Breath mint?

I was skimming through my archives last night looking for something (that I couldn't find, by the way) when I came across a post from last year about something I had to do when I was a corporate suit.  I had to tell a guy that he smelled bad, and, besides firing someone, it was just about the most awful conversation I've ever had in my life.

It got me thinking about another epic bad day at work, and I don't believe I've told this particular story before.  Then again, I didn't remember telling the story about the smelly guy before until last night.  So if I have, then please forgive me.  I'm getting old and forgetful.

First a little background.  I worked for a financial services company that mostly dealt with automobile loans and leasing.  We were pretty big too.  One of the larger independent leasing companies in the country at the time.  Our CFO had decided a while back to split the Accounting/Finance group between financial reporting and operations, and I was managing the reporting unit.  It was an interesting job for a while, but then we were purchased by a big bank, then merged with a bigger bank and then a bigger bank.   Corporate Hell, in other words.

After the first bank purchased us, we were told to set up an Internal Audit group.   So our CFO hired two accountants with auditing experience and assigned one of them to my group and the other to the other group.  The guy that was assigned to me was your classic no-personality auditor.  He was absolutely humorless, which was amazing since he was only in his late 20's at the time.  I couldn't stand the guy.  And not only for his lack of personality.

No...the guy had the worst halitosis I've ever come across in my entire life!

It was epic.  A living, green, destructive fog that killed everything that came across its path.  Some days were worse than others, but I remember one particular day when I just couldn't take it anymore.  He had been bugging me for a week to go over some reports that my group had been working on for a series of loan securitizations we were handling.  I put it off as long as I could, but there was no avoiding the guy.  He was like the Terminator.  With less personality and more stink.

So we were in my office and I was sitting at my desk as he stood behind me, looking over my shoulder at some work papers.  Now, I didn't mention this yet, but the poor guy also had the worst case of eczema that I've ever seen.  Particularly on his hands.  Yeah ladies...he was a catch all right!  And on this particular day, his breath was the absolute worst it had ever been.

My head and my stomach were just spinning.  I'd close my eyes for a second to try to center myself, but when I opened them his awful, gnarly hands were right there.  Pointing at this number or that number.  And his hot, fetid breath on my neck was just killing me.  I felt the nausea washing over me, and I knew it wouldn't be long before I had to excuse myself.  But I tried to hang on as long as I could.

Until...yeah...I booted.

Now, I didn't puke all over his grotesque hands and my desk.  I somehow managed to...ugh, this sounds horrible...keep it in my mouth.  But I bolted up and ran to the Men's Room.  I don't think he knew why I did, I didn't bother to check.  Thankfully, no one was there as I ran over to the sink and purged.  It was awful.  I still had the smell of his breath in my nose.  It was in my hair, in my clothes!  I couldn't get rid of it. 

So I eventually snuck back to my office and saw that the guy had left.  I immediately went to the CFO's office and told her that she had to transfer this guy to the other group.  I couldn't work with him anymore.  She tried to talk me through it, but I finally had to admit that I had just thrown up from dealing with his breath and dermatitis.  She cringed because she knew exactly what I was talking about.  But without any further prodding, she told me she would handle it.  She gave him some bullshit reason about making sure each auditor needing to know the ins and outs of both sides of the department, but really it was just because his breath stunk like death.

The woman who replaced him was no prize.  She was actually much more of an "auditor" than the stinky guy, so she made my job much harder.  But at least she didn't make me throw up in my mouth when I worked with her.

Now I work from home by myself and the only stink that bothers me is my own.  Phew!  I can get ripe sometimes!

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Note: Remember to play the Badgerdaddy Trivia Challenge every day. I still don't feel bad that I got that guy transferred.