"you'll smell him well before you see him" (part 2)

[GeneL]

I thought you were talking about "Junior" from "Sin City."

Is this guy's skin yellow-looking?

[cbelt3]

reminds me of my college roomate, Scott (no last name, he's kind of famous in geek circles now).
It was his Freshman year at Engineering school. We shared a 'suite' of rooms- one common room, 6 closet sized bedrooms with their own doors.
After a week we noticed that Scott stank. And didn't bathe. And didn't wash anything. He was about 6'2 and weighed maybe 120 or so. He was a classic geek- high water black polyester pants, white socks, weird plaid short sleeve shirt, pocket protector, and slept with is personal computer (Apple I.. this was 1979).

So we asked him to shower and offered to help him with his laundry. He declined.
We gave him two more days and offered again. He declined.
We went to the store and bout two large scrub brushes, a box of Spic and Span floor cleaner, a towel, a cake of deodorant soap and some industrial strength shampoo (Prell). We called him into the common area, and told him that he had two choices. He could take the towel, soap, and Prell into the shower and take a shower right now, or we would drag him in there, strip him down, and wash him with the scrub brushes and the Spic and Span.
He whined. He complained, He tried to escape into his room. But in the end he went and took a shower. When he was done, we sent him back in and told him to wash his damn hair too. Then we sprayed his room with Lysol, and opened up the rest of the suite to air it out.
This went on for about 4 months until he started bathing regularly. I gave him a winter coat because he didn't own one (Cleveland in the Wintet !), and he was always sick. When we met his Mom at winter break, we discovered, to our horror, that she looked like a female version of him, and stank too.

I tried to explain the corpa sano mensa sano concept, but I don't think she got it.

By the end of the school year he had cleaned up his act, washed his clothes, and washed himself at least three times a week. He still didn't communicate well with humans, but ended up getting a girlfriend (which really amazed all of us).

[BigGuynRusty]

NewDad, if HR knows about this situation, then they are libel for a hostile work evironment, send him to HR every day, give him a note that they want to have a meeting.

BGnR

[Filliam H. Muffman]

You need about 6 people armed with industrial size Febreze botttles and perform an ambush.

[Paul F.]

The company can't be sued for a "hostile work environment" if they next of kin never find his smelly carcass under the new concrete in the parking lot.




I'm just sayin'....

[max]

When Yugoslavia was falling apart, Houston hosted several thousand of Bosnian refugees. We hired several of them. Part of our indoctrination routine was an explanation about weird american habits such as deodorants, personal hygiene, etc. One fellow who we employed as our supply runner/driver, unfortunately failed to follow instructions. That was another reason he became our driver, we needed to get him out of the plant.
However we also used his natural "attributes" to our advantage; we had couple suppliers who lied notoriously about our stuff being ready for pickup, when it was not. We instructed our Bosnian driver to wait for our supplies until they were ready for pickup in the vendor's office.
Since his comprehension of English was almost nonexistant, he did, nor could he be persuaded by quite polite, vendor's employees, that he needed to be outside, on the dock, plant floor, anywhere but their office. His bosses orders were holy writ.
He was also Moslem, bearded, wild looking and boy, did he reek. Effectively we were planting a human bomb.
Yes, it worked; within a week our supplies were really ready to be picked up as scheduled.
Keep in mind that some of these vendors we dealt with for fifteen years and we could never, never get them to be ready for our pickups. Our drivers used to wait on their dock as long as several hours before the supplies were ready. Until the Bosnian.
Even after he left, a mere suggestion that we might send him back for pickup would remedy any backsliding on their part.
The Bosnian stayed with us for three years, then found a job as an 18 wheeler, long distance driver. Eventually, he learned to use a shower, shaved his beard, opened up a bar. He still keeps in touch ...

[GeneL]

Great story, Max.

[rgG]

Gee Max, talk about turning lemons into lemonade. Or maybe turning a skunk into a mink might be a better analogy.

[tuqqer]

lol. Great story, Max. Nicely written.

[Grumpyguy]

Years ago, we had employee that smelled to high heaven. I was probably 18 at the time and worked in a small grocery store. You could smell the dude 3 aisles over. We finally told him to shower. Instead he poured cologne over himself. So not only did he reek, he reeked of BO and cologne. Finally, the entire stocking crew called in sick two days in a row in protest. Manager came in to meet the guy and prompty fired him and called us back to work with a great big sorry : )

Then we had this kindly customer. About thirty, 4 foot 5, but 300 lbs. Cashiers would try to hold their breath, but several of them would barf when checking her out. We would have to follow her down the aisles and spray Lysol...