How do you make a formal complaint about a manager at work who has severe halitosis?
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at
2:43 am
Siamese Triplets asked:
The manager is known to customers and staff alike as “the bloke with the bad breath” in the shop. Staff are having problems with the smell whilst in close proximity to the foul emmissions issuing forth from his mouth. How can something be done (in a kind, non agressive way) about the smell?
The manager is known to customers and staff alike as “the bloke with the bad breath” in the shop. Staff are having problems with the smell whilst in close proximity to the foul emmissions issuing forth from his mouth. How can something be done (in a kind, non agressive way) about the smell?
Tagged with: Bad Breath • Close Proximity • halitosis
Filed under: Bad Breath
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Get a community candy bowl and fill it with mints.
If no one will say anything this is the only thing to do. Even if he doesn’t eat them, when you eat them yourself you should not be able to smell his breath.
Leave him some breath mints in his mailbox, or locker at work, or on his desk. Just be sure NOT to leave your name on them, or tell anyone that YOU did it..
Ask another manager, the human resource manager or the owner of the company to approach this person. This is a sensitive subject….he could have some type of health problem that causes the bad breath so you need to be careful when approaching the subject….it’s better to let a higher up handle the situation.
tell HR that captain stinkdragon is killing the staff. let them approach the bloke and deal with it, well, however they deal with such things. bloke probably has a health condition, so tread gently.
Do you have an HR manager as well, or some sort of supervisor or owner who oversees your manager? If so, you should discreetly and respectfully ask to speak with them about the issue so that they can handle it without too many hurt feelings. If there is nobody above your manager, you could maybe broach the subject tactfully, like asking him privately if there is something you can discuss with him, then saying very matter-of-factly that he may want to check with a doctor. It’s not easy, but it must be done.
I would go to HR and mention it. If you have a pretty good relationship with this person, you could pull him aside and say that his breath is an issue. He’ll probably appeciate that you said something.
Don’t complain. Just put a package of breath mints on his desk or somewhere where he works and he should eventurally get the message.