My boss reprimanded me and some of my other coworkers for avoiding a smelly coworker.

[joel666]

I am a 34 year old male and i work as a web developer. I am fairly good at it my work and get along with most other coworkers.

But there is this one coworker that started 2 months ago. I will refer to him as tom.

Tom is good at his job but there is problem with him.

Ever since i met him for the first time, he always had a strong stench to him. His odor is a mix of weed and unwashed body odor and on top of that, his breath smells really bad.

But i always tried being polite but me and some of my other coworkers who also noticed how bad he smells avoid him but we tried not to be rude about it.

For examples. When tom would sit near us, my coworkers and me would tell each other "why don't we go seat over there. This table is a lot cleaner. Why don't we use this computer instead. This one is kinda slow. When you come back from the bathroom, join us on that other table next to the window.

And when we would be in the lunch break room, we would stand there, wait and see where tom would sit and we would make sure not to sit next to him.

But on the bad luck that he would sit right in front of us, i would cover my nose with my hand. And my other coworkers would do the same.

But again we try not to show our disgusts. We don't gag or make any disgusted facial expressions.

But just a week ago, our bosse called me into his office and he tells me that tom feels excluded and me and the other coworkers are creating a toxic work environment and my clique attitude will nog be tolerated.

I admitted to my boss why we avoid him. I told him that i cannot stand the stench coming off tom.

My boss argued and said this is disrespectful and he could very well have a health condition that causes him to smell unpleasant.

My other coworkers later told me that they also got reprimanded.

How would you deal with this ? Health or not, i cannot stand smelly people. I try not to be rude but when someone smells bad my first instinct is to avoid them.

That one sentence sums up your attitude, and it doesn’t excuse your behaviour. If the smell is down to a medical condition which qualifies as a disability under the Equality Act then he has legal protection, and you and your buddies are illegally discriminating against him. If it continues to the point where he no longer feels able to work there because you’re making things difficult for him, he may be able to sue for constructive dismissal.

I had a colleague that smelled of urine and unfortunately with me being short and him being tall I was around the perfect height to be close to his crotch region where the smell was strongest. One day I accidentally said my thoughts out loud “you stink of piss” and with me and him being the only ones in the room we both knew I was talking about him.

I was so ashamed of myself but quickly followed up with “Does your washing machine work properly? I had an issue with my clothes coming out smelly so I cleaned out the filter and put xyz liquid in it and ran a 90 degree cycle and that fixed my issue”

Luckily he went with my idea that the washing machine was an issue and we talked more about how to clean it and he never smelled again!

Sometimes honesty is the best way to deal with these things I found out that day but in a more sensitive manner than my blurting it out or your way of making him feel left out.

No I'm not a 'school bully' and wouldn't involve anyone else but I think the retching when he sat down next to me might be a bit of a giveaway, along with standing up and moving desks straight away.

FGS. The boss needs to step up and deal with Tom. If he stinks of weed then it's pretty obvious what's at the root of this. BUT the OP and her co-workers should have raised it with the boss at the start.

Lexilexci

GREAT SAVE

Kudos for getting yourself out of that one AND solving the problem at the same time!!! Now that's the kind of smart thinking I wish I was capable of.

You ARE being rude, and you ARE picking on him. Why couldn’t you have spoken to your manager and asked them to sensitively raise this with ‘Tom’? You have no idea what’s going on in the background and it’s obvious you’ve mentioned the fact he smells of weed because you think it justifies your horrible behaviour.

I'm astounded too. OP hasn't dealt with the situation in a particularly mature way but I gave up reading when someone suggested creating a rota of who had to sit with stinky Tom.

It's the job of a boss or HR to have the difficult conversations with employees. From what's been described it's not sometimes forgetting deodorant or coming to work a bit sweaty after the gym. It's someone who consistently stinks and it's highly unpleasant.

If you've not been on the other end of it it's hard to imagine how it is. I'm also in IT and have seen this. There was someone who sat in the same room as me that everyone knew stank. They wore the same clothes Monday to Friday (or had 5 identical stinky outfits) and the whole room stank. It had been raised with managers multiple times and occasionally new people would join the room and raise it. But nothing ever changed and we had to put up with it. Nobody was ever actively mean but we all knew it was them and tried to avoid sitting with them.

It is really unpleasant and makes concentrating on work very difficult.

Some people on this thread have the emotional intelligence of a slug and that includes the OP.

The team manager needs to deal with it, and if they're incapable they need training and/or someone to manage it appropriately.

If course it's not easy but a discussion is needed as there may be underlying issues not a telling someone that they stink 🙄

A girl arrived at our school. She had awful BO we were all teenagers so decided in lunch break to have the deodorant, bathing conversation. What soap, shampoo, deodorant does everyone prefer. Just a chatty comparison.

She didn't use deodorant, shave under her arms, had a bath now and again. Her parents weren't poor before anyone asks. But she had lived in Germany for many years, so we thought perhaps it was a cultural thing.

One hot day after netball, we all went for a shower bar her. We all were whiffy. I was nominated to tell her. Which I did as tactfully as I could. She cried. The pe teacher who also taught female hygiene, menstruation, puberty talks overheard us and sent me off.

She later thanked me. Thinking back I wondered why this teacher hadn't said anything to her.

The equality act only requires you to make reasonable accommodations. Requiring your workforce to put up with a smell that they hate whenever they are there isn’t reasonable. It will make it much harder to keep a talented staff as people will leave for similar jobs where they don’t have to put up with an awful work environment.

OP should have approached his manager rather than being rude to his colleague. But the manager needs to find a solution that works for everyone. Telling his staff to put up with it is not going to work.

Nope. Smoking cannibis is illegal, even with a prescription. You have to have it in oil, gummies, or a vape. When it's vaped, it's vapourised and has no smell.

Yanbu

I'd be complaining to your managers boss about your manager who is not doing his job.
There is NO wayost people can woek productively around a smell as bad as you describe and by failing to address it with that employee your manager is failing you.

With respect, it doesn’t sound like you’ve ever been on the receiving end of that conversation, or had to deal with knowing all of your colleagues are talking about you.

That too, is deeply unpleasant.

You are an arsehole

Why bother posting about this, only to argue back with all of the responses?

I wonder how you would feel if you were being treated like this at work...

It might not be kind but I cannot stand B.O I am ND and strong horrible smells make me heave. I have strong sensory issues.

Your boss should really have a delicate word with him.

I'm sorry he feels left out but he must be nose blind to himself. This is on your boss to sort out. If he won't, go above him.

Just don't say anything unkind to tom but tbh, I'd avoid him too. I cannot help my reactions to strong smells. I do the same with people who spray themselves too much as well.

A lack of personal hygiene is often linked to depression. The management team need to have a well being check-in with him and offer/suggest support, like counselling etc. it needs to be handled sensitively and with care.

I’ve worked in offices where people complain about the smell of a colleagues food! Smells can be extremely distracting and although I don’t think the OP has gone about things in the best way, he certainly shouldn’t be expected just to ‘suck it up’. It would be a massive disservice to the man in question if his lack of hygiene was just dismissed and not spoken about. Some people slip under the radar because people are so afraid to say the wrong thing.

But surely you didn’t wear the same clothes 5 days in a row? If you did then you really can’t be surprised that your colleagues were talking to each other about the smell.

I can’t wear the same clothes any days in a row, even if I wanted to. Nothing I own is ever reworn.

I just don’t believe that people are “stinky” for no reason. Could be a financial reason, living arrangement issues, mental health - anything.

Regardless of the reason, a bit of general compassion wouldn’t go amiss!

If the boss can also smell him, it's up to the boss to sort it.

We had a new woman start at work once and she was great but had a horrendous armpit smell. Eventually the boss plucked up the courage to tell her and she was mortified. From the next day she came in fresh as a daisy and the problem never returned.

So it really could be as simple as that. Some people just aren't aware - either they have a poor sense of smell, or they have just always filtered their own smell out.

I can’t believe that some people are saying that OP is bullying. This is a line management issue, and the line manager needs to have a word with ‘Tom’ (who is, quite simply, a dirty stoner). Crikey, I’d be staying as far away as possible from him as well.

You’re all being horrific but your boss needs to make him ware of his hygiene.

Glad someone gets where i am coming from. You dont have to spray perfume. I personally dont spray cologne on me because they give me headaches but its not complicated to shower with soap and use deodorant afterwards.

I think everyone gets where you are coming from.🙄