How to tell a colleague that they have BO
A few months ago, I joined a small company. Before I joined, my department only had one other employee.
Our roles are quite similar and regularly requires us to do outdoor site inspections, sometimes together. She’s a larger individual and hence sweats quite abit when we’re out.
The thing is our shared office is literally a small windowless room with only one old AC. There’s only two of us working in the room and the smell can really be quite unbearable sometimes especially since the air is stale to begin with.
I’ve tried bringing in a small desk fan/ diffuser to try and solve the problem on my own but she has said that the fan is noisy and the diffuser doesn’t really help.
I don’t want to bring up to her directly because I worry that she may have some condition that she can’t help/ may feel embarrassed later.
I am also not that close to her due to our difference in age and we rarely talk outside of work. My current solution is to wear a face-mask with perfume in it but it gets very stuffy.
Any ideas on how to politely broach this topic to her? Or no choice just suck thumb
Netizens’ comments
- This one is hard. Maybe you can talk to your boss and get some advice? If your boss can help resolve the stale air issue it’s better or just tell your boss or your colleague you feel uncomfortable w how stale the air is and prefer having a fan in the office to help move the air around.
- just ask, and be as explaining as in this post? if one party state record incase she is mental. in my case I can not always smell my self, and I am mortified when someone finally tells me I am smelling. but if she worked alone for a long time, and stopped paying attention, she may not know, or she may not care, but its hard to tell.
I kinda feel talking to a boss may be overkill, like if I was mortified being told by a peer, having it go up the chain and a boss coming out to talk to me will be crushing.
The other issue is you new and she is established. was she used to working alone?
This is a hard thing to deal with , but I feel assuming the other person will be reasonable is the best best for first attempt. If she starts to argue, or doesn’t immediately go omg and get red faced or something that shows they actually care, then immediately drop it, give it a few weeks to see if she changes while acting like she wasn’t doing anything wrong so she can save face.
if after a week or so she doesn’t show any improvement then talk to boss if still no change. Maybe make up a excuse to have boss visit office. Like boss I need to show you something on computer, show them, let them soak in the ambiance. THEN Go Oh hey I have an important thing to discuss privately, could we go to your office. have the meeting and explain the fake reason for getting them in office. ( depends on boss. like not saying to ambush a good boss, but one of the good but lazy bosses may need this type of kick in the but to care. if your boss is a bad one, good luck on any rout you choose.)