Body Odor

I’ve been doing stand-alone blog posts for too long now. Time to bore you all with another on-the-job post!

What follows is a real, unedited email chain I was involved in at work. The humor will appeal mostly to chemists, but I think it might just work for everyone.

Email 1)
From: QC Chemist (a friend of mine)
To: Me & our building’s scheduler (another friend of both of ours)
Dear Mr. Sarcastically Respectful,
How does someone tactfully point out to certain individuals that bathing is more efficient if water and soap are used? Would a bar of soap in their mail box give it away? Do we know what the MSDS is for Lysol, and can it be used as a body deodorant? [MSDS = Material Safety Data Sheet. It’s a list of hazards associated with a chemical compound.]
Any suggestions, let us know.

Email 2)
From: Me
To: All
Good God, I hope that wasn't meant to be a hint. I think I'm going to reserve comment until I figure out who/what is being targeted. I'll have you know until this moment, I thought my deodorant was working totally fine.

Phone Call
From: Building Scheduler
To: Me
[Much laughter, and the revelation that the people in question are a couple of newly-hired Chemists who spend a lot of time in the close-quarters smaller control room.]

Email 3)
From: Me
To: All
I think the only remotely tactful way to handle this would be a mixture of excessive linguistics paired with the pretense of apathetic oblivion. (See!? Already halfway there!)

In other words, you should select any chemists/operators in question and fish their last three or four finished preps [like a recipe, but for chemical production] out of the files. Rubber band them together and attach a sticky note that reads:
"Customers complained of excessive bromhidrosis odors on final product. Side reaction? Can this be removed by longer drying? Edit next revision to try to minimize."

Dump the assembled package into their mailbox and wait three days. If that doesn't make the problem go away, nothing will.

Email 4)
From: QC Chemist
To: All
I think that would take too long and might still not be direct enough.
Maybe we could retro fit the helmets with automatic air fresheners that shoot a spritz of deodorizer every 15 minutes? It would have to be stronger that Febreeze. Or better yet we could hang pine tree car airfresheners from their helmets. That probably would be less expensive.

Email 5)
From: Building Scheduler
To: All
Maybe if we just enclosed them in a Saranex suit for the day, they could deal with it themselves and not expose the rest of us!

Email 6)
From: Me
To: All
I could get quotes to have a vapor purge system installed on the control room HVAC controls, like we have in the process bays.

Email 7)
From: Building Scheduler
To: All
Instead of a vapor purge, can we get a "vac purge" installed? Just suck the air out of that room!

Email 8)
From: Me
To: All
I doubt it would work. I think the whole problem here is that we're dealing with "unscrubbed exhaust." [Engineer joke. Don't worry if you don't get it. But I'm still laughing about it.]