Crisis phone call from Smoothie this morning. He is president of his class, and there is a student who stinks to high heaven and the other students are telling him he has to tell the guy to clean up his act. I told him this is one of the most common workplace/school problems, and yet nobody ever seems to know the correct way to approach it. I told him to talk to the vice-principal, who Smoothie is very friendly with, and see what she suggests.
Why do we have such a huge fear of offending somebody whose smell offends us? Any ideas? poetic or otherwise. References to Peppy LePew will be lost on this student because he is not from a Western culture and will not get them.
Another odd point which intrigues me, the stinky student is married, so does his wife also stink? Or does she tolerate him? And if she does not stink, why isn't she telling her husband to take a bath already?
6 comments:
Not long ago, a commercial for Axe,
Had some girls launching water attacks
On some greasy, dirty, mess of a guy
Who came out looking rather fly.
JAW fan
(use the above information at your own discretion)
Ugh I know this all too well. I've had to do this a couple of times. In my opinion only way to do it is to be calm and stick to facts. Do not use jokes to lighten the mood. The person will be offended no matter what so I just say what the prosblem is and suggest one or two solutions and discuss as best I can. They do usually get over it. His wife might have bad allergies or something and can't smell his stinky self....
how stinky is stinky?
Nobody will work in a team with the guy. They are supposed to work on machinery in teams of 2, and everyone including Smoothie had to tell the guy they would work somewhere else.
The guy had been told about the problem a few months ago, and he cleaned up, but now the problem has come back. So at least when it is brought up again, it won't be the first "talk".
I feel sorry for this guy. Maybe he is poor. A starving smelly student.
The guy is a poor immigrant. In addition to school in the day, he takes French classes at night, which apparently causes him to fall asleep during the day in class. It's a tough immigrant story. This being said, there's no reason the guy can't shower at least a couple of times a week.
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