We are required to see our clients on a walk-in basis. Meaning, it doesn’t matter whether they have appointments or not, we are required to meet with them in tiny enclosed cubicles for whatever reason s/he devises.
Not really a big deal, even though it can throw off the rest of your day.
The majority of my clients are hard luck cases. They have not abided by their court orders for at least a year, many do not have steady employment, many have other ‘issues’ the preclude them from paying their child support. I can handle clients coming in upset that we’ve suspended their drivers’ license. I can handle their frustration dealing with our system which make little sense.
What I cannot handle is a client who smells of ass. Or unwashed body. Or decay. Or rancid alcohol. Dude, you have a stable housing situation. You have NO excuse for burning my nosehairs with your stench. No, do not touch me, you stank.
Ma’am, do not breathe on me, I’m getting a freakin’ contact high just being near you. And you have kids with you? Damn.
I just don’t get it. But it’s been an hour since I saw ass man and I still can’t get the stink out of my nose.
Sometimes, people have fallen so far down that they need a telescope to see esteem. You’re just another token in the well of “fuck off!” that they’ve endured for a long time.
Sounds like you are doing a good job for need people. Maybe an air freshner and electric fan would help. If you work within a group, could you set asside a particular office cubical for these special cases.
Liberal, I hope you aren’t suggesting that MissTake has a “fuck off!” attitude towards his/her clients, or that s/he is part of the problem. She sounds like she has plenty of empathy towards her clients, saying that she understands their frustration dealing with a system that makes “little sense,” and her willingness to work with them even if they throw off her whole day.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect someone with a house to have proper grooming habits, or at least smell like they didn’t shit their drawers. And I think it’s perfectly reasonable for the person who has to deal with these odors on a daily basis to come on the SDMB and gripe about people who exhale marijuana when they have children with them. I don’t, however, think it’s reasonable to accuse her of not giving a fuck about those people.
You just reminded me of a guy who used to go to my gym named Steve. Steve had really odd personal hygiene. He would change to his workout clothes, work out real hard and get crazy sweaty, then throw those clothes into his gym bag. The gym bag would go in the back of his truck where it would stay until he needed them again.
After about two months, the stench was so bad that he could literally be smelled from 20 feet away. The stench was so overpowering that one time I walked by him and a wave of nausea swept over me. Enough people complained that the gym’s management finally terminated his contract and told him to get lost.
I know what you mean. I work at an animal hospital and quite often we will see clients who smell worse than their pets. It is definitely not the pets because it’s obviously very bad human B.O. and we often take the pet into the treatment room for a better exam (and so we could breathe). We have small closed exam rooms and have actually experienced eye-watering, nausea and gagging from the smell. When they finally leave it takes hours to get the smell out of there, copious amounts of Lysol spray does not help.
I would rather smell Parvo bloody diarrhea or rotten flesh with maggots than that really rank human B.O.
On the 1-to-10 scale of “complete and utter asshole,” you normally run about a 7 or 8. Today, your every post has been pegging the meter at 10. Fucking jerk.
If a client comes in asking for assistance, I’m more than willing to help as much as allowed. I will help them obtain motion papers, I will contact other agencies, hell, if a client asks we can get them into job training. Unlike some, when a homeless person walks in to our building, s/he is treated the same as a Fortune 500 CEO. And we let them use the bathrooms.
If a client doesn’t have access to showers/soap/tooth paste, that’s one thing. When s/he has access, but still reeks of ass, urine, vomit, alcohol, that’s another story. We can’t request the client come back when s/he isn’t foul. We can’t have air fresheners in the client rooms. We can’t leave the door open when we’re in the teeny tiny rooms (unless the client is a noted safety threat- which, in some cases they are, but not in the manner which the rule is meant). All we can do is hold our breath as much as possible and move them through as speedily as possible, which isn’t fair to them.
Last year a client came into the office during one of his non-meth high lucid moments. However, he reeked of rotting teeth, unwashed body, stale urine and feces, and feet. I can say I know what a dead body smells like, and this walking human smelled just as bad, if not worse. It was the one time I had to excuse myself from the room. I ran and tossed my lunch. Armed with super strong peppermint gum, I went back in and finished helping him. What else could I do? Excuse me, sir? You’re too nasty to help. Can’t do that.
MissTake, I don’t know how familiar you are with Liberal’s posts but I hope you are aware he’s given to bouts of batshit insanity and that you should in no way take any of his rude comments to heart.
Your nasal discomfort and subsequent rant are completely understandable and justified. His comments were not.
Seriously Liberal, where in the fuck do you get off?
I’m not sure you do. Nor do you understand the nature of a complete lack of self-esteem. It’s not a matter of whether or not there is soap available. It is likely that the bar has gathered dust like everything else in the house. It’s not a matter of inconvenience, laziness, mental retardation, lack of social skills, or poverty. It’s a matter of believing that your life is worthless and that the latest person to run from the room throwing up just blends in with the blur of all the others who already have. I’m not disparaging MissTake, despite the shuddering self-defensive recoils from the lot of you. I’m saying that to her, they are a major inconvenience; but to them, she is nothing. The whole world is nothing. They haven’t even the courage to kill themselves. They’re only waiting to die. The last thing that concerns them is her nose.
That’s exactly what I did with my very first post:
Sometimes, people have fallen so far down that they need a telescope to see esteem. You’re just another token in the well of “fuck off!” that they’ve endured for a long time.
There are always multiple perspectives, given that our reference frames are subjective. For every pitting of a clerk, there is a potential pitting of a customer.
