iPod Shuffle issue! Help!

So I just got a new 512 iPod shuffle for my birthday and I put a lot of music on it at home, and I came to work and plugged it into another mac thinking that I could play the songs on my shuffle via iTunes on the computer at work. However, it went through this iPod software update and then gave me the choice of either of erasing everything on the shuffle or not mounting at all. Like a dumba--, I clicked erase thinking "Hey it won't really erase everything..."

What am I doing wrong?

PS: Losing the songs isn't a big deal. I have the original playlist at home, but I'd like to figure out what's wrong so I can do this later.

 

Well, I tried it on another computer and here's the error message I get (same as before):

"The iPod "My iPod" is linked to another iTunes music library. Do you want to
change the link to this iTunes music library and replace all existing songs and
playlists on this iPod with those from this library?"

If I have disk use enabled, it will mount the data disk, however, it won't load the music I have on my shuffle. Is this normal?

 

Yeah, I just went to Apple's website...

"Can I take a friend's iPod shuffle and browse or play its content on my machine (like I can with other iPods)?
No, there is no manual mode that allows you to view or play the content from a friend's iPod shuffle on your computer. This also means that you cannot load music from multiple computers or iTunes libraries onto iPod shuffle like you can with other iPods."

Now that's stupid! Why would they do that? Any guesses?