Please take a bath.

[XCashier]

I would spray it while she was in there. Then say DAMN SOMETHING STINKS!!!

Walk in, sniff theatrically, say, "Hot damn! What stinks in here?!" Look directly in the offender's eyes and say, "Oh, it's you." Then spray Lysol all around her. If she doesn't get the hint even after that, she's hopeless.

Seriously, though, the boss should pull her aside and give her the "clean up your act" lecture. An unpleasant job, yes, but that's what the boss gets the big bucks for; to do the unpleasant jobs.

[blas]

Smelly people drive me insane. How much does it really cost to buy a bar of soap and a stick of deoderant? For the love of cheese.....

[BookstoreEscapee]

I had a coworker who had to be spoken to at least a couple times that I know of. I don't envy the manager who had to do it...

[myswtghst]

We had a couch-crasher at a friends house in college who we'd spray with Febreeze when he was passed out/not paying attention. It didn't fix the problem, but it made it bearable to be around the idjit.

[Elandora]

My mom's old boss had a horrible odor problem, but not because he didn't bathe, it was because he didn't use any sort of soap or shampoo or laundry detergent. Just water. Same for his clothes and teeth and everything. If you tried to ask him why, he'd launch into an explanation about how the government puts chemicals into the things that have a mindcontrol effect, and he was going to be certain that he had his own free will XD

My sister also had a coworker that had a head trauma at some point in her life, she would forget to bathe, but when she got smelly, management would instruct her to go home, bathe, and come back. She was never offended, she would simply forget.

A friend of mine was also fired from her fast food job after a month due to body odor. The management was tactful though and said it was because she wasn't friendly/smiling to the customers.

I've never seen a customer kicked out for being smelly though... though we did kick out a regular customer for leaving his tray, newspaper, and sandwich wrappers on the table every single day for the last x number of years he'd been coming in every morning. After this he transformed into the perfect customer, and wiped his booth down himself.

[Shabo]

I think I worked with her, Pepperelf...

Does T stand for Tania? And was she a horrendously stuck-up and snotty?

[TryNotToBeThatOne]

There are some people who have horrible skin reactions to deodorants etc. Some. One of my friends has to use unscented everything because the perfumes make her break out in hives.

For these people there are solutions: use deodorant crystals (which use alum, etc) or bath more frequently. If necessary, go to the fricking bathroom, take some damp towels into a stall with you & wash your stinking pits! Ahem. No worries. I'm calm.

For those other stank-meisters: it's called hygiene. Learn it & love it.

As a con-goer (sci fi, etc), I am quite familiar with that phenomenon known as 'gamer funk.' It can be notoriously bad. At one large convention, this group of people made a killing with a 'febreze booth.' For $1, they'd give you an all-over spray. For $5, they'd spray someone else. I've heard, although maybe it's apocrophyl (wouldn't bet on that), that at least one table took up a collection to get a guy sprayed. I know one woman that I would have paid $5 of my hard-earned money to have sprayed. Whew, just walking next to her was torture.

[BlaqueKatt]

As a con-goer (sci fi, etc), I am quite familiar with that phenomenon known as 'gamer funk.' It can be notoriously bad. At one large convention, this group of people made a killing with a 'febreze booth.' For $1, they'd give you an all-over spray. For $5, they'd spray someone else.

wow when I went to Gen-Con with the hubby(he had a MTG tournament to be in)-most of the vendors had signs stating something to the effect of "if you have not bathed or used deodorant within the last 24 hours we will not serve you-you stink go shower-NOW!"

I found it kind of frightening that they had to have signs for this.

[petslave]

Ooooh man. I worked as barn staff at a summer camp, and some of those kids just didn't get the concept of a shower.

The worst offender though? The assistant director's wife! I was friends with her daughter, and the girl told me her mother wouldn't let any of the women in the family use deoderant because she thinks it causes breat cancer . This woman was working outside in the sun all day, and probably not showering on a regular basis either, but couldn't seem to graps the fact that she stunk! Being next to her was sheer torture.

Another pet peeve? Women at 'that time of the month' who don't shower/change pads often enough. Ladies, I shouldn't know if you've started your cycle by your smell. Frankly, that's just wrong.

[LadyAndreca]

My fiance is one of those people who's allergic to standard deoderant. (It might be the perfume, because we have to use unscented detergent, too.) His solution was to shop around until he found a few 'all natural' ones, and used those instead.

I can't stand excessive BO. It makes me feel physically sick, to the point where I have to remove myself from the area or risk gagging, or worse, throwing up.

[mischugenah]

well....

For those that wonder 'don't they notice how they smell?', the simple answer is, no, they don't. Just like any other sense, the nose can become habituated to about anything. I discovered this while hiking with friends in Colorado as a teen-- 10 teens out hiking for a month, on 3-ft snowpack, so bathing wasn't an option. But we didn't smell at all, it was strange. At least, that's what we thought until we got back into basecamp and showered-- and suddenly realized all our gear reeked!
So no, they don't notice. They're used to it.

[guywithashovel]

Just think everyone, in centuries past, almost everyone probably smelled like these aromatic SCs. Daily bathing and putting on clean clothes every day are actually pretty recent social customs, coming about around the time when people could get running water in their homes. Heck, back in the Middle Ages, most people only bathed about once a year. Imagine how those people must have smelled!

One time, I was watching this show on some cable network. It was a series that features this woman who travels around and does little documentaries (not sure if that's the best word or not) about the places she visits. On this occasion, she was visiting this town in Scotland. When talking about this section that was built back in the 1500s, she said that the buildings were apartment dwellings, and the people that lived there would empty their chamber pots out their windows and into the streets every day. I bet those streets smelled really interesting on warm summer days. Couple that with people who only bathe once or twice a year.

So...I guess these foul-smelling customers could have gotten away with their lackluster bathing habits several hundred years ago. But these days, we've gotten ourselves used to living in a society where everyone bathes and smells nice and clean. They need to get with the program---or maybe get in a time machine and go back to fourteenth-century Europe where everyone smelled like they do.

[cinema guy]

When talking about this section that was built back in the 1500s, she said that the buildings were apartment dwellings, and the people that lived there would empty their chamber pots out their windows and into the streets every day.

That was petty much standard practice everywhere.

[TryNotToBeThatOne]

wow when I went to Gen-Con with the hubby(he had a MTG tournament to be in)-most of the vendors had signs stating something to the effect of "if you have not bathed or used deodorant within the last 24 hours we will not serve you-you stink go shower-NOW!"

I found it kind of frightening that they had to have signs for this.

X-Play was at a big convention, I think that it was San Diego Comic-Con, and they had the equivalent of a PSA. 'if, in this sea of bodies, you have room to swing your arms; dude, it's not because of your awesome game-godedness. It's because of your awesome BO.'

[blas]

I'm sure some of you guys have had to train or deal with really smelly coworkers...

I've had a few smelly trainees. Mostly because I believe they really could not afford even a bar of soap (but a pack of cigarettes was always in the budget!).

It takes a lot of gumption and courage to continue to work with these people, night after night, having to smell the stench......I mean when some people are so smelly that it lingers or hangs around a certain radius.......gaah!