I have a problem. I recently moved to a new city to work at a new job (yay!). I am living downtown and commuting to the suburbs. It is a 45 minute drive but the job is great so I don't mind. We hired a new employee to work on my project. He also lives downtown and commutes but doesn't have a car or drivers licence. After taking transit for a few weeks he asked me if we could carpool (read: I could drive him) since it was taking him an hour and a half each direction. I didn't really want to, because my commute is my "me" time you know? BUT I agreed because it really is no inconvenience for me and he was going to help pay for gas. I told him I would drive in the mornings but I usually do errands on my way home so it wouldn't make sense to carpool in the evenings. Compromise.
So anyways, here's the problem. He's smelly. He uses cologne instead of deodorant but with undertones of BO - it is like someone axe bombed my car (at 7:15 am!). Is there anything I can do or do I have to suffer through a smelly (AND awkward) morning? Also does he expect me to drive him for the rest of our lives?
C
___
C, I usually pass on questions like this off because I truly don’t know if there is polite, nice way to tell someone that they stink. Whenever I’m in this situation - i.e. every single day on public transit in the summer - I have no choice but to suck it up, literally. The good news though C is that you do actually have a choice here.
While you get big props for helping out a fellow colleague, my thought is, if he’s jacking your morning “me time” AND assaulting your olfactory senses in one fell swoop, I'd say kick him to the curb.
You think I’m a c-nt hole, don’t you? Well, maybe I am, but to me it’s not so much the odor that stinks in this situation, it’s the fact, that you have no idea when the driving is going to stop! Does he expect you to cart his ass to work forever?
So, you have two options here:
1) Be upfront and honest. Tell him that you’re super sensitive to smells and there’s something inhis brand of cologne that’s giving you a major headache. Let him know that you can’t handle it anymore and you’d really appreciate it if he’d lay off of it. Will this be a tad awkward? Yes, but at the end of the day who cares. Your car, your rules.
2) If I were you I’d straight up lie. Yup, I said it, f-cking lie. I would say that you’ve started a new workout regime every morning and that the gym has unfortunately put him outside the route.
Done and done.
There you have it – the choice is up to you! Thanks for writing in and keep all your LIFE + STYLE questions coming to [email protected].
