While taking continuing education classes last month, I met a man who is employed at a hippie commune. Well, those aren’t his words, they’re mine… He never actually used the phrase “hippie commune,” he only described one and I connected the dots.
It’s an institute, he said, populated by militant vegans and earth people. They own a defunct college(!), comprised of several large buildings on many acres of land. And they generate income by publishing a series of magazines on the subjects you’d expect, stuff like ecology, organic foods, and carbon-neutral sandal repair. Who the hell knows?
Anyway, many of the “employees” live at the institute full-time, there’s a vegetarian lunch room there, and the whole nine yards.
However, they also hire regular folks to perform various high-skill functions, and the guy I was talking with fell into that category. He was involved somehow with the technical side of their publishing venture. But he’s no hippie, he’s just an Average Joe.
One day, he told me, his boss called him into her office and told him to have a seat. And she said, “I need to talk to you about your body odor.”
How’s that for an ice-breaker?
The guy blinked ten times real fast, and sputtered, “My body odor? Um, I shower every morning, and use both deodorant and cologne. I don’t think…”
“No, no, no. Not that,” she said. “I mean you stink of meat.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve had several complaints, and noticed it myself. You have the smell of baloney wafting off you, or roast beef or something.”
He said they’re fixated on baloney, and seemingly believe all meat-eaters sit around at home gnawing on enormous logs of the stuff. Baloney is the subject of a disproportionate number of conversations at the institute, he assured me.
Caught off-guard (I mean, seriously), he asked what she wanted him to do about it. “It’s not like I’m walking around with my pockets full of pork chops. Are you asking me to stop eating meat?”
“No, I’m not allowed to do that,” she said, “but I wanted you to be aware of the complaints, and ask that you take your co-workers into consideration.”
How’d you like to work under those circumstances? Good god! Your colleagues are complaining because you smell like yankee pot roast. And it got me to thinking about people I’ve encountered in my life, who REALLY DID stink-up the workplace.
And, as a public service, I’ll now give you a brief run-down of each…
In Atlanta there was a sales manager (probably pulling down $150K) who sat in his office all day farting. I don’t know if he had some kind of medical condition, or just didn’t care. But it often smelled like vaporized turds near his workspace.
Two elderly black women worked in the credit department adjacent to this weirdo’s office, and they were always utterly disgusted. I remember them walking up and down the hallway spraying Lysol and hollering in protest: That man is nasty! This caused me to buckle over in laughter every time.
The farter happened to be gay, and one of my co-workers believed the smell was so strong because of “compaction.” Heh.
There was another guy who worked at the same place, who always smelled like deep-fried food. I mean, every article of clothing he owned was saturated with it. People called him Fry Daddy behind his back.
Out in the hall was a place where folks could hang their coats, and his red ski jacket was always by itself. All the other coats were bunched together, but everyone avoided that red (semi-filthy) jacket like it was dripping with disease.
It was every single day with that guy. In fact, I bet he’s sitting around right now, wherever he ended up, smelling like a corn dog stand at a carnival.
I once worked at a bookstore, and management was forced to have a talk with a hippie hemp-sack bicyclist who arrived at work most days smelling like an open-grave. He rode that bike everywhere he went, through the Georgia humidity, and often worked-up a good stink.
They weren’t exactly tactful about the whole thing, or confidential either, and I felt kind of bad for the guy. Something needed to be done, as evidenced by the customers passing out and hitting their heads on the fixtures, but they could’ve gone about it a little quieter.
He seemed like an OK guy (for a hippie hemp-sack bicyclist), and the managers humiliated him.
In Greensboro I worked at a grocery store with a man shaped like a teardrop. Know what I mean? His shoulders were an extension of his neck, just straight down, and his ass was the widest part of his body.
He apparently made no effort at stink-suppression, and the longer he worked, the worse it got. By the end of the shift nobody could come within fifty yards of the dude. We called him The Funk Pump.
But since we worked overnight, and had little contact with customers, management never said a word to him about it. Finally, one of the other guys purchased a Speed Stick, or somesuch, and handed it to him.
“Here, you might want to start using this,” he told the guy, all matter-of-factly.
I’d never have the courage to do something like that, but it worked. The Funk Pump stopped pumping funk after that night.
And finally, I once worked with an enormous morbidly-obese man who walked with a four-legged cane. He always smelled kinda musty, like a house with a dampness problem.
I figured it was because of the place he lived, but one of my co-workers thought it was the smell of “bursting cysts.” WTF? Aren’t cysts under the skin? I think she was talking about zits, but that’s not what she said.
Anyway, her theory was that his “folds” were loaded with these so-called cysts, and would explode during exertion. Every time he reached for his Big Gulp cup, she believed, a few would go-off.
I have a suspicion this woman had no idea what she was talking about, but it was a hard image to wipe from my mind. In fact, I’m seeing it right now — and I’m thinking about filing a lawsuit.
Hey, and wasn’t there a band from the San Francisco area called Bursting Cysts? Or am I mistaken about that?
In any case, it’s now your turn. Use the comments section to tell us about former or current co-workers who stink to high heaven.
And I’ll see you guys tomorrow.
I hope the slight delay in today’s update is because jeff is about to drop an N&N update on us.
I’ve had just about enough curdled vagina sweat stories for one day, I’m ready for some N&N.
Hell, I think N&N+ the whole brood should move in with you jeff, just for our amusement. I would pay $20/month for that, and I wouldn’t even expect a Tshirt.
Oh shit kids! The N&N update is already here!
I worked with a guy at a computer lab in college who was one of those “I am a rich kid but I live a drunken hobo lifestyle and I’m proud of it” people. Ugh, fucking college students. He never, EVER brushed his teeth and couldn’t have bathed more than a couple times a month. Literally, you could see the old food-shit crusted over on his nasty teeth. His teeth and odor would make me feel sick.
He had this ridiculous pimp-walk (he was a 5’6″ skinny white kid) and he’d always talk about getting laid (even though we’d all roll our eyes at him constantly). He must have gotten the poon in some form because he always reeked of stale pussy and malt liquor.
Needless to say he had the interpersonal skills of a drunken chimp and ended up getting fired. From a student-employed Computer Lab. At a public University. That’s a new level of incompetence, congrats dude.
There’s one lady where I work who smells like dirty (peed) diapers. It’s kind of a joke with me and the guy next to me.
“Where’s Sidney?”
“Depends”
hahaha. gotta love working in an office.
Just stopping by. Plus I had to clean cookies and reset passwords again
I worked with a Vietnamese lady named Chi pronounced Chuh-eye. She would never get her shirts dry after washing them so they had that moldy smell to them. Add the Vicks Vapor-rub and the slight smell of pee. NAASSTTY!
My friend worked with a woman she nicknamed “Captain Highliner.” Everyday she would wear the same pair of pantyhose under her pants. By the end of the week, her office stank like Fisherman’s Wharf. Can anyone say chowder?
I’m a big fan of vaginas but I’m afraid that reading these comments has given me some sort of complex. I need a hot water bottle.
Wow. I live in the area for which this blawg is named, and I somehow never stumbled over it in all my web years.
I approve.
The above stank-ass stories match many of my own, which you may safely imagine to yourselves…
I worked the front desk at a hotel on the overnight shift. I shared that workspace with the night auditor. Joe was a rotund older gentleman who wore his pants at just below nipple level. He had a chronic gas problem and all night long he played free-form jazz on his ass trumpet. Horrific sounding and smelling.
Luckily there were few customers checking in overnight but when they did the stench was obvious. I would always scrunch up my nose, a la Samantha Stevens, and roll my eyes back towards Joe’s work space. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was responsible for that funk.
I have a co-worker who is of the minset of “more is better” with his Axe body spray. This guy smells like he’s smuggling dead French manwhores under his jacket.
Recipe:
1 can of condensed Campbell’s chicken and noodle soup
1 kg of organ meat
500 ml of stale after-binge-drinking urine
juice from an old wet towel
puree ingredients into paste-like form, reduce in sun for several days, spread liberally over body.
I’m not sure of the name of this dish, but it was the specialty of a teaching assistant at my former university.
Sounds like it is OK to complain of every smell but that of meat.
The reason they ask how long it has been from you last haircut is so they can visualize how short it should be. This comes from my wife who teaches at a hoity toity hair school.
I work with a dude who smells like a combination of bad breath, smelly heads, and stink-foot. It’s horrible. I don’t have to work closely with him but for those who do, I don’t get how they can handle it. Where does that stink come from? And doesn’t his wife smell it? Gastly.
I’m not a fan of women’s perfume. I think most are over powering, too flowery, and just plain nasty.
There was an older Italian woman who worked with me. She didn’t have to work. I think she did simply for the social aspect because she certainly wasn’t that great at her job.
Anyway, she sat along the path to my desk. She wore so much perfume I would have to hold my breath at least three cubes away from her and hold it until three cubes after. And it was a horrible, flowery, nasty perfume.
I always told my boss if she better not ever move me near her.
I know that this is an old post, but I just stumbled across it and feel as if I had to reply.
About 10 years ago, when I was just starting my career in IT, I worked as a data centre systems administrator. I worked the weekend day/evening shift – Friday through Sunday, 12PM-12AM. Another fellow, who was hired at the same time, worked the opposite shift: he would come in Thursday night/Friday morning @ midnight, and finish his shift at 12PM, when I would arrive for the start of my “day.” Let’s call him Joe.
I should note here that we worked in an area that we called “The Cave” – a narrow, windowless room adjacent to the data centre. There were five “cubicles” (I put that in quotes, because they were really open desks with dividers, but no walls, in between then) and a door on each end. One door led upstairs to the area where the remainder of the IT department sat, and the other led out into a hallway from which the server room could be accessed.
When I arrived each Friday, the daytime guys would always have both doors open and a fan going full blast. Even if Joe had left some time before I arrived (he would often skip his break and leave @ 11AM), The Cave would inevitably reek of a combination of rancid curry (Joe was Pakistani and always brought leftovers to work with him) and week-old BO. It smelled as if Joe had run a marathon whilst hosting a curry potluck in the room.
Well, it wasn’t long before our manager had a little talk with Joe about personal hygiene. This manager was a pretty tactful guy, but I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during that conversation. Nonetheless, the problem went away after that. Joe and I continued to work together for several years, moving up the ladder at about the same pace, and he inevitably smelt of deodorant and reasonably high-end aftershave. He continued to bring home cooking with him to work, but chose thereafter to eat it in the cafeteria, rather than at his desk.
@SeeKar … AXE is the bane of my existence. I blame the “you’ll get laid if you drench yourself in this eurotrash stench” ad campaign.
I smelled every one of them at the drugstore. They’re all vile.
Take it from a girl … a washed body, clean clothes and a nice, nondescript deodorant are all you need. Clean man-smell is the best!
Ok, I will confess that I found this website, because I was looking for comments on people who had been acccused of smelling funky, the reason; I have been accused,and I know I’m a clean person, I take a good shower everyday, 2 times if necessary. I’m completelly sure that whatever they are smelling,( because I do smell it too) comes from somewhere else or someone else in the office, but somehow it gets blamed on me…. Why? I haven’t say anything because I don’t want to make anybody feel bad, but it does stinks in that office, I’m sorry, but I’m not getting that shit blamed on me… The next time I smell it I will say something…
I sit RIGHT NEXT to an older lady on seizure medication. There are four of us to a cubical, each facing a corner, and a couple of times I guess the medication made her crap herself. Worst smell ever. She ran to the bathroom and changed her depends but the smell didn’t go away for hours. Another girl and I couldn’t help laughing about it since we’re juvenile bitches, and I had to go borrow a bottle of Fabreeze and spray it all over. It only helped a little.
Another lady I work with is rather large and doesn’t wash very often. Her and her friend both have bad BO sometimes. Yesterday she came by my desk a couple of times and the waft of unwashed girlbits hit me like a brick wall, almost triggering my gag reflex. I told my friend that if, for some strange reason, I should ever smell that bad, to PLEASE tell me. What can you do, though? I would love to leave some Summers Eve vagina wash on her desk but that might be.. rude.
Why would you wanna touch her! Beat someone up when you’re shitfaced after describing her like that when you’er sober!? Makes no sense to me. I’d steer clear regardless.
I work with a young Indian woman who is quite attractive but had a mild scent to her. Well, a few weeks ago she was helping me on a project, and I invited her out for a couple of drinks after work. We went back to my house, and I was thrilled to get this doe eyed, long black haired 20 something babe in my bed. However hot she is, as she took her clothes off her musk became stronger & denser. Without getting into too much detail she was a lot of fun. At one point I decided to go down there, and it was like the factory for some god awful smells. She made junior happy, but I swear her stink is still on me. Kind of sexy in a way, but funky.
I was with this guy one time and when it started to get intimate , he had his clothes off , I did not and I could smell his ass like 10 day old shit! I swear he forgot to wipe his ass. OMG! I just could NOT get my clothes off, THANK GOD my cell phone rang and I pretended I had an emergency ..lol.. NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!