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.

Exactly. It's absolutely not the same thing.

I don't think you and your co-workers are at fault. I think your boss is the problem here as he needs to deal with it properly. The boss needs to have a frank conversation with Tom and say to him that his personal hygiene doesn't seem great, is there anything causing this.

Actually I also had a web developer in my team who had awful BO, no one wanted to work with him and staff complained. One Friday last afternoon I had a meeting with him and gently told him that he had a bad odour in the office, and was there a problem that he needed help with. It was obviously an embarrassing conversation (hence why I did it on a Friday so we could forget about it by Monday). He said he had no problems apart form he didn't always bother to shower and reused clothes but he didn't know it was a problem. All credit to him he took it seriously and must have regularly showered and laundered his clothes and team harmony was restored as there was no more stench. So I think this is on your boss to have a conversation with Tom!

I wouldn't want to be around someone that stinks of weed and body odor either. Your boss is obviously too spineless to tactfully address it, i would avoid involving other co-workers in anything though, just sit elsewhere yourself.

All you had to do was raise the issue to your boss and it's up to your boss to deal with.

I don't see this as bullying - would you want to be stuck sitting beside someone who stinks?!!

However, you're gone about it the wrong way! The colleagues should have raised this with the line manager, whose job it is to speak to Tom and ask him to improve his personal hygiene.

Does the line manager not notice that Tom stinks?!

You should've emailed your manager and HR straight away, before you started avoiding him, to cover yourself,

I'm waiting for the "he's a big fat fatty" drip feed.

Or he might not if he stinks of weed.

Blimey so it’s okay for Tom to be a dirty stinky stoner but the op is ‘bullying him’ for not wanting to sit near him and smell his foul stench?
The world has gone mad. Time for Tom to take some personal responsibility and think why people don’t want to sit near him, and for boss to actually do his job and manage his staff.
Instead we have a world where everyone has to ‘be kind’ in case the poor little didums gets upset.

I don't believe you are 34. You sound like a child.
Why didn't you address the problem in the proper way by talking to your line manager?
You have a right to being comfortable in the office, and you have a responsibility to handle conflict in the proper way.

Why should they?? He stinks and they’re supposed to be ok with it? You are seriously weird if you think that’s ok!

Don't be so ridiculous. He's not stupid. It's quite clear by your behaviour you're excluding him

You sound about 12 the way you're behaving

You are massively picking on him you exclude him and you do so very obviously. I can't believe you stand and watch where he sits then go sit far away, as a group 😳
The more mature way to have handled this would have been to share the load between you - take turns sitting at the closest desk to him (no matter how bad he smells no way are you smelling it strongly several desks away) so that it's maybe only 1 day in 3 or 4 you are sat right by him, ventilate the office well, and at lunch a couple of you sit with 'tom' while others maybe take a slightly later lunch break and rotate the responsibility in a non pattern way.
You lot have behaved so nastily.

And why shouldn’t they be? He STINKS!!

This happened with a young girl in our office many years ago - the manager spoke to her after complaints from the rest of us and she never came to work again - I always felt bad about it to this day

Maybe Tom should self-reflect. I refuse to believe people would be OK with a stinky co-worker. OP made the mistake to let posters know he's a man.

I cant eat around people who stink.

I know someone doing some version of a keto diet and they stink so much😭
I could never eat while sitting next to them either

@joel666 Out of both ignorance & unkindness you & your colleagues have dealt with this situation both cruelly and badly. Your boss is correct to reprimand you all on how you handled it.
The question going forward is, rather than repeating the same thing in your answers over & over, you need to ask yourself what are you going to do to resolve this situation? You can learn by this by recognising that you were all in the wrong. Your responses were both childish & ultimately unhelpful. You are presumably an adult & not a 10 year old.

I’m struggling to believe this is true now. No one can be as dense and moronic as the OP is claiming to be.

‘A spineless shit’?? Charming! And not helpful!

You have totally disregarded any comments that have criticised your behaviour or asked why you haven’t gently spoken to the person and explained. Too late now. You approach him to have an adult conversation now will just push you deeper into this hole.

you are a bully. Your behaviour to exclude is bullying. You think you have been smart with all these excuses but people see through that especially when it happens every single time.

continue with this behaviour and you’ll get a grievance against you. Your response will not stack up against that.

the fact that you are also doing this with others is horrendous.

he may well smell but your actions are bullying.

Awful behaviour from you and your work mates. Someone needs to have agrbtje word with Tom though.

I am totally amazed at how many people here would sit and have lunch with someone who smells! I physically couldn’t eat beside someone who had BO, I’d be gagging involuntarily. There is zero excuse for shit personal hygiene in this day and age! The boss needs to chat with Tom about this and reach a solution where no one is uncomfortable at work. While the OP and his friends haven’t been the most polite or sensitive, they could easily argue that Tom is creating an unhealthy and unpleasant working atmosphere!

Even your use of the word 'stink' is so vociferous and makes you sound a really nasty individual. Why not be a bit more mature and say 'i can't eat around strong odours'.
You need to grow up and stop being a nasty piece of work - the fact you've been warned by a senior should tell you your behaviour is unacceptable.