No one ever told him he smelled
I can admit, I have been one of those people who was extremely judgemental towards others before.
It has been very challenging for me to keep my thoughts to myself when I have seen people acting in ways that I didn’t understand.
It’s very easy to see somebody who has different behaviors, different opinions, and even different levels of hygiene from you and assume the worst. However, you have to realize that people simply don’t know what they don’t know. This is what I realized last week when I was talking to one of my smelliest co-workers and finally realized that nobody had ever mentioned his unpleasant indoor air quality to him before. For the longest time I have worked with this guy who has the worst bodily odor. It’s difficult to understand where the stench is coming from with him, because he smells like an accumulation of cooking smells, BO, animal dander, and burnt garbage. Honestly, I have just avoided him as much as possible to avoid his unpleasant air quality. However, the other day we were actually having a conversation when I went to adjust to the office thermostat. As I was messing with the dials for the indoor air temperature control devices, my co-worker mentioned that the heating and cooling system was much more powerful than his own AC unit and furnace. We started talking about indoor air quality control device maintenance and he seemed completely baffled when I mentioned changing the air filter or having a professional duct cleaning. Apparently the guy has never cleaned his heating and cooling system. Apparently he also lives with a lot of roommates and animals. Well, now I feel bad… I think that his body odor was actually coming from his HVAC system.