Posted on 11/28/2008 3:50:26 PM PST by Oyarsa
DETROITA federal judge says a Detroit city employee can proceed with a civil suit claiming she couldn't work because of a co-worker's strong perfume. The Detroit News says U.S. District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff determined Susan McBride has a potential claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The city is asking to have the suit dismissed.
McBride says she's severely sensitive to perfumes and other cosmetics. She says the perfume worn by a co-worker in the city's Planning Department made it difficult for her to breathe.
She says the co-worker also used a plugged in room deodorizer.
The suit says the co-worker later agreed to stop using the room deodorizer but kept using perfume.
(Excerpt) Read more at denverpost.com ...
I remember you.
BTW, my daughter accidentally ate a brownie with walnuts at my cousins engagement party last weekend.
A dose of Benadryl and she was fine.
She had a gorgeous wardrobe and was impeccably groomed. Unfortunately, part of that grooming included a generous dousing of perfume. Whenever she was in my office, I was unable to get enough distance between us. I finally told her that the reason I was moving away from her was because I'm a migraine sufferer and that fragrances are a huge trigger for me. I was as gentle and tactful as I could be in telling her, practically apologizing for taking up space on the planet. Even so, she took this personally. It made her so mad that she started putting on even more perfume. You could smell her down two corridors.
Up to that point, I had missed very little work, but that all changed after she came to work. I would often have to go home to administer an Imitrex injection. I would always try to come back to work if possible.
One day when she saw that I was gone, she asked “Ellie” where I was. Ellie told her that I'd gone home to nurse a migraine, and Ginger said, “You mean she's gone again? How do they let her get away with that?” Uh, hellooooo? YOU are the cause of it and you know you are and yet you have the unmitigated gall to say such a thing?!!?! BTW, this chick professes to be a sister in Christ, but I have experienced more courtesy from heathens than I have from her (and a few other Christians).
Yes sir. metmom definitely knows whereof she speaks.
P.S. After Hurricane Ike, our place of employment took a financial hit, requiring several people to be laid off. I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't happy to see Ginger go. ;)
The person with the allergy has done nothing wrong. The woman wearing excessive perfume, should be the only one terminated if it comes to that. She is the only one that has control over what is being done.
Thank you
I never liked Ginger either. I always preferred the demure Mary Ann.
I have a few suggestions. I assume you are a lady and the “problem” requires more than what men would do.
See, we would have just walked into Bobs cubicle with a Taco Bell Bean Burrito and just farted until he agreed to stop wearing after shave.
Women are much more sinister and subtle.
I’m glad your daughter was fine.
When we were in college, my husband (then new boyfriend) ate a snickers, which has peanuts! Since he developed his peanut allergy in his late teens, he had always eaten peanuts, peanut butter, etc. So he decided to chance it and we ended up in the school infirmary (Ritenour, sp) all damn night.
Anyway, since we’ve been married, I never cook with peanut oil, keep the peanut butter cookies away from the other cookies, no chick peas or any legumes, etc. since he’s allergic to those. We were at a wedding and there were chick peas in the salad. His throat closed up, not a pretty sight. He didn’t have any salad with chick peas but the juice caused it.
Bottom line, he doesn’t expect any concessions and manages his allergies. Before we got our own pool we used to belong to a neighborhood pool. The Dad of one of the kids there wanted us not to bring PB&J to the pool because his kid was allergic. I guess he thought the smell of the peanut butter would send his kid into shock or something.
I’m no fan of big government and personally, I don’t care much if what I’m doing is ANNOYING people.
However, I do care if it’s harming them.
I guess I just don’t have it in me to be callous enough towards others to be a good libertarian.
Say, for the record, since libertarians think that individual rights trump all, if I feel like blowing away the person whose perfume is harming my health, that would OK right? I mean, why can’t I just go and do what I feel like and demand he get out of the way of my bullet?
My question still hasn’t been answered either. What if I come and pour some chemical agent in a room that sickens people that makes them end up requiring hospitalization or medical treatment? Would I not be charged with assault? How is someone else continuing to do something to me through perfume when they know, not the same?
ROTF! I was just about to the point that I was desperate enough to try it, but most of us chicks were born without that fart-on-command gene. < sigh >
Hostility is not very becoming.
I am so sorry my 8 years here is too little for you. I bow down to your extra 2 years.
Your FreeRepublic About Page has this as its headline:
“The government that can do everything for you is the same government that can do anything to you.”
____________________________________________________
So let me get this straight.
You want the government, or court system or employer to step in and “do something” for you which will take away some other person’s right to smell the way they want.
And if they do do this for you, it just might mean that it will continue us down the slippery slope we are already on.
So it might mean the government then “can do anything to you.”
Sounds like either you believe the government should be our caretakers or you believe something which contradicts your About Page headline.
Think about it.
It's his property. He has the right to have it as he wants. That's the libertarian mantra. Why criticize him for it and disparage him like that?
The pool we all paid to belong to was his property?
See, men are good for something other than moving furniture. Put us to work for what we are good for. We're naturals. It's the way God made us. Send us into her cubicle armed to the teeth (you have to pay for the Taco Bell bean burrito but it will be money well spent)....
I guarantee you that Ginger, or whatever her name is will stop wearing perfume once we are through with her. Problem solved.
I am highly allergic to perfumes, scented candles, wood and leaf burning smoke, and other strong fragrances. My nasal passages swell; my throat closes; the drainage starts, and I inevitably get bronchitis (and have gotten pneumonia twice). So I can’t be around anyone wearing strong perfume. However I too would never consider suing as that just never crosses my mind either. But then again, if I had to work next to someone who was always causing my sickness, I don’t really know what I’d do. I am a teacher, and I do make it a classroom rule that no perfumes, body sprays, or lotions can be put on before or during my class. If they have it on, they have to wash it off or sit out in the hallway.
Then why do you insist on exhibiting it?
So let me get this straight. You want the government, or court system or employer to step in and do something for you which will take away some other persons right to smell the way they want.
No, it's not want I want. I hate that people are so in love with their "right" to wear fragrances that they threaten someone else's ability to be gainfully employed. What I want is to be able to work in an environment that doesn't make me sick. Working is my only means of support, so you will have to excuse the fact that I get passionate when my ability to work is threatened. I frankly don't care what you or any of my co-workers smell like after hours. Just let me get a full day's work in, and I'll go home and get out of everybody's way.
Let me explain it to you this way. If I don't work, my only option is to go on the dole. I never aspired to be a welfare recipient, so if getting a court to decree or a government law to demand that an employer must make reasonable accommodations to provide a non-hostile workplace, then I'll have to settle for that.
Since you have stated time and again that you will wear what you want when you want where you want knowing full well the effect it could have on another, what do you think the solution should be if not a court or government?
In a sane world, I would tell the person wearing too much perfume to knock it off, you’re smogging everybody out, and everybody would breathe better as a result. But in P.C. bizarro world, I have to balance the desire of one individual’s desire to bathe in perfume against one’s allergy to such odors. The P.C. zero tolerance solution is to get rid of both problems. I would rather like to see an agreeable solution between both parties, especially if both are valuable to the company. I don’t mean to rattle anyone’s cages, but this seems to be the current paradigm:
Eliminate any source of contention, regardless of the cost.
You don't have to use a 9mm Glock. Be smart. Ask a dude in your office armed with a more potent weapon to do your dirty work. He'll be happy to oblige. The offending woman will never touch perfume again. I promise.
We solved this “problem” without Gubmint help.
Me too, but perfume sticks start an allergic chain reaction that puts me in an asthmatic state with really bad congestion.
We're in the middle of this fight right now at work while the suite is being redone. It's not an easy one, either, to ask someone to give up a comfort so that the rest of us can breathe. It's a battle we constantly fight in choirs and choruses, too. And there's no excuse for singers to wear the stuff.
Seriously, if people would just think of others now and then.
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