Once in a while, the HVAC system in the cube farm takes a dive. Sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours. On one occasion during an extended downtime, someone walked by my fabric-covered box. While that may not be so bad, the fact that it seemed like said person took a bath in cologne made the air in my general area a little less than good. Ok, a lot less, since once the airflow stops here this place gets stuffy. At any rate, I’m sitting, trying to do some work and doing my very best not to choke on the fumes. Fast forward to two hours later. You would think that by now, the odor would have somewhat wafted out of noseshot. I could only wish that were true this day. Eventually the HVAC system came back online and I could breathe again.

The following week, some people from other offices were onsite. My cube is right near the door, so people tend to congregate around it. Again, not too bad when done in moderation, but on this particular day someone once again decided perfume was a better substitute than water. If the fragrance weren’t so bad it wouldn’t have been too unbearable, but the odor was just so sweet and ungood++ that again, I found myself almost choking. The group of people were standing around talking with no end in sight. Finally, as I was about to begin a round of well-timed coughs, the crowd dispersed and along with it the odor.

I could go on about the lunchtime odors around here, but there’s far too many to mention. I am a culprit as I do eat at my cubicle and work through lunch a lot, but usually anything I eat is not as odorous as some of the other more ethnic offerings around here.