Hey, what if he’s actually made of poo? A fecal golem? That really wouldn’t be his fault, right? After all, someone else selected the raw material…
Come on, this is the SDMB—surely we can come up with more reasons why a man shouldn’t be blamed for his own paralyzing malodor. Let’s brainstorm!
Sounds more like a shitstorm to me.
gawd, this thread is killing me in general, but this one just about did me in. I have a cramp from laughing.
Anyone that can work Hong Kong Phooey into a post is okay with me.
A friend of mine bathes regularly but doesn’t take long to start getting manky. I went on holiday with her recently and on the last day we both slept in and had to skip showers to get to the airport in time. An hour later we were sitting next to each other on the plane awaiting take-off, and I thought out loud and said, “Ooh, what’s that fish smell?”
She bent her head down nearer her lap and said, “Oh God, I think it’s my crotch.”
EEEW. Your friend should see a doctor. I would if my genitals started producing a fish smell by missing one shower.
In high school, one of my stoner friends eschewed bathing, just so he could acquire his own, special funk. Said it covered up the smell of pot on his clothes. Did it? Hell, no! Just made him smell of pot & BO.
Well, it’s a reason, just not a very good one!
If the OP is not the only one complaining, HR can’t claim it’s due to one person’s oversensitivity.
Grossbottom and colleagues should buy this man a large economy-sized bottle of cheap cologne. That way, the entire office would smell like a WWII-era German submarine.
Here’s one rare medical condition with heartbreaking BO consequences:
*"Camille has beauty and brains.
She’s a former model and a Phi Beta Kappa with a master’s in education. There’s a part of her, though, that’s not so perfect.
She smells like spoiled fish."*
This reminds me of the Simpsons when Homer had to rent out his house to travelling European college students:
Homer: So, for 50 bucks a month, you are going to be eating MY food, using ALL of my water to wash you luxurious hair…
European: No. The water, eh, is, uh, not a problem…
No, actually. This is something management can and should deal with. If it turns out to have a medical or religious or racial/national origin component, HR gets paid to advise management on the relevant laws and how to work within them. In the vast majority of cases, one conversation where the manager tells the employee “there’s a problem, and it needs to be fixed” is all it takes.
Why management lacks the stones to speak to this guy is beyond me. Is this a situation where this guy is a partner on equal footing with all the other partners? I guess that could complicate things, but they must have a way of getting rid of a partner who needs to be gone.
Anyway, whoever has authority over this guy’s performance needs to bring it to his attention as a performance issue. This is why it’s managment, not HR. HR doesn’t fire people, management does. In the fairly unlikely case that it’s medical/religious/cultural, there may be some legal limits on whether he could be fired if he can’t resolve it, although he can be required to try, minimize impact on others, etc.
And the decent thing to do is to ask management to address this ASAP. Little games behind the guy’s back are unkind and unlikely to help.
You know, after 4-5 hours of manual labor, you get to stink a little. It’s a shame, but if the guy is doing everything he can, I think you cut him some slack.
Yeah, but at least the homeless-Japanese or not-have an excuse.
I’m an obsessive bather-(maybe it’s the OCD). If I could get away with it, with the water bill and the time, I’d take two showers a day.
I can’t imagine NOT bathing. Don’t you feel all icky and grody? There’s nothing like a good hot shower at the end of the day. I LOVE that squeaky clean feeling.
I HATE it when people stink. I even care a small stick of deo in my purse, at least when it’s hot out. Medical conditions are one thing, but purposely not bathing, or letting garbage pile up in your car-like that one woman. Or not washing your clothes? Eeeeewwww.
(And Altoids are one of the tastiest items on the planet. In fact, I think I’ll go pop one right now. They’re incredibly addicting. My boss and I are always sharing the magic that is Altoids).
As I posted I have no problem with run of the mill hard working sweat. And I am inured to hungover smelling manually working sweat, which has it’s very own fragrance. I’m in construction, that’s 95% of the guys right there.
I was just noting that some people have very pungent aromas, no matter what they do.
Query: where does one acquire chlorophyll tablets? My sons don’t always smell, but when they do–my god, as George Carlin says, “they can knock a buzzard off a shit wagon.”
Health food store? Pharmacy? (they use antiperspirant–even the 9 year old)
The BodyMint link I posted upthread (#77) has a list of retailers - mostly Whole Foods and Eckerd Drug Stores - and you can also order them online. Says they put them in the deodorant section, not with other supplements.
Thanks!
Wasn’t the answer to this YES!, not silence?
Just about any Vitamin/health food store. Most Vitamin catalogs. I have two brands in front of me “Vitamin World Chlorophyll Concentrate” (works better, must be swallowed whole), and "Puritan’s Pride product #4190 Chewable Chorophyll & mint " (cheaper and kinda tasty, but you’d have to chew several for body odor).
I found 3 pages of various pills on Amazon.com “Health and Personal care” The *Chlorofresh *is the one that worked best for me: 90ct $7.49.
Thanks–I’ll check my local GNC.