Some holiday workers are all tuned out

Listening to Christmas music is a beloved tradition that helps get us into the spirit of peace on Earth and good will to all.

Unless you’re a poor working schmuck stuck in a store all day with a sound system blaring one holiday ditty after another after another after …

Then Christmas music becomes a human rights violation that should be identified in the Geneva Convention.

“Humbug,” agreed Kristin, an employee at a Spokane restaurant.

Kristin is one of untold millions of retail and service workers who suffer from a seasonal stress-related disorder that some experts (me) are calling Jingle Bell Shock.

“Our work started playing Christmas music right before Thanksgiving,” said Kristin. “I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ “

Cases of Jingle Bell Shock were largely unknown back in the days when stores had inferior stereo systems and the commercial Christmas run-up lasted only a blessed few weeks.

But thanks to advancements in greed and satellite radio, merchants can now begin driving their employees to the gibbering edge of lunacy as early as Halloween.

You can see the signs of JBS in their wide, glassy eyes. Many victims are just one more “Alvin and the Chipmunks” song away from climbing a tower and hurling fruitcakes at the skulls of pedestrians below.

Jingle Bell Shock causes normally good people to go bad. Whenever the boss leaves, said Kristin, she and her co-workers switch the radio to an alternative rock station.

The situation “puts you in a bad mood, that’s for sure,” added Kristin, who loathes “The Little Drummer Boy” most of all.

Why? “The pah rumpah-pum-pum. It makes me nuts.”

Kristin isn’t the only mutinous employee who would like to hire the Grinch to steal every Christmas CD on the planet.

Jennie, for example, works in the deli department of a large grocery store. She experienced a severe JBS setback at home the other night. She caught her two sons singing Christmas carols.

“I told them, ‘Go to your room and sing!’ “

Chalk up another tragedy to Jingle Bell Shock.

Jennie’s worst Christmas song?

” ‘The Happy Elf,’ ” she said. “I don’t know who sang ‘The Happy Elf,’ but it doesn’t make me very happy.”

On Wednesday, I wandered through Spokane’s business core to encourage stressed-out workers to file a class-action lawsuit.

“Oh, God,” sighed one restaurant worker, who rolled her eyes when I asked if she were sick of Christmas music.

Sign her up! The daily torture this young woman endures would crack an al Qaeda suspect.

Imagine working in a joint with one Christmas CD that gets played over and over.

As with any dubious disease or claimed UFO abduction, the first step on the road to government disability checks is getting a qualified mental health professional to legitimize it.

Janie Rumberger, a therapist at Lifespan Counseling, isn’t about to destroy her career by doing that.

But Rumberger admitted being a former retail sales clerk. She has experienced her own Jingle Bell Shock and knows exactly what I’m talking about.

“It drives you nuts,” she said.

Krista Hayes, who cuts hair at the Man Shop, offered a second opinion.

“It makes you Scroogie.”

The Man Shop doesn’t expose its clients or help to constant Christmas music. Hooray for them! Hayes, however, said she once worked at a hair salon that cranked up the holiday tunes from the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve. The song that really got to her was “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

Putting that grating tune on any Christmas play list is just asking for Jingle Bell Shock. “You should want to sing Christmas songs,” reasoned Hayes. “You shouldn’t hear one and say, ‘Oh, God, not another one.’ “

Pah rumpah-pum-pum!