Go scentless, workers warned after lawsuit

[Judi Lynn]

Go scentless, workers warned after lawsuit
Detroit city employees told not to wear perfume, cologne, aftershave
updated 1 hour, 17 minutes ago

DETROIT - Change is in the air for Detroit city workers.

Officials plan to place warning placards in three city buildings. The signs will warn workers to avoid "wearing scented products, including ... colognes, aftershave lotions, perfumes, deodorants, body/face lotions ... (and) the use of scented candles, perfume samples from magazines, spray or solid air fresheners."

The employee handbook and Americans with Disabilities Act training also will bear warnings.

The Detroit News reports the move stems from a $100,000 settlement in a federal lawsuit filed in 2008 by a city employee who said a colleague's perfume made it challenging for her to do her job.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35871907/ns/business-us_business/

[Teaser]

1. but Detroit already smells so awesome..

.

[Tailormyst]

2. Pretty soon we will all live in sterile cubes

[damyank913]

47. Drinkin spring water and eatin Soylent Green while we look for our mates online.

[Tailormyst]

50. whom we will never touch except in the "virtual" sense

because as we all know, contact with other human beings can sometimes end up in a slight discomfort of some kind and that would be a tragedy.

[damyank913]

56. Why touch when you can have 50 points of compatibility via a questionnaire?

[Tailormyst]

57. LOL

[Fleshdancer]

3. I draw the line at no deodorant

I personally can't smell anything when people do use deodorant, but it can be pretty damn distracting at times when they don't. That's just my opinion though.

[maxsolomon]

7. there is no-scent deodorant

tom's of maine. works pretty durn good.

there IS such a thing as perfume overkill, and in a poorly ventilated office, it could be bad.

[Fleshdancer]

16. I have no problem cutting out the perfumes

but can you really smell when someone is wearing a scented deodorant? I can smell perfume from a good distance, but if someone's armpits smell like powder of flowers, well I have no idea. I'm just wondering who can realistically smell it.

[LeftyMom]

19. It doesn't work.

Well, except to give me a rash.

I have a really strong sense of smell, and I've never noticed the smell of anybody's deodorant except in the first ten minutes or so after they applied it.

[CountAllVotes]

34. I buy Alvera unscented

it is made with aloe and works quite well. I'm allergic to just about everything out there. I've been using Alvera for many years without any problem nor odors that I am aware of!

:dem:

[progressoid]

48. Tom's of Maine is not unscented.

All of theirs have a scent.
http://www.tomsofmaine.com/products/deodorant.aspx

Deodorants by definition have scents. Antiperspirants however are another story.

[maxsolomon]

60. then what's that in my medicine cabinet?

i'll check tonight. maybe it got discontinued.

[Tesha]

94. Not all deodorants have a scent; some are simply antibacterial.

You're right that most are scented, although it's often quite subtle
and I challenge any HR officer to figure out whether or not I'm wearing
a scented deodorant.

Tesha

[LynneSin]

9. There are unscented deoderants - which even I use

I just don't want to stink. I don't need to smell like fresh peonies growing under a pear tree in the spring time rain!

[we can do it]

13. Just About Every Brand Makes Unscented

stink is stink

[Donnachaidh]

14. people use deodorant as an excuse not to WASH.

NY subways were always a smell extravaganza in the summer. But soap and water should be used before deodorant, always.

[Fleshdancer]

17. Really? Everyone I know who uses it does so after bathing

what an odd generalization over deodorant users hygiene practices.

[Donnachaidh]

20. lucky you

generalization -- uhh, don't think so.

[Fleshdancer]

22. "people use deodorant as an excuse not to WASH". How is that not a generalization?

:shrug:

[Regret My New Name]

99. I don't think that's true in most cases...

It seems like most people who don't like to bathe, probably don't care much about deodorant either. Also, I shower daily, but if I don't wear deodorant/antiperspirant, by midday it won't matter that I bathed in the morning, because I'll be stinking.

[pansypoo53219]

54. no shit

i worked with one of those no deodorant guys. thank god not next to me often.

[Exultant Democracy]

4. 100k for perfume. I hope there was something more to this. Like she asked to be moved and was fired

and was fired, or something else bad.

[rfranklin]

5. B.O. could be just as crippling...

Ever smell someone who has been living on the street for years?

I actually saw a poker player penalized for wearing his "lucky shirt" which he never washed. The other players were choking on his B.O.

[Lasher]

6. Well I guess they haven't outlawed farting yet. n/t

[LiberalLoner]

37. LOL that's next - they will make it mandatory for workers to wear a big cork

[awoke_in_2003]

91. They better not...

I might get sent to Guantanamo for war crimes, then :)

[damyank913]

8. I wonder how long before soap is made illegal.

[Donnachaidh]

18. soap is what should be used more often than deodorant

Deodorant is something that many people use as an alternative to soap and water. Some dumbass decides he's running late and shoots a triple coat of AX on himself so he can be a walking gas attack?

[damyank913]

24. We called it a Marine Corp shower when I was in the Navy.

[Donnachaidh]

26. yup -- and lots of teens in my area do that

Walking down the corridors of the local high school is hazardous to the health of anyone with breathing issues.

Very few of the kids want to take showers after PE, so they shellac the AX (or whatever other trendy crap they use) all over themselves and figure problem solved.

[BreweryYardRat]

62. That's not necessarily a problem with the kids.

I can remember high school. Unless you had last period PE, or lunch right after PE, there was no way in hell you'd have time to take a shower. You literally had just enough time to change clothes, hose on the deodorant, and head to your next class.

I had lunch after PE one year. That was the year I discovered that using the gym showers was guaranteed to give you some form of unpleasant fungal infection.

You give kids a reasonable amount of time to clean up after PE, clean bathrooms, and private shower stalls (because high schoolers are often cruel), and most of them will take it.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

77. Don't forget to give the kids HOT water.

Our HS showers were the tunnel kind you had to run through and the sadistic gym coaches would get some kind of a weird thrill from spraying cold water on us.

[Odin2005]

85. Axe body spray is certainly hazerdous to MY health!

Axe + me = autistic meltdown!

[11 Bravo]

53. In the Army we called it a "Green Beret shower".

[LeftyMom]

25. That's "body spray" not deodorant.

And while pubescent boys tend to go through a phase where they mistake the over-application of cologne for a shortcut to proper hygiene, adults generally know better.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

10. i want my 'clean room'

i mean...if the city is responsible for smells...

sP

[LynneSin]

11. Honestly, even though they are going a bit far, this isn't a bad thing

Some people use way too much perfume and I just get into a sneezing fest.

I also had a co-worker that used this face lotion that I swore smelled like cat piss (although she said it was peach scented).

[awoke_in_2003]

92. Maybe it was Sex Panther...

made with real bits of panther, so you know its good. 60% of the time it works every time :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpS1mPvdFLo

[madrchsod]

12. not a bad idea at all......

[Warpy]

15. Some people don't know the difference between smelling good and smelling

up the joint.

July was the month the new interns would be on the job in teaching hospitals. Getting on an elevator with a gaggle of them in hot weather was particularly nauseating, the clashing colognes overpowering.

Two weeks later, it was all over, all of them having been aggressively puked on by their patients, sick people being incredibly sensitive to scent.

I could tell my mother was losing her sense of smell by the amount of perfume she doused herself in. She said the perfume was evaporating. Everybody around her knew better.

Perfume should be by the dab, not the drop, folks, and certainly not by the quarter bottle.

People who use it correctly will likely not be affected by a ban on scent in the workplace, since it's meant to be subtle and detected only at very close range. People who douse themselves in it need to be told what they're doing to people around them and it's going to take a ban to get through to them, I'm afraid.

[Donnachaidh]

23. makes me want to get a crossbow and take out that twit on the skateboard

with his double pits to chesty Ax advertisement. That shit is nasty, and every pimply faced kid who thinks he's going to have some honey stick her nose in his armpit is literally bathing in it around here.

[Warpy]

27. In my day it was Jade East

and trust me, Axe is mild when compared to the gutwrenching reek of that stuff.

[Donnachaidh]

31. one word -- Brute.

I remember Jade East. And for women it was Taboo. My evil stepgrannie used to marinate in that swill. To this day it causes me flashbacks and facial tics. :rofl:

[damyank913]

35. I'm an Old Spice man myself. Graduated from Hai Karate...

[northernlights]

39. cripes. My father used to marinate himself in old spice

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: To this day the stink of it makes me barf. Just thinking about it too much makes me want to.

I don't know what crap my mother doused herself in. I just know I'd spend the night sneezing and barfing after they left to go out for the evening. :eyes:

oh, cripes. Now I just remembered the god-awful boss I had that marinated himself in old spice too. And the day he tried to come on to me by practically dunking his greasy, stinky almost-bald head in my lap. :puke: :puke: :p

:puke: I had to throw that skirt out. :puke: :puke: :puke:

thankyou so much for bringing back the (NOT) fond memories.

[damyank913]

42. I used to also when I was a teen. But I've graduated to much better marinades.

:toast:

[Last_Stand]

63. eeww...

Thanks for spreading the bad memories around.

I can almost smell and see that guy's head. LOL

:)

[Donnachaidh]

69. I have to say, the new Old Spice ads are actually funny - and you have to

think about some of the shit they are talking about. *stealth* funny, not like the lame assed Ax commercials promising hot chicks for even the nerdiest if they swim in the stuff.

[Last_Stand]

73. Agreed...

even if that old spice dude constantly reminds my girlfriend how much hotter he is than me.

[awoke_in_2003]

93. Hey, Old Spice

is high tone shit :)

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

21. many food-working facilities bar the use of scented prducts just like the OP describes.

This is because certain foods can be "tainted" and pick up essences of such fragrances.
Foods, while steewing/cooking act like a sponge and can pick up undesirable flavors.

[MattBaggins]

58. And pharmaceutical production

You couldn't wear scented products, make-up or jewelry of any kind in my last job. You had to leave your wedding band in your locker.

I'm suprised we had no lawsuits with Sikhs or Jews that wore their yarmulkes. They simply accepted that they had to work in other areas and could not come into ours unless they were willing to remove their head gear and put on hairnets and Tyvek hoods.

I suffer from reactive asthma and usually never complain but we had a cleaning lady who cleaned our common areas. She wore at least a half gallon of cheap perfume and sent everyone running from the room when she came in. It was so bad that you could open the door to the stairway and smell her perfume, three flights up and knew she was cleaning the breakroom.

I can't really fault this decision though. There are plenty of non-scented hygiene products out there. I shouldn't have to reach for an inhaler every time I enter an elevator because some idiot has to pour on a bottle of toxic swill.

[Raineyb]

68. That was a bit invasive.

I worked in a pharmaceutical facility and while you weren't to wear jewelry religious symbols so long as they were kept under the uniform were allowed and wedding bands without stones were allowed. Hairnets fit easily over yarmulkes although even the hairnets weren't so great under RACAL hoods and we were never ordered not to use scented products.

That not withstanding, the city government doesn't run anything that requires that kind of PPE and frankly what scent deodorant and body wash I use is my own damn business and not the city government's and this settlement is an example of legal stupidity. If I were on the jury I'd probably would find for the city.

[gratuitous]

28. For the complaint to get to the lawsuit/settlement stage . . .

It would require some pretty egregious conduct on the part of the employer. A lot of places went "scent free" a decade or longer ago. I worked in a law office that represented workers’ comp clients, some of whom had multiple chemical sensitivity due to repeated, prolonged exposure to work place environmental “stuff.” It was like sentencing some of our clients to a week of bed rest to ask them to come in to the office if they were unlucky enough to be on the elevator with someone who was overscented. It was just not that big a deal to go scentless, especially once you’d encountered one of these clients knocked flat by too much Jean Naté.

[Journeyman]

29. I used to work with a woman, we called her "Hangtime". . .

after the football term for how long a punt stays in the air until it's caught.

We pictured her in her shower each morning, a 55 gallon drum of perfume suspended above her, a long cord hanging down that she'd pull just before she stepped out, the perfume cascading over her like the water hit Jennifer Beal in Flashdance.

You always knew when she'd arrived in the morning and those with a sensitive sense of smell could tell how long it had been since she'd left a room. "Hangtime." It's not just for jocks.

[damyank913]

36. That's better than calling her "Spermbank"

[Mopar151]

75. Yup, worked with one of those.

Educated, prosperous, attratctive, and well dressed/coiffed. Made your eyes water, you could tell if she had been in the machine shop hours later, over cutting oil, solvents, etc. Part of her job involved working with our asthmatic "canary in the mine", and it was pretty rough on him.

Some years later, we had a lady who worked as an assembler/operator in the shop, working class, bluejeans... One day, the "canary" , shy and devout, is trying to ask our shophand what she wears for scent, because he likes it and it does'nt make him sick (scented oil), and he wanted to tell his wife about it.

And I interviewed a machinist once, whose cologne was gagging me - and he was wearing a leisure suit! Guess who did'nt get hired...

[damyank913]

86. Wadda yoo got against polyester?

[Mopar151]

90. Only when it's soaked in enough cologne to soften the fiber n/t

[NeedleCast]

30. We must cater to everyones wishes

You're a specail snowflake. You have the right to never see, hear or smell anything that might offend you.

[marions ghost]

44. oh get real

lots of people are allergic to these chemical product fumes and have a right to complain if they're spending hours in a closed environment with it. If you can walk away, that's one thing, but a lot of times you're stuck with it. Like tobacco, people using it can't smell it so well as those who don't.
I've seen washer repairmen who smell worse than a whole box of "fresh" detergent. They have no idea they smell so weird.

Not about catering to. All about respect.

[NeedleCast]

80. Lots of people are allergic to lots of things

It has nothing at all to do with respect. I'm sorry if a person has allergies but I shouldn't have to conform my life to their issues (not that I wear cologne or any sort of body spray other than deoderant to work).

That's the way majority rule works. We don't have to cater to the individual with a sensitive nose. You shouldn't get to dictate how everyone around you looks and smells.

[marions ghost]

82. yes, you should

sorry but it's a health issue, not a "choice" issue.
It's the same as tobacco smoke in the workplace, exactly the same.
When it's in the air, people around you have rights.

Where u been?

[tammywammy]

65. At my previous job, the lady that sat in the next cube over

You could smell her from at minimum 20 feet away. If management (who KNEW there was a problem) won't do anything, then this is what happens. Our manager knew she reeked of flowery/baby power "perfume" that she doused herself every day. I used to have to hold my breath when I walked by and if I got there around 8am instead of 9am (my usual time) I would get a headache because the scent hadn't dissipated at all. It was awful. I'm not even sensitive to chemicals either, it was just too much. Another co-worker said if the overly perfumed walked into her office early in the morning she couldn't breathe because it was so overpowering.

There is a point where management needs to say something.

[NeedleCast]

81. Absolutly!

This is an issue that should have been deblt with my management, not a lawsuit. If the manager isn't willing to take care of it, employees should have the stones to first ask her nicely, (and if that doesn't work) then demand that she tone it down.

A small amount of communication could solve a lot of lawsuits.

It wont though, and we'll continue down this slippery slope. Can't wait for someone at my office to become allergic to denim, or cotton, or the stuff they pad the chairs with. Because everyone is allergic to something.

[tammywammy]

88. I get what you're saying

I think if it's pressed with management seriously and nothing is done, then sometimes a lawsuit is the only way to force change. I wouldn't have sued over my former co-worker, but I should have really brought it up with my boss that she needed to say something. It was enough of a stink that I was forced to leave my office at times. But now I'm not working there and I rarely smell perfume/cologne at this company. I actually stopped wearing perfume after working next to that woman.

BTW, previous co-worker wasn't a pleasant person and if I had told her to tone it down, she probably would have told me where I could shove it. :)

[lukasahero]

83. Thanks

To you it's a joke. To me, it's a migraine. Aren't you the special snowflake?

[awoke_in_2003]

95. +1

We used to have a douser here. I have done a lot of jobs and smelled a lot of things, but if I had to be around her it was going to bring on a headache.

[blueworld]

98. And we must all be the same. And rules & laws are the best answers.

It's ironic; I hate to walk down the supermarket aisle with all the detergents etc. because that conglomeration of scents really does affect my sinuses & breathing. But I would never sue to demand that the store remove that aisle or stock only non-scented products or install giant fans. Simply to accommodate my sensitivity. Even if I worked there.

"Personal" personnel issues used to be dealt with by management, not legislated. And of course the justification is always health...sigh. Lawyers are raking it in on that one.

Mandate our way to civility & tolerance. It's sad. And I think it will be unhealthy, but if it is, I'll sue. :hi:

[marions ghost]

32. the plaintiff has a point

but it shouldn't have even come down to a lawsuit.

Why didn't the colleague just get the message that her body product odors were offensive and respect her co-worker's right to a pollution-free work environment? This case should be encouraging to people who have been suffering for years with all the chemical "smell-good" stuff around in close proximity to others. What's good for Detroit is good for all of us. (But ridiculous that it takes a lawsuit--that's Murka for ya).

Case in point, my MIL, who is the sweetest, kindest, most accommodating person you'd ever want to meet. Except for one thing. She REEKS of those nasty chemicals that have everyone choking and gasping around her. First, there's all the body products, and then there's all the laundry detergents and those nasty horrible "dryer sheets," and THEN she fills her house with "solid" air fresheners everywhere and those diabolical "plug-ins" --and you can literally smell her two blocks away. She creates a toxic environment when she walks into a room, the poor thing thinks she's doing this IN CONSIDERATION of others. (Also a factor is that she is the kind of "adman's dream" who believes everything she sees on TV too, so it's hard to convince her she doesn't need these things).

I'm GLAD to see workplaces being required to limit the amount of these pollutants in the workplace. It's not only carpets that can create "sick buildings."

[GoCubsGo]

45. Yup. I can tell when my neighbors do their laundry...

The whole neighborhood reeks of whatever perfumes are in their laundry products that are being vented out through their dryers. So much for going outside for some "fresh air." Then there are the places that leave cans of "air freshener" in the restrooms to cover up the odors there, rather than assuring that the restroom is well-ventilated. Those sprays smell just as bad as the shit odors they're trying to cover up. Don't get me started on "Febreez."

I completely support what Detroit is doing. So do my poor, battered sinuses.

[marions ghost]

51. it's those

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: DRYER SHEETS :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

You remember in the olde days --ie. most of our childhoods when toilet paper could be green and purple
(until they figured out it wasn't so good for water and fish). Well, I predict these nasty fake perfumes will end up going the way of the colored TP dodo someday...

Oh yeah, I forgot Febreeze -- nuf said. I'm getting watery eyes just thinking about that stuff. And on TV they spray it all around where kids play. AND (last but not least)--scented candles. Cough cough. Horrible--my SO will leave a room or store immediately if he detects those (they don't have to be burning). he calls it "candle alert."

[HillWilliam]

74. Toxic environment exactly

A lot of those plug-in products use benzene carriers. Benzene is a known carcinogen. The dryer sheets are silicone and pig fat. Yum :sarcasm: I just don't need that much chemistry in my life.

I subscribe to my mom's theory: if you and your house are clean, you don't need to stink it up with "fresheners". Clean is clean and that's clean and fresh enough for me.

[marions ghost]

78. I worry about the kids who

don't get much fresh air and are growing up in these toxic clouds. The air pollution is bad enough outside--why make it worse inside?

The earth's breathable atmosphere is only 40 miles above our heads.....most people think it's much bigger.

[Lautremont]

33. Why do people wear that crap anyway?

It doesn't smell good. Of course there are some very nice perfumes, but none of them so good as to smell nice in excess. Save it for a night out, and use it sparingly even then.

If someone can explain to me the need to put on a bunch of perfume or aftershave every day, please do.

Oh, and as for the scented deodorant question: The Crystal! Works like magic, though it may not with every body chemistry out there.

[calico1]

71. The nicest perfume in the world doesn't smell good

if you wear so much it gags everyone around you. Some people just don't know when to stop!

A lot of deodorants come unscented too.

[TheWebHead]

38. republicans will have a field day with this

big brother big government even telling us we can't wear cologne or perfume... let alone the $100k settlement. this is very counterproductive and won't play well with about 90% of the population.

[damyank913]

46. They have a hard time understanding why ppl need running water.

If you can't afford then you just didn't work hard enough.

[treestar]

55. It was a court, not Big Brother government

Technically no one has to change behavior. Just be prepared to pay damages in the rare case.

As for me, I'm glad my nose does not apparently function that well. I don't notice most of this stuff.

[awoke_in_2003]

96. Don't worry...

the repukes will slam it because of "activist judges"

[dugaresa]

40. there was a woman that worked in the building next to where I worked

and she wore so much perfume that when i was OUTSIDE! you could tell the path she had taken because she left a trail.

As I recall she wore Opium and to this day I can't stand that smell.

I did not know who she was but I was grateful she did not work at my company.

Meanwhile I have been in offices in Europe where the combo of body odor and cologne would stun you.

[kestrel91316]

41. Somebody was bathing in cologne and went and ruined it for everyone else........

We have people like that walk into my office on occasion - usually Persian males. They LOVE cologne!!

[Gidney N Cloyd]

43. The perfume/chemical sensitivity issue's made a lot of progress.

When I became sensitive 20 years ago, people didn't believe it really could make you sick-- not merely annoyed or as someone else in this thread suggested, 'offended.'

[DirkGently]

49. Another instance of lost reasonableness

... in our corporate, litigious society. Everyone's had a bad experience with an overly fragrant co-worker (some good stories in this thread). Management ought to quietly address that with the person(s) in question. It's a legitimate beef -- some people can get migraines from strong odors.

On the other hand, I've had a workplace experience in which an "odor sensitive" co-worker -- a secretary -- transparently used such complaints as a bludgeon, complaining to management in a pattern that suggested she was using it as a way to immediately be transferred out of working with whomever she'd been assigned to. Oddly, a new secretary that sits near her picked up the same "sensitivity" within a few months, and soon was complaining about those she had been assigned to work with as well. Or (and this was clear from the circumstances) those who had critiqued her work. Each time, management jumped as requested, calling in the offended "stinker" (none of whom anyone else could ever smell) for a conference. Each time, dire e-mails would issue to the entire department "warning" olfactory offenders to watch their step.

It got pretty nasty, including the fact that the sensitive secretary's targets seemed to include a racial element where, for example, a black female attorney was accused of smelling like "cherry pipe tobacco." Oh yes, this tidy (and perfume-free and odorless, by the way) woman in her late 30s, with degrees in accounting and law, who lives alone with her elderly cat, must have been firing up a "blunt" on her coffee break. Rarely have I been so furious with management, which just accepted this nonsense and issued yet another dire threat to the entire department that unless everyone cleaned up our collective odiferous act, "steps will be taken." Oooh.

But it all boils down to basic reasonabless. Adults ought to know better than to come to the office ensconced in an eye-watering vapor cloud that precedes them into every room and lingers for hours afterward. Likewise, management needs to stand up to eggshell skinned employees looking to throw their weight around with hypersensitive complaints.

[marions ghost]

52. yep the incivility

underneath it all is depressing...people in offices these days need referees like schoolkids?!... x(

[Riftaxe]

59. You can never have to much....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtwh3nQP5Uo

[RedCloud]

61. And just how will we know when mating season begins?

Just wait and see!

[damyank913]

87. The howling is how I can tell.

[Taverner]

64. Probably a good idea

Although I have to say - what caused all these folks to all of a sudden get allergic to perfume?

I am sure they are - that's not what I'm saying

But back in the 70's, people either were allergic and said nothing, or just weren't as allergic

Did something change for us health wise?

Did something change to the base ingredients they use in perfumes?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

76. I think there was a change-- to a few factors...

First, in the seventies you had the onslaught of cheap cologne (think Hai Karate, Charlie) made with artificial ingredients. By the early eighties you had two movements-- to hose yourself down in that cheap cologne and and to add fragrance to EVERYthing. Third: tight building construction with the same crappy air circulating for months.
It was an assault on the body's defenses and my understanding is that allergies often kick in after a major assault by a substance-- the second time you are exposed you have a reaction.

[Taverner]

89. Good point. The Cubization of America might have led to this

Also consider that most places folks wore cologne at in the paast (bars, nightclubs) also allowed smoking. So of the two, Smoking far outweighted the smell of Hai Karate.

[formercia]

66. and don't fart in my chair.

Funk time.

[diane in sf]

67. I've been bothered by this stuff since I was a kid, asthma, migraines, burning eyes

are all caused by it. Dryer sheets, synthetic perfumes, hairspray, Estee LOUDER, etc. the chemicals in these products are incredibly toxic, many of them estrogenizing and thus cancer encouraging if not causing.

[JCMach1]

72. I am horribly allergic to Neem trees which surround my villa and would love to cut all of them down

However, doing so would harm the community and the environment.

The damn things give me severe eye swelling, eye infections, and wheezing.

So, I have to medicate myself. And no, I don't have the opportunity to move. My housing is part of my job.

In the bigger scheme of things if I worked closely with you in an office, I wouldn't wear those things out of courtesy.

However, a whole city? That's going overboard the other way. It would be like me trying to convince my employer to chop down hundreds of trees on campus.

Not refering directly to you Diane...

What this topic needs is common sense... something that is in short supply almost everywhere.

[calico1]

70. Not sure I agree with a ban but to be honest,

some people just don't seem to understand that a touch of cologne is enough. No...they must think their choice of fragrance is soooo good they have to share with as many people in the building as they can.

If you wear perfume, cologne, aftershave, or whatever. just a touch is enough. You don't need half a bottle a day!

[TexasObserver]

79. Good. I don't know why people think they still need to use perfumes.

Perfumes served a purpose before people could BATHE every day. They cloaked stinky body odors.

I have a terrible allergy to such things, and there's nothing worse than a person who overwhelms him or herself with perfume. I assume people who think they really stink tend to wear perfumes. I can't imagine a reason, otherwise.

I get everything unscented, and things used for the wash are the worst. Fabreeze? Fagetaboutit! Those Glade plug ins? Kill me now. Show mercy.

Unless you just gutted a fish or cleaned the septic tank, perfumes are a bit much.

[Odin2005]

84. Some people just use WAY too much purfume or cologne.

If you smell THAT bad take a damn shower.

[Mopar151]

97. The guy I interviewed (upthread)

Was effing flammable!

[aroach]

100. The Tampon Lady

http://antimother.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/the-tampon-lady/

I used to work in a grey cubicle as a payroll clerk. Two cubes away from me sat the Tampon Lady.

I don’t remember the Tampon Lady’s name. I only remember how much I hated sharing work space with her. She was nice enough. She did her job and had no annoying habits that I recall. There was, however, one issue, and I never figured out how to address it. They just don’t cover stuff like this in business college.

She kept a super-size box of Playtex Deodorant Tampons in her desk drawer. It had to have come from Sam’s Club to be the size that it must have been. I never saw the tampons but I know they were there and I imagine every person that worked on that floor knew the tampons were there.

More at link.

[warm regards]

101. Well, it is Detroit.