Or get everyone to bring in the jumbo bottles of Febreze and just make a cloud bank of it in her area…
I’m thinking her perfume addiction and her living arrangements may have something in common. Perhaps she doesn’t have regular access to a washer and dryer and feels she has to cover the odor of stale clothes, and cheap perfume is the only way she can do it.
Which doesn’t excuse this at all. ISTM that you and your co-workers need to present a united front to your manager and to HR. Based on her comment to your co-worker, she may need a lot of lessons in professionalism.
Nosy bitch that I am, I’d love to know why she left (or was fired from) all those great jobs. I’d kill to have an IT job at Rite Aid.
Robin
I know, right? I temped there for a month a couple years ago and they even treat their temps incredibly.
Anyway, I just got this message on my phone while I was sleeping, and, well, I’m awake now. It was a message relayed from a higher-higher up who reads all of my email correspondence because she generally has nothing better to do, I think.
I have been informed - me! - that she “won’t put up with any more nonsense” from me, that this is my “last warning” for “stirring up trouble” on the job. If I keep this up, they’ll remove me as team lead and fire me. (!) They already lost Larry because of me, she said, and they weren’t going to lose anyone else.
Now, Larry was this mind-blowingly creepy guy who I got fired because he not only creeped everyone out to an insane degree, but he spent all night on the job reading about assault rifles and looking at porn on the Internet. They have the logs. They know what he did. They fired him for it. Somehow it’s my fault that they hire these awful people…
I don’t really know what to say. I can’t pick my jaw up off the floor.
Just spray a cloud of Lysol over the wall of the cubicle between you.
When she says, “HEY! What are you doing?” you can just respond “The same thing you are.”
Seriously, though, you’re her supervisor, so tell her politely and in no uncertain terms that she is forbidden to wear perfume (or anything else of its ilk) to work. Period.
Well, the other guys on the job had trouble with perfume lady too, no? It’s time one of them gave the same message to higher up lady.
Dang! WTF?
You have my sincere sympathies.
Try hiring Shodan to write a greeting card style note to Perfume Lady, asking her to stop wearing so much perfume and keep it down to one spritz a day. Or maybe hire Boyo Jim.
In a perfect world…
In the real world, none of them have the balls to say a thing. They sit there and suffer and wait for me to do something about issues like this. Well, I can’t do it anymore.
I interviewed last week for a different job in the same building, but without that higher-higher up above me in any way, so I’m really hoping I get that. If I don’t, then it’s time to start looking for a new job.
The fuck?
Is she sleeping with someone? Or does your HR department get a kickback on perfume sales? Sheesh.
It seems a little risky to ask someone else to complain on your behalf, though- if it comes out that you did that, you’d be fired for sure.
ahahahahahaha
That was the best laugh I had all day! If anyone ever wanted to voluntarily sleep with her, it would be a definite sign of the apocalypse. Three people have - independently of each other - come up with the word “troll” to describe her. She genuinely looks that much like something that would live under a bridge.
“It has come to our attention that there have been some complaints about the oder emiting from your person. While this may be difficult for you to hear, it is not a criticism of you or your performance. We just need you to address the issue of your odor.”
Anyway, that’s what the guy said in the corporate film they showed us in the management training class I had to take.
At this point, your choices are;
1> Keep your mouth shut. If others complain, let them know what happened to you and suggest that they might complain themselves, but you have to stay out of it.
2> Go to HR. Probably won’t work. My motto is “You bring a problem to Management, YOU become the problem”, and you’ve been put on notice that you have become the problem.
3> Find another job.
4> Be really petty and retaliate against the person in ways that can’t be traced to you, but will probably be blamed on you anyway because you’ve already been determined to be The Problem.
The only question I might have is: Is this person allergic to anything? If so, that allergen is now your primary weapon (unless it’s the “it kills her” kind of allergy).
For example, I have cats. If she was allergic to cats, I might come in seriously covered with cat hair one day, “by accident”, and completely obliviously of course, pause and brush it off right behind her work station. Whoops. I didn’t intend anything, I was just playing with my cats before work. Can’t be helped.
1.Find the person in the office who is sensitive to smells. (that would be me, if I worked with you.)
-
have them hang out willingly and knowingly in your cubicle with El Stinkum when she is there.
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Have this person vomit all over El Stinkum and offer the weak voiced excuse, " Sorry, I’m allergic to all perfumes."
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Profit.
Wow. You’re getting screwed coming and going.
Although this does make me wonder if Larry and Ms. Stink are in some protected class (the mentally ill, for example) that could stir up a ration of shit for the company if either one decided to rattle sabers about wrongful termination.
Robin
Sounds like the whole company is in that “protected class”
Agreed. This is the point where I exercise my right to terminate my employment with the company - you’re obviously not a good fit there, neutron star (i.e. they’re crazy and you apparently are not).
Yes, I’ve thought that before. Right now, though, it’s really just two people that I have a problem with. Everyone else is cool, if a little spineless.
From what I’ve been led to believe, though, I’m a shoo-in for the job I interviewed for last week. They interviewed 9 people for three jobs and I was one of the two people on the short list that they were most interested in getting when I went in to the interview.
I got a message today from the higher-higher up. She wants me to come to her office, twenty goddamn miles away on Sunday to talk about things. Like I’ve got nothing better to do on my first weekend off in three weeks. grumble
Welp, I’m off to go stand in line for six hours to see Obama speak tonight in Harrisburg, so thanks for the advice all, and have a good day.
Is there any chance the higher-higher up would agree to come to your office to see what it is you’re complaining about? I know management can be unreasonable, but it might be worth a shot. You could say something like, “Look, I understand that this may look like petty office politics, but it really is a rather serious issue. If you could come to the office yourself and see what the situation really is, I’ll abide by your judgement and never raise the issue again.”
Of course, keep the interview in mind and your resume up to date, but the higher-higher up doesn’t have to know that.
It seems appropriate to note that after a short period of constant use people become acclimated to their own perfume. After years of use they are physically incapable of smelling it anymore, so consequently will apply more and more, guided by ‘how it should smell’ to them.
Some stylists recommend changing ones perfume every 3-5 years to avoid this problem. You can easily find guidelines for using perfume – print them out, highlight the best parts, and leave them on her desk anonymously.
I’d definitely keep all the correspondence with crazy higher-ups, and start finding a new job now, because this place seems downright bad. It sounds like the heavy perfume lady is the least of your problems, if they’re suddenly blaming your attitude for losing ‘valued’ employees who were caught surfing porn and guns.
OMG! Neutron Star, I am sooo sorry. When we (I mean those of us who have sensitive noses, or allergies, or asthma) come up against those who obviously have no sense of smell, then we either suffer in silence, or try to to the right thing, like you did and get smacked for it.
I have worked with coworkers who marinated in foul/strong/overly cheap perfumes and colognes. I usually don’t say anything when they are that overpowering.
Now, I have had to deal with coworkers who were foul. Yes, I was the one who told “stinky boy” his BO was reeking most unpleasantly.
I feel for you.
I hope you get the new job. Please let us know.