Jaffe

A smelly dilemma

Here's my hypothetical smellemma:

Let's say there are two people at your work who emit, as Charles Barkley once said in an Old Spice commercial, malodorous emanations. The emanations are different - one is a pungent body odor, and the other is an amazingly powerful bad breath. You can smell either of the odors as soon as you enter the office (it's a big office), and the smells remain long after each offender leaves. Thankfully these people aren't actually in the same office as you, so you only have to deal with this every so often, but each time it happens you wonder whether you should pull the fire alarm so everyone can go outside and get some fresh air.

What would you do? Do you quietly ask the person with the bad breath if they would like a piece of gum? Do you ask the person with really bad b.o. if they would like a bar of soap?

Labels: etiquette, social commentary

posted by Aron @ 5:34 PM