My Bosses Breath

So my Boss has the worst fuckin breath imaginable ( Kind of strange for a gay guy). My descriptions won't do it justice. Sometime when you use the phone after him you can smell and taste it on the reciever You gotta do every thing in you power not to puke. If you walk behind him you can smell it. Sometimes it bounces off his computer monitor and circulates around the office. Its like a little man is shitting in his mouth 24/7.

So when do you step up and let him know? Its like the latest topic in the office. He helps in the sales and with clients ( I work in an art Gallery in SF. NM. Lot of VIP clients and stuff) Some of my co-workers think that it might actually be hurting buisness. Should we have a intervention? Or just drop subtle hints. I dont think we can stand it any more Any sugestions on how to tame the dragon breath in a respectable way?

If he's a reasonably clean person, and it still smells like that, it's probably halitosis (sp), which you have to get a special like tongue scraper to deal with. Either that or he's got some rotting, dead teeth.

Had a coworker like that once. You could smell his breath while he was facing away from you. Fucking sick.

I had this boss one time! One of the most notable things about him was between every sentence he would ask "Do you have any questions?"

And on the day he fired me he asked the same fucking thing, and I just wanted to say, "Yah, I got a question, before I leave could you get down on your fucking knees and suck my cock, bitch?"

Fuck him man!!

hmm offer him some gum?

Write a humorous comedy sketch about it, including a hysterical musical number, and perform it at a spontaneous company talent show!

I thought you were going to say... "Smells like cat food."

we have the same prob at my work. the owner's breath also smells like he ate "rotten eggs that had just been freshly shat on by a dog that has eaten a cat turd." he's a douchebag piece of shit though, so we let him keep on stinking so the customers all get grossed out and stop coming around. hopefully his rank ass breath will shut the place down all on its own so we wont have to expend the energy to sabotage the place ourselves.

Get a bottle of hospital strength Cepacol mouth wash and a crown royal bag. Leave it on his desk, with a note that says 'From the staff, because you're breath is a god damned war crime'.

Tasted it? are you licking the phone?

Now were not licking the phone. Its like the smell of the reciever goes in threw your nose and some how makes its way into your mouth were you can like taste it. I guess you'd have to experience it. It totally sucks

What a well-timed question! I was just reading an ask.metafilter question on a very similar topic just the other day: smelly at work. There were some interesting suggestions.

Of course, in your case, it's worse because the stinko is your boss, which certainly changes things. Do you have a Human Resources department? Does your boss have a superior? Perhaps you could lodge a complaint with either of those two parties (maybe anonymously?). If it's making your working situation suck, you have every right to try to do something.

I mean, you can taste his bad bread on the receiver after he uses the phone?! That's retchtastic! Good luck battling the forces of bodily odours.

Argh. Double post! I was disoriented by the imagined odor.

[Edited on Jun 24, 2005 by isabel]

Commission a painting of soldiers being lined up to be executed in a Modern Spanish style, and the executioner is just breathing on them, instead of shooting a gun at them or something.

If you made it out of a mosaic of different tic tacs (with altoids for heads) then I'd say you were on to something there.


Ultimately, to be serious, the answer depends upon how good a relationship you have with your boss. If you guys are buddies, you could just break it to him gently. If not, there's probably not a lot you can do about it.

Man...I hate that with a passion. Bad breath is the worst. How can people not KNOW?

Tell HR... they get paid to deal with issues like that. If he has a public facing position, especially in sales, he needs to have this issue addressed. You should be able to go to your HR director in private and mention that this is an issue that is being discussed by multiple coworkers and you feel that he needs to be aware of it.

We are just a small company. Not only is he my boss but he is the owner of the company. Its gonna have to be direct

If he is an ok guy, just find a good time to tell him. He'll probably really be happy someone told him. Most people don't even know it's an issue. I would just offer him a pack of mints, and if that doesn't work, tell him that is breath is offensive lately.


Worse comes to worse, just make a disgusted face while he is talking to you, like you can't control it, or cover you mouth/nose while he is talking to you.

poetry.

I would be honest and straightforward about it, being as kind as possible. These things are best said when you can relate an equally embarrassing story about yourself and how you wish someone would've mentioned it to you.

Just make sure that you tell him how much you value honesty yourself and that you respect him enough to tell him because you think a lot about him.

Or something like that...

Set up a Hotmail account and politely and anonymously tip him off.

Just say to him, "You know, there's bad breath, but you could burn the nose hairs off a dead nun, Bob." Or, "Your breath smells worse than the shithouse on a tuna boat." Or my personal favorite, "JESUS, do they make mouth-douche? You could knock a buzzard off a shitwagon with those fumes!"

The dude is probably afraid of the dentist, hasn't gone in years, and needs a root canal. If it's that nastily bad, it's an infection. Probably hurts like a son of a bitch too.

<-- brushing teeth currently.