Sure, Hold Your Nose, But Colleagues Odors Pose Serious Problem

Wall Street Journal Online ^ | July 21, 2004 | Jared Sandberg

[BluegrassScholar]

Larry Isaacson's nose is so sensitive to perfume that he gets woozy, loses his appetite and can develop an itchy rash that blooms behind his ears when he is exposed to it.

So when a colleague recently slathered on perfume that emanated well beyond her personal space, Mr. Isaacson found himself employing his usual tactics. They include avoidance, which means standing several feet away from the cloud and holding his breath until it passes. If trapped in close proximity for an extended time, he breathes through his mouth. And his most passive tactic, which sometimes works best: waiting for someone else to go through the embarrassment of notifying the offender.

This time he also held an impromptu meeting in the kitchen with several sympathetic colleagues and tried to brainstorm some smell strategies for the future, including screening smelly people during the interview process.

"It should be treated like smoking," he argues. "There should be signs."

Perfume isn't the only second-hand smell that harms indoor air quality. Any body odors strong enough to spread beyond their perpetrators' cubicles are bound to upset colleagues. Unfortunately, options for dealing with them are awkward. It isn't simply that no one wants to hurt a colleague's feelings. It's also the knowledge that you will see the offender -- and he or she will see you -- forever, and neither of you will be able to forget the torturous conversation. As a result, many people just frown and bear the discomfort, forced into one of the office's countless endurance tests.

[skeeter]

I had a japanese boss who liked natto for breakfast.

One on ones with him were bad enough by themselves, but fermented bean breath is lethal at 10 feet.

[mrsppmrxky]

When I was a teenager and working in a grocery store, we had a man working with us that had horrible BO. He worked in frozen foods, but he was constantly sweating. The manager of the store spoke with him about his hygiene and told him to bathe and use deodorant because the customers were upset.

His smell got worse. He was approached again and he told the manager that what he was smelling was moth balls in his pockets to help with the odor.

NO LIE.....we all nearly died when he came in the break room.

[KosmicKitty]

I have really bad asthma, had it all my life. Certain perfumes can cause my broncial tree to go haywire and close off tight.

Not fun to end up in the emergency room because of the old lady two people behind you at the grocery store checkout.
:-(

[KosmicKitty]

One more "stinky" story. When my mom got colon cancer, her breath became so bad, it was hard to be in the room with her. Also, you couldn't go near the bathroom for hours after she'd used it. When the cancer was discovered, all of the odor problem made sense.

Years later, I was working in the same office w/ a man with same bad breath & heaven help you if you were anywhere in the building when he passed gas. All I could do was remember my mother & I really wanted to ask him if he'd had a colon scan, but he really was a sweet person and I just didn't know how to approach him. Well, after he retired, another co-worker told me that he had to have his colon removed because of cancer.

Yes, I do feel guilty for no saying anything!!

[Rollee]

That story is really, really gross, but your tag line is really, really funny.

[CobaltBlue]

I have a client, a nice old lady who is getting gaga, who doesn't have a phone, so I have to go to her house to work on her case. She has a dog that she lets pee everywhere, and two cats whose litter box she never cleans, and there are dirty dishes and dirty clothes everywhere. Sad thing is, her daughter, who is mentally competent, lives with her but won't lift a finger to do housework, so bringing in the county wouldn't work.

Whenever I visit her and then leave, it feels like my skin is saturated with the aroma down to the pores, and my hair smells like it, too.

[CobaltBlue]

Just remembered one I had suppressed -- I once had a boss with rotten teeth. Many, many rotten teeth. Black, with gigantic holes. Talk about horrible breath!

I was new and being trained, and spent a lot of "face time" with him.I had to quit after two weeks, I couldn't take it.

[WL-law]

Larry Isaacson sounds mentally ill to me.

[Species8472]

I have been in the fire service for 29 years and over that time I have learned to deal with "odors" from patients and victims. Use a cheap surgical mask and run a bead of "Vicks Mentholatum" across thew inside of the mask. This will even kill the smell of a body decomposing for weeks in a warm environment!

Good Luck

[Sunshine Sister]

There is one basic difference. You try nicely to let people know you have this sensitivity. The person I was referring started yelling immediately. It hurt and embarrassed the poster. I have no use for impolite people. That was my point.

I am blessed to have only 1 allergy that I know of and I don't have to use the product. I really feel for the suffers of nasty allergies and if I know of it, I will do my best to help avoid the cause.

[goodnesswins]

I appreciate your "trick" for odors....however, I don't think it would have worked at Christmas with the ex-brother-in-law who stunk so bad whenever he came in the room....don't know how I would have explained the MASK...maybe could have said I didn't want to spread MY germs....LOL.

[mountaineer]

Speaking of the elderly, it seems many of them lose their sense of smell over the years. I worked with an older woman who was absolutely drenched in the fragrance "Opium," which was discernable long before she even entered the office. My former employer had an elderly client whose perfume lingered in the offices for days after she had left. Recently, I've noticed my mother spritzes a bit too much, too often, of her favorite fragrance. It's a tough thing, whether and how to mention it.

[dljordan]

BO can be very distracting. When I was going to tech school we had a bunch of students from a middle eastern country in our class. These guys didn't take baths AT ALL! It was so bad the administration had to "counsel" them about personal hygiene.

[dljordan]

When my wife does the nail polish remover thing I evacuate the area.

[dljordan]

I just related the same experience in a previous post on this thread but left out the country of origin not wanting to offend. They were from the same country and STANK! This was about 76' and there were a ton of them in school having their tuition paid for by the U.S.

[bvw]

The bigger problem is that sir-exchange systems -- that is, the ventilation part of HVAC -- are poorly designed in many buildings and atrociously maintained in more.

There is a simple measure of indoor air quality. It is carbon DIOXIDE level. When that is as good or better than as 1.5xambient things are okay. Many modern office buildings hae ratios far higher than that. Sick air. Not just stinky.

When the ratio is 1.25 X ambient or better -- the air is fresh. People don't complain.

[88keys]

"You are what you eat"...LOL!! Corned beef...onions...garlic...if you consume these foods daily, even a light "clean" sweat will exude these aromas...

I fortunately have no real "horror stories", but I'm starting to wonder whether people are just being friendly when they offer me an Altoid?! < hehe! >

[petercooper]

I once had to ask a temp not to cough with her mouth open. Hacked all the time. Got her reassigned to another area real quick.

[reformedliberal]

1) We live in Hippie Valley. But one case stands out: a young woman who didn't bathe, ate a lot of garlic and used a lot of patchouli. If she stood somewhere for a few minutes, you could ID her by passing the area even 10 minutes later. The smell just lingered. This once happened in the grocery store near the freezers. I ran into a pool of her odor, looked around and yep, she was up at the checkout.

2) I am a massage therapist. We have Amish clients. Some are simply fine and some are barbaric. I have had to work people's backs with my head averted. Obviously, they neither use TP nor wash their butts.

3) Relaxation will result in people passing gas. This is just a fact and we simply deal with it. Shallow mouth breathing helps. One does acclimate to an odor in a short period, if it is not refreshed, so that helps, as well. I keep some peppermint oil in a discrete place and will dab a tiny bit just beneath my nose. This helps a lot.

I love perfume, but don't wear any except rarely for special occasions. I never know what will offend a client. For the same reason, we avoid *aromatherapy*. One person's therapeutic aroma is another person's migraine trigger, or worse. One exception: lying face down for 1/2 hr will cause the nasal membranes to swell in many people. This makes it very uncomfortable to breath thru the nose. I keep a bottle of eucalyptus oil on hand and open it and give it to the person to sniff if they are having a problem. It will clear their sinuses and it isn't diffused thruout the room. We also do not use scented detergent or scented dryer sheets on the linens.

On busy days, we try and schedule at least 15 minutes between clients, so we can air and deodorize the clinic room. The *Neutra-Air* type air fresheners really seem to work. I can spray, open window, turn on a fan and come back in 5 minutes and there is no discernible odor.

There are a lot of folks who do not react well to scent. My husband cannot walk into a bath and body shop without almost passing out & getting a headache. After a decade of having to avoid scent, even passing thru the toiletries aisle at the store can be distasteful. We limit garlic in our diets for the same reason and have become almost hypersensitive to it. I will use roasted garlic from a jar in tiny quantites in some dishes. It is sweeter and I don't have to fill the house with the odor of cooking garlic.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

lol..you should hear my 4 year old sing the song. We both think it's hysterical!

Somewhere, someone once photoshopped those creatures onto a picture of John Kerry playing the guitar. Wish I still had it...cracked me up to beat the band...