Stinky Smoking Colleague

[SniffsAndSneezes]

I work in an office and share a desk with a colleague who smokes. About 3 times an hour he'll go outside for 5 minutes, have a cigarette and when he comes in he absolutely stinks to high heaven, to the point where I'm almost gagging. I'm just so aware of breathing it in, and of that smell going on my clothes and in my hair. And when I go out for lunch he'll be there, 2 feet from the building entrance puffing away, forcing everyone coming in or going out to walk through a cloud of smoke. It makes me so angry!

WIBU to speak to him about it? I unfortunately can't switch desks and sit somewhere else.

If you took up smoking too, you wouldn't notice the smell any more AND you could claim the same breaks. Win-win!

A few teensy downsides to that win-win suggestion...but if you ignore them it's worth a shot

The woman at the next desk from me used to smoke and she smelled awful after. She would then spray cheap perfume, creating an even more hideous miasma.
It was a very happy day for me when she was made redundant.

Not sure why the OP is getting so many sneeeeery responses.

Actually a lot of the 'sneery' responses are from non-smokers like me who just think she's being a bit of a baby...

FFS

Get over yourself .. Makes you gag ? a smell ? Precious much.

You all got your way, smoking inside BANNED .

Suck it up.

Or not in some hysterical cases

TBH my main reason for ridiculing the OP was not that she doesn't like the smell of smoke but more the fact she was complaining the smell of smoke was getting in her hair and clothes from the fact that she was sitting near this individual. Fair enough if he was actually smoking near her, but no - just sitting near here. You don't 'catch smells' like that. If someone near you smells of BO you don't suddenly start smelling of BO.

Buy him an e cig and some body spray.
Smokers reek. Absolutely fucking reek and those who are saying it's not a problem obviously don't spend much time with one

I don't think anyone was debating whether or not smokers smell, I think people were just saying the OP doesn't have a right to dictate what someone smells like.

I said upthread I really hate strong perfume (I actually think all perfume stinks) but I would never say that people shouldn't wear it. That's not my choice.

TBH for me the smell of body spray would be worse than the smell of smoke.

To quote Rachel down there - suck it up (yawn). I don't like the stink of smoke, so I would (after having a word with you/ trying to move) spray air freshener/perfume/whatever. The smoker is causing the original stink - tough if someone decides to combat that.

sir but I hate air freshener and perfume. So if I was the third person in the office WIBU say please don't do that, as I hate the smell?

also I'm not a smoker, so I wouldn't be the stinking one.

Then I would point you in the direction of the root cause - ie the smoker. Once he had dealt with his smoking habit then I would stop spraying air freshener. Easy peasy. In the meantime you would have to 'suck it up' and stop being so precious/entitled/princessy/hystetical/insert whatever boringly predictable word you choose.

erm

you're being a bit contradictory. I would be princessy to not like the smell of air freshener, but the OP is not being princessy to not like the smell of smoke?

In any case you're clearly not reading my posts properly as I expressly stated on several occasions that just because I don't like a smell it doesn't mean that I have to dictate that others use it/like it/smell of it.

This is coming from someone pregnant and very smell averse at the moment. But that's my problem, not other people's.

IMHO the 'hysterical' ones are the ones getting so high and mighty over a smell...

erm

No, I'm not. It doesn't bother you? Excellent. It bothers other people - 'cos it fucking stinks. If that stink is met with air freshener then so be it.

....Ok, I can see you're not actually going to answer my argument.

I would hate the situation you describe - I seem to have retained my keen pregnancy nose and can pick up scents that everyone else misses.

You need to ask to move to another room or straight-out ask him to hang around outside for a bit to let the smell dissipate.

It's not "princessy" or "hysterical" to strongly dislike the smell of cigarettes - it's your brain telling you that you're breathing in something noxious.

Try Googling "third-hand smoke".

I don't love the smell of smoke but I don't love the smell of some perfume either. I don't have a right to dictate if they smoke or wear perfume. As long as someone is not spraying perfume in my face, ditto smoke, surely it's just one of those things. Smells we dislike are part of life, as any regular commuter on the underground will tell you.

I have answered your 'argument', such as it was - you just didn't like what I said.

Surely perfume is something that is generally accepted to smell nice (that is the point of perfume is it not?) and cigarette smoke is something that is generally accepted to smell not nice.

Massive amounts of perfume that others can strongly smell all the time/ frequently spraying it when close to others = not nice, and you shouldn't be doing it.

Massive amounts of smoking / smell of cigarette smoke being so strong on you that it is smellable to others near you all the time = not nice and you shouldn't be doing it.

I think using air freshener to cover up the smoke smell is probably futile, and I don't particularly like massive amounts of air freshener either, but air freshener is a generally nice smell designed to counter generally not nice smells, like smoke. So I think the air freshener user would have the edge of reasonableness here over the smoker.

The hypothetical Colleague C who hates colleague B's air freshener smell more than colleage A's smoke smell throws a spanner in the works though!

Colleague C would have to do what an earlier poster suggested. Don't like the smell? Suck it up...etc etc