smelly work environment

[SandyDown]

a manager I know told me that he was interviewing a group of techie once, there was this east European chap who was very good, only his BO was sooooo bad, the manager had to keep the door open during the interview, when the interviewee left he needed to air the room for 20 minutes (he was worried that the next interviewee will think that he is the one who smelled not the previous manager).. anyway the guy with a BO did not get the job, but the manager struggled with putting a specific (HR friendly reason for rejection )

[XLMonkey]

In my first job I was asked to go do a piece of work for the guy responsible for marketing and customer surveys. I entered his office and was instantly bowled over by an odour that would have stopped a skunk at twenty paces. That is to say, no self-respecting skunk would have gone anywhere near it. It would probably have stood as far away as possible and said things like “Don’t look at me, I didn’t do it!” to it’s friends.

My first reaction was to search under his desk to try and find the dead rat. After scrabbling around there for a few moments I realized that it wasn’t the rat, it was the swivel chair that smelled. So did the guy who sat in it. The rat was wearing noseplugs.

I also began to understand why it was that the person in question had an entire six-man office all to himself. It later turned out that the other residents had one by one gone to their manager and insisted that either they were moved out of the office, or they moved out of the company. It was that bad. Their manager was far too polite to address the, ah, source of the problem so they were all transferred far away and given therapy.

There's no real answer to the problem, the only solution is help them to help themselves. I recommend forwarding an email around the office with the following questionnaire.

Career Development Questionnaire
1. Do you have bad hair?
2. Do you wear the same shirt more than two days in a row?
3. Do you wait till the weekend before washing?
4. Do you brush your teeth less than twice a day?
5. Do you believe that your body odour is a natural musk and that deodorant is unnecessary?

Research has shown that people who answer yes to two or more questions earn on average 30% less than people who answer no to all of them.

And they never get laid.

[sasguru]

If you have the slightest suspicions of your colleauges,in any respect,inform your local thought police immediately.

P iss off, you bore!

[Central-Scrutiniser]

If you have the slightest suspicions of your colleauges,in any respect,inform your local thought police immediately.

[Sputnik]

i like Gunman's style.

in my office we have a chap who is visually impaired and therefore has a seeing eye dog (hope i'm up to scratch with my politically correct terminology).

Now this dog might be smarter than most working in this call centre and able to see his handler across the busiest of roads safely and so forth, but like all German Shepherds i've met (Suggsy, you legend!) he farts like he's on a diet of beans and they are not the 'loud and proud' variety.

So i have some sympathy (and a can of Glade) but no constructive comments!

[The Lone Gunman]

Surround yourself with air fresheners and buy them as gifts to the team. One for each even if they dont smell.

When someone asks why, state very loudly that someone has a personal odour problem.

[Antman]

Thanks threaded

Sasguru, that's definitely thinking out the box but I can't change my 5 shirt paradigm overnight... plus I'm single

[sasguru]

Hi all,

You surely must have come across this situation before, the smelly colleague, the intelligent building where the windows don't open (plus it's freezing outside anyway).

To top it off, the PM had the bright idea of moving the testing team to sit with the developers now that we are in the system test phase, Christ I've never met such a smelly bunch of reprobates. I can put up with the odd developer wearing the same shirt a week at a time, but I think someone's got trench foot here if only they'd take off their socks to check.

any recomendations for air fresheners? I've finally found my motivation to get out of development!

What to do?

When you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Become the smelliest bastard around then you won't notice anything.

[threaded]

I've been known to jack a contract in because my co-workers were so smelly. So you have my commiserations.

[Antman]

Hi all,

You surely must have come across this situation before, the smelly colleague, the intelligent building where the windows don't open (plus it's freezing outside anyway).

To top it off, the PM had the bright idea of moving the testing team to sit with the developers now that we are in the system test phase, Christ I've never met such a smelly bunch of reprobates. I can put up with the odd developer wearing the same shirt a week at a time, but I think someone's got trench foot here if only they'd take off their socks to check.

any recomendations for air fresheners? I've finally found my motivation to get out of development!

What to do?