….And maybe not.
Ever have one of those moments of pure, undiluted embarrassment where you swear you could curl up and fit yourself into a paper towel tube?
I had one of those this morning.
Some of you reading this have already been privy to it, but I felt I had to write about it. It happened a couple of hours ago, but I still feel bad.
There's a guy here at work that occasionally comes in and smells a little stale...like he hasn't really bathed in a few days. Not stinky, just like he hasn't really sudsed up enough, or just thought that because he hadn’t been active in a day or so that bathing wasn’t needed. Plus his clothes sometimes have that
stale smell like they've been wadded up and not washed for awhile, or even slept in for a few days. Like he wore the t-shirt and sweatpants to bed for a few nights, then got up too late to change – or just didn’t see the point.
He doesn’t reek or stink; my friend and co-worker Keith and I used to work with a guy at Stream who smelled utterly rotten. Like his own body odor and oils had soured and gone bad. I thought he had dark brown hair, until one day he came in, oddly and surprisingly washed, and I discovered his hair was actually basically blond. He always seemed to wear the same pants (which had greasy marks on his thighs, like he wiped his hands there) and the same two or three shirts.
I once had a three week training with him and had to sit next to him. After three days I went to the instructor (one of the managers for the team I worked on) and said, “You have to let me move to another seat.”
And he knew I was serious. He tried to smother a laugh and be serious, but his eyes were sparking with too much humor when he said, “I can’t let you do that. Besides it can’t be that bad.”
“Clearly you haven’t gotten within 10 feet of him,” I said.
“He smells, I’ll give you that, but it’s not so bad you can’t sit next to him.”
“Clint,” I said, “if you don’t let me change seats I’m filing a complaint for inhuman working standards.”
He laughed and let me move down a seat or two – then to try to prove a point, he sat between the guy and me. He moved after a few minutes back to the front of the room; later, he pulled me aside and said, “Heather, you’re right. It is that bad.”
My co-worker at Stream was spoken to several times, and was eventually fired for his personal hygiene habits – or non-habits, really. The thing was, he was a nice enough guy, but you had to wonder about the mental stability of someone who couldn’t grasp the concept of bathing daily and putting on clean clothes.
So granted, things could be worse.
My fellow co-worker here just occasionally smells a bit (though pungently) stale. He’s a downright rose garden compared to that other fellow.
I have a feeling you might be surmising what happened. So on to what caused me to want to stuff myself into a paper towel tube and wait for a strong wind to roll me away.
I know my co-worker here has been having a rough time personally, and when things like that happen, it can make simple things really difficult – even washing clothes and bathing. But still; it’s something that – at least in our culture – is expected in polite company. For lack of a better way to put it.
It’s been going on for awhile, and apparently a couple of other co-workers have been telling our manager something needs to be said for quite some time, but he hasn’t. Granted, I completely understand it’s an embarrassing, uncomfortable thing to discuss with someone – especially when it’s someone you really like. But the longer something that someone truly needs to know is put off it can build into a potentially humiliating moment for all involved.
Yes, that’s where I come in.
I stepped out of my cube just as my co-worker turned and walked down the hall leading to his cube; he was approximately 10-15 feet ahead of me and I got a whiff of stale clothing.
When I got back to my desk, I opened up a chat window to talk to Keith (my friend from Stream who now works with me here again). Here’s what I said: Bleah. [ ] smells like he's wearing clothes he hasn't washed in a while and as slept in. They have that stale smell.
Keith didn’t reply, which I thought was odd.
Then, to my ultimate horror I saw why: I’d pulled up the chat window for the co-worker, not Keith.
I felt utterly, completely mortified.
I’d feel bad even if it had been someone I didn’t like (that once happened to me in college; I said something about a girl in the dorm I didn’t like, and it got back to her. She confronted me about it and I felt awful; it made me very mindful about gossiping of any kind, especially around potential grapevines.)
Immediately, I said to my co-worker, “I’m so sorry! I’m totally humiliated!”
He wrote back, “You should be embarrassed. Given you haven’t even been near me at all this morning.”
I wasn’t going to try to explain what had happened, given I was already choking on my own ankle. And I sure can’t blame him for being snarky with his reply. I likely would be, too.
But I guess it was meant to happen. At least he knows now -- if not in a kind manner. I just wish he’d been spoken to earlier (by the proper people) so that the potential for something like this had been eradicated.
I apologized profusely, I know he knows I feel bad – and my manager’s going to follow up with him, too. At least it’s happening on a Friday and not a Monday; I guess the Universe manages to hand out small favors from time to time!
But, dear God in Heaven – why did it have to be me that passed along the information?!
I know he’ll (eventually) get over it; we’re friends. And I’ll (eventually) get over the knot of humiliation that’s still slapping around in me. It just came at a really bad time for him, given everything else that’s going on in his life at the moment.
Somehow, though, I don’t think overhearing, “You stink” at any time in your life is a fun thing.
I’m laughing at myself now (though I still feel bad for my co-worker), so at least I’m feeling better about it. But if you see a paper towel tube rolling by later today and see a corner of a denim jacket sticking out of it – that’s just me. I’ll be sure to wave if I can get my arm out.
That way you can hand me some salt to go with my foot; it has a rather bland taste to it this morning.
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