Reply #49: Another instance of lost reasonableness [View All]

... in our corporate, litigious society. Everyone's had a bad experience with an overly fragrant co-worker (some good stories in this thread). Management ought to quietly address that with the person(s) in question. It's a legitimate beef -- some people can get migraines from strong odors.

On the other hand, I've had a workplace experience in which an "odor sensitive" co-worker -- a secretary -- transparently used such complaints as a bludgeon, complaining to management in a pattern that suggested she was using it as a way to immediately be transferred out of working with whomever she'd been assigned to. Oddly, a new secretary that sits near her picked up the same "sensitivity" within a few months, and soon was complaining about those she had been assigned to work with as well. Or (and this was clear from the circumstances) those who had critiqued her work. Each time, management jumped as requested, calling in the offended "stinker" (none of whom anyone else could ever smell) for a conference. Each time, dire e-mails would issue to the entire department "warning" olfactory offenders to watch their step.

It got pretty nasty, including the fact that the sensitive secretary's targets seemed to include a racial element where, for example, a black female attorney was accused of smelling like "cherry pipe tobacco." Oh yes, this tidy (and perfume-free and odorless, by the way) woman in her late 30s, with degrees in accounting and law, who lives alone with her elderly cat, must have been firing up a "blunt" on her coffee break. Rarely have I been so furious with management, which just accepted this nonsense and issued yet another dire threat to the entire department that unless everyone cleaned up our collective odiferous act, "steps will be taken." Oooh.

But it all boils down to basic reasonabless. Adults ought to know better than to come to the office ensconced in an eye-watering vapor cloud that precedes them into every room and lingers for hours afterward. Likewise, management needs to stand up to eggshell skinned employees looking to throw their weight around with hypersensitive complaints.