LOOK ME IN THE EYE AND TELL ME MY PERFUME STINKS: or WHY CAN’T PEOPLE TALK TO EACH OTHER DIRECTLY?

Earlier this week I participated in a local radio talk show, in a segment that I had expected to be mainly about perfume, but which, in the end, degenerated into a discussion of whether people should talk to their neighbors or co-workers directly about things that bother them. The original issue was whether workplaces should have official, codified no-fragrance policies, but it quickly  broadened out to the issue of why people, at least in the US Pacific Northwest, are psychologically unable to talk to anyone one-on-one. 

I am not a fan of micromanagement of any kind, so am not in favor of mandated fragrance-free spaces, at least not when it comes to people’s discreet use of personal fragrance. The idea of a fragrance-free space is a fantasy anyway, given that every building has its own set of “fragrances” emanating from the structural components, furniture, and other installations. Anyone ever smelled particleboard? Let me tell you, it’s not a pretty fragrance, and the off-gassing is probably toxic to boot. Ever smelled fresh carpets with their horrible formalin- and cyclic-hydrocarbon-filled-underpads? What about older carpets filled with a mixture of ground-in grime, carpet cleaner, and rotting underpads? What about the “air fresheners” that are used to mask all of the building odors? Compared to the typical cacaphony of public building-generated odors, personal fragrance is a tiny blip in the noise. 

I’m certainly not a fan of being in a space where someone is wearing way too much obnoxious (by my standards) perfume. If it’s a one-time or occasional thing, I ignore it, knowing that it’s a minor temporary annoyance. If it were a colleague with whom I regularly shared a confined space, I would simply ask them face-to-face if they could go easy on the perfume. If I had a health condition that was aggravated by the smell of perfume, I would let the offender know and ask them to not wear that perfume, or any perfume, if it really was that serious. I trust that most people can exercise reasonable sensitivity and consideration of others if they know what the issue is. If they’re not told, how can they know? 

I articulated this common-sense view in the discussion, but it seems that most people did not agree, and would instead avoid talking to the person who wears perfume, and instead take the route of informing their supervisors or HR department and asking for a set of fragrance-free workplace rules. It was mentioned that one person’s workplace actually had a set of rules many pages in length. If the workplace really is one where people should not wear perfume (e.g., a hospital), then when workers are hired, the supervisor could politely ask each new employee not to wear perfume, and explain why. Compliance with requests is usually best when the person being asked knows why the request is being made. Slapping people with rules that seem arbitrary (or are arbitrary), just creates resentment. 

Going over a colleague’s head and reporting them to management for some real or imagined “misbehavior” without talking to the colleague directly first, is likely to create major resentment and undermine morale. The people doing the complaining probably like this strategy because it can be done anonymously (assuming the organization is large enough) and relieves them of any responsibility for initiating a one-on-one encounter that they may fear might be awkward. It seems more and more people are avoiding person-to-person conversations as the opportunities for taking the cowardly route of anonymous confrontation increase. 

What are your thoughts on these issues? 

[Images adapted from Wikimedia and some random Google searches]

MICROMANAGEMENT ON A RAMPAGE

Every time I read the news I see some new and ever-more egregious attempt to micromanage people’s use of perfume. Apparently there’s talk of IFRA banning just about every natural and synthetic fragrant substance known to man, as reported here (and elsewhere).

According to this article and other sources, the city of Portland Oregon wants to severely restrict or ban all of their employees from wearing any sort of fragrance. The argument by both IFRA on a large scale and Portland city government on a small scale is that “someone might be allergic to it”. Very true. Someone might be allergic to just about anything that exists in the world.

Think about the scope for allergies - the Portland mayor’s microscopic skin flakes that float around city hall, the trees and flowers (shudder!) that grow in city parks, formaldehyde and other fumes from carpet and building materials, seagull feathers, the soap and sanitizer in all of the bathrooms throughout the city, the peanuts in a candy bar, the honey in the neighborhood granola shop, the milk in a latte (I know that milk-latte is redundant, but it’s the local terminology), prescription drugs, the plastic components in a smart phone, the nickel in a piece of cheap jewelry, the wool in a suit at the most expensive men’s store, the stuff in a kid’s “flame-retardant” pajamas, pet cats and dogs ….

(lets ban dogs! Yeah!!!), the wheat flour in a cookie, the corn meal in a tamale, the pink slime in a hot dog, the grass in everyone’s lawns. Yeah! !!! Let’s ban lawns – how about that, city of Portland? And why don’t you ban roses and the Portland Rose Festival while you’re at it? Then your nickname could be The City of No Roses and you could have a bare earth festival – oh, sorry -someone might be allergic to bare earth. It will have to be the Portland No Festival. The list could go on forever.

At least one person might be allergic to just about anything on this earth if you were to look long and hard enough. Maybe IFRA and the EU should come up with a modest proposal to just ban people – then there wouldn’t be a problem with potential allergies. Come to think of it, there wouldn’t be a problem with the economy, either.

If I have one perfume-related wish for the New Year, it is that IFRA and all other regulatory bodies stop trying to micromanage the manufacture and use of fragrances by severely restricting or banning materials that have been used safely for millenia and turn their energy to something important in the overall scheme of things. The earth is going to hell in a handbasket and all people can worry about is whether someone might be allergic to miniscule amounts of a material that doesn’t have a rich, powerful lobby promoting its use. 

[Sneeze and Portland golf course photos adapted from Wikimedia. No dogs sign adapted from one that's commercially available and used on many lawns]