do you like music like I do? Then you probably wear headphones a lot. I don’t jog to music, I tend to waddle rhythmically. I wear headphones so much that sometimes I forget they’re on my head and my life takes on a musical soundtrack of its own.

It’s become a vice. And like all vices, some do-gooder had to come along and pour cold water on my pleasure. That ain’t comfortable. Other than hating that soggy feeling, guilt and fear creep in. What’s there to be afraid about listening to headphones all day?

Nothin’. Unless you have a pace-maker keepin’ you goin’. Some new research just came out sayin’ the magnets in headphones may interfere with these devices if they get too close to your ticker. If you wear headphones like me, occasionally you take ‘em off and wear ‘em around your neck. I guess that’s not a good idea if you wear a pace maker.

So big deal. What do headphones have to do with guys who work in warehouses? Well, some of these guys do voice directed picking, and they wear headphones. Yeah, I know, probably not too many guys wearin’ pace makers work in warehouses. But maybe there are some of you out there, so me bein’ a headphone freak, when I heard about this research I thought about you. So I asked the folks at Modern to look into this. Here’s what they found out from a guy named Kenneth Ellenbogen, a heart device expert at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine:

It’s very simple. If you wear a heart device and headphones and work in a warehouse or DC, find out how strong the magnetic interference is. Ask the voice picking system vendor or measure it yourself. If it measures more than 10 Gauss magnetic field, then just don’t put the headphones around your neck. Hang ‘em on your belt or somethin’.

Ellenbogen said this area of research has been a major concern for years—with cell phones. That’s why people with pace makers or other devices should never put cell phones in their shirt pockets.

Modern even asked our buddy Steve Banker at the ARC Advisory Group if he ever heard about a connection between pick by voice system headphones and pacemakers. He said he never did, but it’s good for employers to have in the back of their mind and to even have a plan about who uses the equipment. Just like some WMSs have logic that says “this person has to be certified for a forklift or he can’t operate one,” or “this person is restricted to this portion of the warehouse,” you can do the same with any kind of medical restrictions as they relate to the job.

What do the guys at the voice picking companies say? They say not too many guys with pace makers work in warehouses. But with the aging of the workforce, who knows? Better safe than sorry, if ya know what I mean. Scott Yetter, CEO of Voxware, told Modern they recommend that operators either keep their headsets on their heads or take ‘em off when not usin’ ‘em, not only because of a potential effect on pacemakers but insulin pumps too. He says vendors of these devices make that clear to their customers, but whether that message reaches the supervisors and workers, that’s another story.

So chances are this is a non-story. But just like they don’t let you talk on cell phones in airplanes, it’s probably better to be safe than sorry. When it comes to headphones, either keep ‘em on your head or take ‘em off. Your neck don’t need to know what you’re pickin’ anyway. But if you’re a redneck with a walkman like me, you’ll be keepin’ that Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash plugged into your ears.