## Results and Discussion
### Questionnaire Results
However, a study done in the food courts by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [12] found a higher subjective rating of loudness, with more than half (51.3%) rating the sound levels as high or very high, even though the SPLs in that study were less than those in this study. The difference from this study may relate to the sample type, which consisted of employees working for a long time in this atmosphere, many of whom are probably used to the relatively loud sounds in comparison with the customers in [12]. In order to understand the perception of the employees regarding noise and loud sounds, the employees were asked about their ability to work in noisy places, either in this small or elsewhere. Most of the participating employees (72.5%) said it is bad or very bad to work in noisy places. The average score was 3.86, which means the employees disliked working in noisy environments. The detailed employee view of working in noisy environments is shown in Figure 8.  
Figure 7: The subjective rating of the acoustic comfort in the small. In a study in Jordan about the awareness of noise-induced hearing loss, 64.1% of participants perceived hearing loss as a problem or a big problem. However, only 9.8% of them have ever tried to protect their hearing from loud sounds, and the rest did not, either because they did not know about hearing protection or had adapted to and enjoy these loud sounds [22]. This relates to the results in this study, where 72.5% believe it is bad or very bad to work in loud environments, even though most of the employees (68.7%) rated the loudness in the mall as fair or better. The authors believe the people are unaware of the importance of protecting their hearing and of the possible other effects of loud sounds on their health, and they had adapted to the environment they live in with no tendency to change it or improve it. The sources of disruptive sounds in the mall vary over time; it is seen by the employees that music (61%) is the main source of aggravating sound, followed by mall activities (50%) (people walking, chairs dragging, kitchen tools, stores tools, alarms, children spelling, etc.). The speech of other people was annoying for only 34%. Figure 9 presents the results of the main sources of annoying sounds. Note that the sum of the percentages exceeds 100% because the questionnaire allows the selection of more than one choice. The music in stores can influence people and their shopping behavior, as well as their length of stay. No study was found on the effect of music on mall workers; however, some studies considered the effects of music on customers and recommended changing music across the different areas of stores to match the different ages of customers [23]. This choice can be a relatively easy and affordable option for the mall administration to follow. It can impact customers, as well as workers, and can benefit the mall. Studies on customers in dining spaces have resulted in contradictory outcomes on whether background music increased the acoustic comfort of the users [11]. Further studies and investigations need to be done to discover the best method of music distribution and selection. Loud sounds and noise can lead to different auditory and non-auditory problems. We asked questions related to the most common problems faced by the employees, with several answer options. The results showed that headache is the number one problem influencing 47.1% of the employees, followed by communication problems and speech intelligibility (38.2%) as a second challenge; stress placed third, with 33.3% (Figure 10). Furthermore, 23.5% of the workers felt that their working efficiency is influenced and decreased by noise levels. The evaluation here is based on subjective judgment, with no assessment to evaluate them quantitatively. This may explain the low number of employees reporting sleep disorders, which is reported in the literature as one of the most important non-auditory  
Figure 8: The worker ratings of their ability to work in loud environments. effects of loud sounds and noise exposure [2; 3; 4; 24].