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What to do when you have a stinky co-worker


Toxic Organic Vapors in the Workplace

Many years ago, Web Watch had a co-worker that was, for all intents and purposes, a bit eccentric.  For today’s story, we’ll refer to him as “Steve”.

Steve was great at his job.  He was always receiving work-related accolades, and was regularly the “go-to” person who could figure out anything.  Yes, Steve was definitely in the running to be The Model Employee.Except for one problem.

Steve didn’t like to take himself or the workplace as seriously as those around him did. 

He lived a simple life, renting a barely furnished one-room shack (it was literally a shack by the side of the road).  He had practically no material needs – he even gave all of his unnecessary possessions away one weekend for no reason whatsoever.  He didn’t own a car, and would walk the three miles to and from work each day, no matter the weather.   We would drive past him on our commute and offer to give him a ride, but he never accepted, claiming that the walk was spiritual and necessary.

Yes, Steve was definitely out there.

Remember the part about not having many material needs?  That included having an adequate rotation of clothes as well.   Steve would go from work out to the smokey bars and clubs in the same clothes, and then continue to wear those clothes to the office the next day.  Web Watch even remembers a time that Steve came into work with his suit coat having some crusted vomit on it from the night before (whether our memory of this particular incident is correct on this fact or not will not get in the way of the story – we share it merely to paint an appropriate picture for our Web Watch readers).

And then one day, in the middle of a heat wave one summer, Steve decided to put the company and his co-workers to a test.

He decided – for no reason whatsoever – to see how long he could go without showering before someone said something to him.

And Steve didn’t change any of his habits as part of this test.  He continued to walk to work in the heat, wearing his suit coat.  He continued to go out to clubs until all hours.  He continued to smoke like a chimney.

We all noticed something was up by the end of the first week, and while we may have talked amongst ourselves about the situation, nobody said anything to Steve.

It was the second week when Steve really began to get ripe.  You could smell him from a distance away.  You could smell him from another room.  Meetings were getting to be a bit unbearable.

Until finally, Steve’s manager pulled one of Steve’s office friends aside and said, “You really need to talk with him.” 

And so they did.  And that’s when Steve said that he was just doing his own social experiment.  The next day, he (and his clothes) were appropriately clean and we didn’t have a repeat of that situation again.

While a true story, it seemed appropriate as a lead-in to the question of the day: HOW TO INITIATE A CONVERSATION ABOUT PERSONAL HYGIENE AT WORK.  

According to Lily Garcia, a human resources expert, the best way to handle this is exactly what ended up happening to Steve: you have to directly address the issue.

Of course, Lily goes the managerial route where you try to be politically correct and not hurt anyone’s feelings.  This is an appropriate approach, as there may be health or other physical reasons why an employee’s stench is stinking up the workplace that are unavoidable and embarrassing to the smelly person.

The important thing to do in these cases is to reassure the employee that their job is not in peril, but they need to clean up their act a bit (no pun intended) in order to make their co-workers and the workplace more comfortable.  On the other hand, Lily continues, if the employee becomes hostile and defensive during the conversation – that could ultimately result in job loss. 

Yes, being a manager requires walking a fine line, but hopefully telling someone on staff that they smell to high heaven is one of those conversations that you will rarely have.

So what ever happened to Steve?  To be honest – we seem to have lost track of him.  Last we had heard, he had moved to Dublin to open a taco stand (seriously!), but we don’t know what has happened since.  Yes, Steve may have marched to his own drummer, but he’s one of those people that you really want to know how things turned out.