90% of my office smokes, so they already stink. Screw 'em if they can’t take a little BO.
However, I do keep deodorant in my desk for the days when I bike to work.
yeah, what a couple of the others said, something else will do in a pinch. I’m very resourceful! I would not make myself late just to go back and put on antiperspirant. I’d use Lysol (sp) spay from the bathroom before I’d do that. Or perfume or ask a co-worker if they had something. I have a thing about being late. I could handle my pits being a little smelly.
I am with the OP. I would definitely turn around rather than be self conscious and worried all day. However, put me in the group that has a mini toiletry stash in the office consisting of just about everything I could possibly have neglected to handle in the morning.
You can’t make it through a day without underwear?
I keep a full change of formal clothes, toiletries, and razor at the office.
And a fridge and microwave and water cooler/heater.
Crap – no wonder I sometimes get the feeling that I live at the office.
With the weather we had this morning, I would pull over, strip naked and roll around in the snow. Gets you clean in no time without getting wet. Get dressed and on the road again 
Kotick
Never be late.
Well, that depends on the job.
I’m salaried - no one is paying me to be here “on time, every day.” They are paying me to get a job done. If I’m half an hour late once in a while, no one notices. I can’t be late on days I have meetings (which I try not to schedule for first thing in the morning). In this case, I’d turn around and get deoderant.
On the other hand, when I worked retail and had to relieve people from their shift, people did notice when I was late. My being fifteen minutes late meant someone else had to stay fifteen minues late - often messing up their plans. Or it meant less coverage when I was late. The worst job for being late was answering the phones - expected to answer the phones from 8:00 to 5:00 every day, and had to find coverage for breaks and lunch. With a job like that, I’d likely tough it out with as much discretion as I could manage - unless body odor made that impossible, in which case I’d call and let them know my issue and turn around or stop nearby.
The whole question is pretty meh. I’ve got a real dilemma for you (and yes, this happened to me):
Let’s suppose you have a job where being on time is imperative. Not only will your boss care if you are late, but customers won’t get served, and the Feds could shut you down. OK, maybe not that extreme, but approaching it. Let us also suppose that your record of promtness is not spotless to begin with. Let us further suppose that your boss is not one to listen to excuses, even good ones, nor are you one to admit to any excuse that might not make you look so… Let me explain further.
On a given morning you are rushing out the door at the last possible minute, with nothing to spare. As you rush down the street, you cough, or sneeze, or something like that. Said spastic event causes you to fart. Only it ain’t a dry fart. There is a fair amount of liquid. And you can tell that said emission is not only dripping down your leg, but has or will soak through your pants. There will be no hiding the fact that you have joined the Depends crowd.
Do you go back?
tdn, I’d go back. What did you do? (I don’t remember if you ever posted about this before).
I went back. When I got to work, I took my lumps. Better than sitting in my own shit all day.
Absolutely. There’s no way to cover that up or explain it away.
For the OP, if I had had time to shower, I wouldn’t worry too much about the deodorant. I’ve forgotten that part once or twice and felt self-conscious for the day, that’s about it.
I’ve never told a soul about it until now.
Hell yeah. The absolute deal-sealer is “explosive diarrhea.”
I’ve used it as a fake excuse, and if you are willing to tell Bossman or Bosslady, “I’m sorry, but I have really bad intestinal flu and I can’t go ten minutes without going to the bathroom,” you’re golden. Nobody wants to deal with that at work.
It does mean you can only use it once. Every business has to have a contingency plan for bad weather/employees having accidents on the way to work/explosive diarrhea.
(I ended up fessing up to my Bossman about the lie. He laughed and gave me a double shift.)