Office B.O.

We’ve all had experiences of people with bad body odour. I mean at this time of year it’s a given that the afternoon rush hour on the tube is going to be spent in the shadow of someone else’s smell.

To an extent though, it doesn’t matter so much with the tube. You know that within a matter of stops you will be outside. No, the problem is when it’s someone you work with who sits near you and there isn’t an escape. Maybe it’s an English thing where people are afraid to say something out of fear of seeming rude. But they then get over this by telling everyone else in the office about it – a problem shared and all the rest, which passes the buck on to someone else to say something. A few years ago I was working in a temp job. One day a new girl started and was seated next to me. She seemed nice and was quite pretty, BUT, and this is a big but – she had a BO problem of the sort that Shaun Ryder in the jungle could only dream of. Other people noticed it too and it was only a brief matter of time before someone told a team leader, who then took her to one side. I imagined that he’d be discreet - that she’d get the message and the next day she’d come into work smelling of potpourri. As it turned out he told her that “People have noticed something – basically, you stink.” Needless to say, she didn’t turn up for work the next day and the rest of the office felt suitably guilty.

The memory of that time came back a little while ago. I’d been working within close proximity of a girl for a number of weeks and we got on quite well. I also happened to know one of her close friends, who was someone I’d worked with in the past. The thing was though, that the girl had a bit of a BO problem. Not all the time, but one day she came in and it was very strong. At first, I thought ‘Ok it’s just a bit of BO, long day and she was a bit off target this morning with the Right Guard’. But then day 2 came along and it’s the same story and then day 3 and day 4, before I had stop and think ‘Shit, I’m going to have to say something.’ What could I say though? The memory of the poor girl in the temp office was all I could think of.

Then, I remembered her friend. Maybe I could suggest that she speak to her in a quiet girly one on one. Maybe if I could arrange that then there would be every reason to imagine that the girl would be fresh as a daisy and ignorant to the fact that anyone else had noticed.

Sure enough, a few days later, it happened. She came into work looking fresh and smelling lovely and carried on looking fresh and smelling lovely. At the time, we had a lot on at work, which is why I initially put her slight aloofness down to stress. But the quieter she was around me, the more curious I grew about the change in her and wondered what it was that her friend had said. After all, she was a nice girl and I would have hated for her to feel embarrassed in anyway. I took her friend out for lunch and asked her what she had said in her girly chat to make such a change. Had it been the quiet ‘look I’ve just noticed something’ whisper in the ear, that I’d hoped?

“I told her that you said she stank” she said. “Ha ha” I said, “very funny, what did you really say?”

Sadly, that was what she had really said. She didn’t get my reasons for asking her to speak to the girl in the first place and the girl, rather predictably was annoyed at me for having talked about her, albeit with good intentions. I learned my lesson though. Next time, don’t faff, just come out and say what’s on your mind. And the silver lining – well, these days the only thing she smells of is Chanel.