Scent-Sensitive Work Environments

[Howard Roark]

Anyone else work at a place that actually practices this? I just had this person come give me break at my desk and I swear she fell in a tub of whatever my aunt dabs on her wrists.

I'm one of those people that cannot walk through the perfume department at the department stores (The Bay, for any of you Canadians, is the worst offender I've found), and any of the times I have gone through I leave feeling quite pannicky and overwhelmed.

Past work environments I've been actually advise people to use very little cologne/perfume if any at all, especially in enclosed office environments where people can have severe allergic/respiratory reactions. Mine is nowhere as severe as this but my desk now smells like 12 rich old ladies have sat here.

/rant

[Khamsin]

I hear that wine/beer tasting facilities, perfume/fragrance research testers, and such all have scent-sensitive work environments.

[Howard Roark]

I hear that wine/beer tasting facilities, perfume/fragrance research testers, and such all have scent-sensitive work environments.

I hate you lol

[LogainDiabolos]

Nothing more troublesome than those fat old ladies who think wearing an entire bottle of perfume is a good idea. If your supervisor is a male bring it up... if its a female and shes the offender i think your pretty much screwed

[BIGSTIC]

Try working construction where 90% of the guys over 35 believe 1 shower a week is plenty and sweat will mask the smell. Send your smelly office people our way PLEASE :D

[Howard Roark]

ya i brought it up to my supervisor, we're unionized (equal etc) so not really supposed to tell each other what to do

just annoying though cuz i felt like i was having a mild panic attack for 3 hours, and i know some people have it worse than me and would be hospitalized for medical reaction

i told the dude training her though, not to bring her to my tower; my eyes are still burning even now, since whatever time i made the original post

if i see her again i'm gonna flip out on her then go home sick

Try working construction where 90% of the guys over 35 believe 1 shower a week is plenty and sweat will mask the smell. Send your smelly office people our way PLEASE

i've been on the subway/streetcar with worse, the dude sitting beside me or worse standing above me, belly in my face, arm raised holding the bar above; ya it's nasty and revolting but i think i might trade that for this damn-near allergic reaction i'm having

there's a huge difference in someone suffering from hay-fever-like symptoms versus driving past a farmer's field of manure (or unhygienic construction workers)

[#686578]

.

[Dense]

i told the dude training her though, not to bring her to my tower;

http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/images...auron_RotK.jpg

[Kobb]

[quote=#686578]

I'm one of those people that cannot walk through the perfume department at the department stores (The Bay, for any of you Canadians, is the worst offender I've found), and any of the times I have gone through I leave feeling quite pannicky and overwhelmed.

I'm similar, just walking past those types of places at the mall I'll get woozy and light headed. I was forced to go in one before and passed out because I couldnt breathe.[/quote:90mwnhfb]

I'm the same way, the mall where I go has this Abercombie (I don't care how it's spelled) store that reeks of perfume and crap. JUst walking by it kills my allergies.

How someone shops in there much less works there for hours is beyond me.

[Fhqwghads]

I'd classify people who have no consideration for others as assault on the olfactory senses. It's invasive as hell to have unpleasant and/or overwhelming scents attack someone's nose. Some people aren't as bothered by this as others. For those of us that are sensitive to it, the offender might as well be making physical contact, because it literally feels like someone is. I cannot fathom how a company would consider it OK for someone to smell so strongly that people around the person have a difficult time staying focused on their work. There seriously should be some sort of rule in companies stating that little to no cologne/perfume should be worn, and that body odor is not allowed at all. Just because one person thinks gallons of Channel no. 5 smells terrific doesn't mean everyone within a one mile radius agrees.

On a personal note, years ago here we had someone who must have literally bathed in perfume. It was absolutely revolting. Whenever the person walked down the hall you could almost see vapor trails. The stench from what the person was wearing would hang in the air for a good 10-15 minutes before the HVAC could purge the hall of it. I was so happy when that person transferred to a different group I felt like celebrating.

Also: Indian curry should be fucking BANNED from the workplace. I'm sure it's great when you're born in India, but if you don't like curry, that shit is so disgustingly strong smelling that entering the kitchen at work after one of them has heated up their lunch makes my stomach churn. They also serve it in the cafeteria now and then, and holy crap I try to gtfo of there asap whenever they're cooking that shit. Oh yeah, to compound the problem, I've noticed a disturbingly large section of the Indian population are A-OK with horrific B.O. Newsflash: YOU SMELL LIKE FUCKING SHIT YOU NASTY DIRTY INDIAN DICKHEADS. Take a shower and use some goddamned deodorant!

[eckokujata]

Sometimes people take shits in the back bathroom at work, sometimes the smell back drafts too the lab. I can usually smell it when I'm doing photo shop work. So I close the door.

[Tokitoki]

I work in an R&D lab with a lot of chemicals for laminating and bonding. When we were cleaning up our excess chemicals last summer we had a lot of complaints of the smell from the people in the production area that were threatening to walk unless we gave them masks. I don't know what they were complaining about... I was the one mixing all the crap on the opposite side of the building, with plenty of ventilation without a mask and I didnt smell anything. I think they just got scared cause one 50gallon drum was smoking as it cured.

[Howard Roark]

@fhqwgads: yeah it can be a difficult situation, especially in a work envionemt to speak to a person of another culture about their obvious odor (which is likely not noticed by them as most people become desensitized to their own pheromones[sp?])

apparently some cultures don't believe in using deoderant; I know in Yogic culture you're not supposed to shave body hair in the 'joint areas': armpits, crotch etc as this hair is supposed to retain the heat from these areas and somehow this keeps your immune system healthier by not having to work harder to produce more heat that would otherwise be lost if these areas were shaved

so.... maybe there is some kind of similar thinking with the deoderant thing(as Yogic medicine/culture is a rahter 'Eastern' way of thinking and 99% of the 'offending' cultures are of East Indian/Middle Eastern descent).

lastly: thank you for 'olfactory' I was struggling for a word and felt incorrect saying 'near-allergic reaction'

[ismarc]

I almost got in trouble at work once because I told a director who is one of the full-bottle-of-perfume perpetrators to literally "Get the fuck away from me." Now, luckily it was "almost" got in trouble because she came into my cube, her perfume was so strong that my nose literally started to bleed, and she moved in closer asking if I was ok because of the stream of blood that started. So, HR decided my reaction was more rude than necessary, but appropriate given the situation.

[Howard Roark]

I almost got in trouble at work once because I told a director who is one of the full-bottle-of-perfume perpetrators to literally "Get the fuck away from me." Now, luckily it was "almost" got in trouble because she came into my cube, her perfume was so strong that my nose literally started to bleed, and she moved in closer asking if I was ok because of the stream of blood that started. So, HR decided my reaction was more rude than necessary, but appropriate given the situation.

yeah, people underestimate it, i felt like my supervisor thought i was crazy or overreacting when i asked him to say something about it to her. I would have been more direct(read: violent) with the woman had I had a more obvious reaction or known allergies (starting to think I do) or basically anything that would kinda back me up other than feeling like I'm having a 5 hour panic attack after she saturated my desk area.

I woulda gone home sick but Iknew sleepign it off wouldn't exactly help and fresh air didn't produce any miracle cures like everyone here at my work thought it would. Next time I'm just going home though, f this

[Lordwafik]

Oh yeah, to compound the problem, I've noticed a disturbingly large section of the Indian population are A-OK with horrific B.O. Newsflash: YOU SMELL LIKE FUCKING SHIT YOU NASTY DIRTY INDIAN DICKHEADS. Take a shower and use some goddamned deodorant!

Wow you just found out indians stink?

Seriously not even trying to be funny here, my school had a large population of indians and fijians and DEAR GOD they don't believe in smelling nice, not for any occasion, they just smelt of stench and putrid all the time.

The worst part of it is, the Fijian dudes loved to play football on the breaks anytime they could, and Australia's public school system doesn't enforce the whole showering thing after gym So if they played football early on, say goodbye to an easy stomach.

[Howard Roark]

update, yay she doesnt stink today, very diluted

power to the crybabies i guess

@wafik: fijians wow, that adds another region to my percieved stinkmap of the world haha

[Brill Weave]

I work with a 500 lb. man. He reeks of urine, all the time. He was actually sent home one day because he shit himself and either didn't know, or completely ignored it. There's another guy here who eats so much fucking garlic that when he talks to you, all you can smell is garlic. Little fucking pig. Touchy subject for me as well.

[Tokitoki]

One of the academic advisers at this school has such horrible breath that you can smell it 5 feet away. It's the worst when you actually have to sit down and talk to him because you're like 2 feet from him and it smells 5x as bad.

[Asy]

The Bay

Seriously. I worked at the one on queen street right near the perfume department. That shit was brutal, people constantly trying the samples. People need to learn how to find a fucking balance.

1 maybe 2 sprays and you're good. Don't either not use deodorant/cologne, and stink like ass-sweat mixed with afterbirth. Or swim in cologne, and smell like a persian club.

fuck I hate stinky people