I started a new job a few months ago. I work in an office by myself and... well, it doesn't really make a difference what I do. That's not the point. The point is: I work in an office by myself for most of the day.
Until around three o'clock.
At three o'clock every day, a guy named Frank comes in and sits at another desk — at another computer — about five or so feet away from me. I say "Hello" when he walks in and he raises an open palm in acknowledgement. When I leave — approximately 90 minutes later — I say "Good night" and am usually out the door before I hear whether or not Frank has replied.
Those 90 minutes, however, are torture.
That's because Frank stinks.
At first, I just thought it was the familiar smell of lingering cigarette smoke. I grew up in a house where, for a time, both of my parents smoked. My mother quit sometime in the middle 1970s. Afterwards, I believe my father increased his cigarette smoking to make up for my mom. My father smoked right up until the time he was still able to lift a cigarette to his lips. When he could no longer smoke, it was because he was dead. He threatened promised to quit many times over the years, but, like most of his promises, he never followed through. In the meantime, his clothes, his house, his car, his everything smelled of smoke. It is a smell with which I am intimately familiar and suitably repulsed. My mom would regularly wipe down the furniture in their bedroom, coming away from the process with a cloth that was yellow with nicotine residue. It was disgusting.
So is Frank.
Because I realized that the smell that accompanies Frank is not just cigarettes. It's just partly cigarettes, because Frank does indeed smoke. Frank obviously does not maintain the proper grooming practices that an adult in a civilized society should. He sits behind me at his desk and does whatever it is that he does. The whole time, the air is fouled with a horrible stench I can only imagine is similar to that of the city morgue or a butcher shop experiencing freezer problems.
Every so often, Frank gets up and leaves the office, leaving an invisible — but palpable — odor of decomposition in his wake. When he returns, he brings the aroma of freshly-burned tobacco back with him, along with the deathly scent of a month's worth of unwashed laundry marinating in stagnant motor oil.
Frank seems like an okay guy. Y'know... just an average guy. But — Jesus! — is there no one at his house or in his life to sit him down, hand him a bar of soap, and explain the simple instructions of how to put it to its best use?
Luckily for me, Frank and I are on differently work schedules. Our shifts only overlap for an hour and a half. I can work through the uncomfortable atmosphere for a quick 5400 seconds. At least he is a fair distance from me and the air circulation is pretty good in the building. I do sit with my back to him and I've been practicing holding my breath.
I am also thinking of buying this shirt for Frank...
... but Frank is bigger than me.
