This Scent-Free initiative backfired; the office started to smell like the back-end of a sweaty taco truck.
@pexels.com
July 9, 2019
"Personal hygiene is an awkward topic," explained Sam, HR Manager at Stuff-It Media, "the last thing I want to do is directly confront someone about how they smell. Thank god for the invention of broad office-wide policies!"
Sam explained, "it all started last month when I received a complaint regarding a colleague's offensive use of Chanel Coco Mademoiselle Eau De Parfum. I knew I had to take action right away. I googled how to create a scent-free work environment, and I came across a free policy template. By noon I had 'scent' the policy to the entire office (196 employees). I made it clear in the policy that no one is allowed to use any scented deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, soap, lotions, lip-balm, detergent (clothes and dish), perfume, cologne, eau de toilette, gum, mints, food, beard-oil, or toilet spray. Our organizational policies all include my favourite clause, a strict non-compliance clause, which leads to immediate dismissal."
Sammy, marketing manager at Stuff-It, described the experience, "rather than scent-free, that disgusting month is now memorably referred to as Scent-MONAS 'Musty Old Nut and Ass Stew." I would come home at night, ripe from the day stewing in the sweltering office (someone complained about how the A/C dried out their eyes, and now we have an anti-AC policy). My children wouldn't come near me until I had my water-only shower and use unscented talcum powder. I am a large 300-pound man, unscented talcum doesn't cut it, it just doesn't cut it! I still have nightmarish flashbacks every time I catch a whiff of a Taco-Bell express. The smells, oh, the smells... once they get into you.. you breathe it, you taste it, it becomes a part of you and creates a deep festering psychological wound."
When asked why people didn't just purchase all new scent-free shampoos, conditioners, deodorants, powders, lotions, detergents, perfume, cologne, eau de toilette, gum, mints, food, beard-oil, and toilet sprays, they said that a misguided policy created on the whim of one complaint required severe retaliation.
The office has returned back to a nose-blind assault of smells, some good, some bad, but nothing as wrong as Eau de MONAS.
xx E.M Munster