How do you tell a Japanese person...

[overdrive]

...that his foul breath is becoming a distraction from work and I'd like him to look into options for freshening it up a bit?

This is my question, but feel free to use this thread if you have something sensitive that you need to communicate in a sufficiently Japanese manner and you want to ask somebody.

In my case, I have a coworker (sitting next to me) who really smells BAD. I mean, I've found dead things on the road that smelled better than his breath has for the past week. And I'm getting pretty tired of hiding my disgust. He's superior to me, but not especially dominant in personality. Anybody know if I'd be stepping over any lines of etiquette by letting him know privately?

[Bairen]

Leave a couple packs of Frisk on his desk when no one is looking. Write 'A present for you' or something like that

[tokyobloke]

Write 'A present for you' or something like that

And use hello kitty stationary so he'll suspect it was one of the OLs who did it.

[overdrive]

Write 'A present for you' or something like that

And use hello kitty stationary so he'll suspect it was one of the OLs who did it.

Ha ha. Last year somebody accidentally left a trash can on a guy's desk after the morning souji and the guy threatened to quit. We got daily emails asking the "culprit" to come forward for two weeks. Nobody ever owned up to it. I ain't leaving anything on anybody's desk.

[Orgasmo]

Is he ranked higher than you? Then be very subtle about it. Leave frisk mints on his desk, maybe even buy a toothbrush and toothpaste and say it's an omiyage from Canada or something.

If he's ranked under you, tell him directly, firmly, but as nice as you can.

I had the same problems when I was working in R&D, only I was in the close confines of a lab... It got so bad at some points that I would start experimenting with plastic resins just to escape the smell, consequently we managed to find a way to bond polypyrrole and polyaniline to surfaces without using a primer layer, but that's a different story.

[randomcow]

I know it sucks to have to work with him, but please keep in mind that it may not be his fault. Some people are just born with shit wrong with them.

(If it is something that can been easily fixed then a box of nice breath mints, maybe something from a pharmacy, would be your best bet IMHO).

We had this woman at a previous company who had pretty offensive body odor. The way the OLs with whom she worked handled the issue? Lots of jokes and snickering and whatnot behind her back. They tried to get me onside but I wasn't having a bar of it. I just though, poor girl maybe no-one has ever told her. So I bought her some nice hand cream and some nice-smelling deodorising soap and... something else, can't remember. I just put it in a bag and put it on her desk when no-one was there. She was a changed person after that. She used to be meek and was probably picked on all through school and even now in the workforce. But once she started using the stuff I secretly gave her she walk around confidently (until she eventually got restructured).

The point being, it sucks to have to work with it but don't do anything stupid. Be a bit considerate and be an adult about it.

RC

[kuroneko]

What if it's your shacho and there are only 4 people in the office? I have the same problem here...

[Spanx]

Be a bit considerate and be an adult about it.
RC

Yeah, or you can just point to his mouth, make a smelly face, and then commit hara kiri with a fake seppuku sword and fall down right there on the office floor.

That just sounds more fun.

[Bairen]

I still stand by the frisks even after the garbage can incident. Unless the guy is an idiot, he isn't going to want to freak out about breath mints, as it will just be calling even more attention to the situation that until that point was only called attention to discretely.

Either that or you could start smoking - kills your sense of smell.

[Bairen]

I was wondering if the guy's breath could really be that bad - I mean as long as you don't have to talk to him much what does it matter?

But just now some guy sat behind me on the bus, and his breath was so bad I had to get up and change seats. If that's what you have to deal with everyday, that must suck.

[RR645]

Does no one else see the incredible amount of humor in this thread...? I have been laughing out loud all the way down the page. Read it from the top.

Write 'A present for you' or something like that

And use hello kitty stationary so he'll suspect it was one of the OLs who did it.

Ha ha. Last year somebody accidentally left a trash can on a guy's desk after the morning souji and the guy threatened to quit. We got daily emails asking the "culprit" to come forward for two weeks. Nobody ever owned up to it. I ain't leaving anything on anybody's desk.

Comedic gold right there.

Is he ranked higher than you? Then be very subtle about it. Leave frisk mints on his desk, maybe even buy a toothbrush and toothpaste and say it's an omiyage from Canada or something.

I know it sucks to have to work with him, but please keep in mind that it may not be his fault. Some people are just born with shit wrong with them.

Wow, good stuff!

Be a bit considerate and be an adult about it.
RC

Yeah, or you can just point to his mouth, make a smelly face, and then commit hara kiri with a fake seppuku sword and fall down right there on the office floor.

And Spanx closing the deal.

I still stand by the frisks even after the garbage can incident. Unless the guy is an idiot, he isn't going to want to freak out about breath mints, as it will just be calling even more attention to the situation that until that point was only called attention to discretely.

Don't do it OD. You don't want to be that guy who "leaves stuff on peoples' desk...

[Bairen]

He won't be - cause no one will ever know but him

[Spanx]

Does no one else see the incredible amount of humor in this thread...? I have been laughing out loud all the way down the page.

Hey! Chronic Halatosis is no laughing matter.

[RR645]

Hey! Chronic Halatosis is no laughing matter.

I wasn't laughing on Sunday... I had a meeting and the guys breath smelled like shit... Not to say shit, as in bad breath... It smelled like actual doo doo, as in poop. At first I thought someone had passed gas, but then I realized where the smell was coming from. I can't imagine having to deal with that everyday.

[overdrive]

Actually, I was intending to do it in an adult way - ask him out for coffee or to the conbini, and on the way ask him privately if he is having health issues then use that as a nice segue into the breath thing - the only problem being, in our lovely adopted home, there is the annoying tendency for Western notions of "maturity" to go, shall we say, unrecognized and unappreciated. Thus the forward check.

By the way, the smell really IS that bad. Imagine drowning a bird in a bowl of can coffee, dumping in a weeks' worth of cigarette butts, and then letting grandma use the mixture to soak her feet in. For three months. That's roughly what we're talking about here. The only reason some random stranger on the street hasn't walked up and punched him in the face yet is because this kind of stench is tragically unremarkable in this land.

Oh, and he's gassed me from the other end twice since the last post. If there is a Hell, the gate to it is IN THIS MAN.

[bomboy]

R.O.T.F.L. Jesus this IS a good thread!

[Bairen]

Actually, I was intending to do it in an adult way - ask him out for coffee or to the conbini, and on the way ask him privately if he is having health issues then use that as a nice segue into the breath thing - the only problem being, in our lovely adopted home, there is the annoying tendency for Western notions of "maturity" to go, shall we say, unrecognized and unappreciated. Thus the forward check.

That's just not the Japanese way at all.

A Japanese lady I knew one time explained it to me this way. If she sees something on her friend's face, she would say 'you should go to the bathroom' (with the expectation that the lady will look in the mirror).

Our version of 'mature' is their version of 'way too personal'. That's why I think the breath mints on the desk is good. Or if you don't want to leave them on his desk, just give them to him straight out - "here, I bought you these". You don't have to say why - it's implied.

[sakaya_slag]

If he is senior to you, I honestly wouldn't bring it up even privately. As you say, the Japanese idea of "maturity" is quite different from our's and it may backfire if you make him lose face.

[sakaya_slag]

By the way, it isn't just Japan. My mum complains about the same thing at her work, but nobody dares bring the issue up with the guy in question.

[Bairen]

When I used to be a manager in my old company, I had to deal with an employee with bad B.O. I was getting complaints from my other teachers who had to work with him. It wasn't an easy situation to deal with to say the least.