Holy Halitosis~Co-worker Hygiene

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   StormRyderposted 15 years ago

   OOP's I accidentally deleted the first posting of this.
   
   Do you or have you ever had to work closely with anyone who is just not keeping up on their personal hygiene as you would like? Bad breath and body odor being the most common I would think. What is the best why of dealing with these hygiene offenders in the work place?

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      LaViejaposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Yep! Been there. A colleague had serious body odour, every day. He changed his clothes daily but still smelt. As colleagues we tried to ignore it -he seemed to be aware of it because we could tell he had also used aftershave/deoderants, but to no avail. In the end the manager had to talk to him about it because the customers were beginning to make written complaints about his smell. It turned out he had some kind of medical problem which thankfully is now sorted. I think you have to be careful because although you automatically think "bad hygiene" sometimes there is an underlying medical reason. That's my experience anyway!

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      cosetteposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      i worked with this one guy who had severe gum disease. it was so bad if he got near you at all, it was unbearable. i just kept any meetings i had with him as brief as possible, handling a lot of things in email first. one of the guys in the other section would leave breath mints in his mail slot, which he never used, apparently. finally one day he announced that he was taking a leave of absence to have some dental work done and when he came back, no more odor. he also got a girlfriend!

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         StormRyderposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         I know that medical reasons can cause much of these things but some are just poor hygiene. I work with one guy that will go to the gym during lunch and appearantly not shower before returning to work..nasty smelling by 1:30-2:00. Makes for a not so pleasant afternoon. On the same note another co-worker ( who is asian ) goes out to lunch and comes back smelling like whatever the hell he ate..it's so strong!! Things like this make it hard to work around these people and I don't want to come right out and say "Hey you really stink"..lol
         I have tried passing around mints or gum with the one guy but it doesn't help, he still has horrid breath..

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