Published on 12, July, 2020
Part of why I got an assessment was to access helpful adjustments at work, because I'm very sensitive to both sound and smell.
Currently the two people that sit next to me at work smell awful, and it's really inhibiting my working ability. They're also loud (talking, tea-slurping, apple eating, etc), but I can cover that by wearing headphones. The smell I cannot. I'm sure the guy on my left doesn't wash his clothes, and the guy to my right has terrible breath.
Does anyone else have this issue? Its' driving me mad, and my work cannot offer me a better place to sit.
Yup - I feel your pain. I am sat next to a bloke who cracks his knuckles about 50 times a day, which makes me jump and cringe every time, and buys the noisiest crisps ever then manages to make the bag last an hour, just so I can get every excruciating loud crunch.
There is another person, with a very loud, carrying voice, who insists on having long calls at her desk. I find it impossible to tune out (I can still hear it over the noise cancelling headphones), and my concentration is shot for the duration (bit of a problem as I am a software developer so once I have lost my thread, it's a pain to get it back).
I don't have anyone unwashed smelly but am hypersensitive to smell and people wearing perfume around me is awful. I guess it must smell good to them otherwise they wouldn't use it, but to me it's more like stale spilled alcohol (or a drunk tramp) overlaid with fermenting fruit. One of them used to spray it in the office, which gave me an instant migraine. I also find this a huge problem on public transport and usually end up feeling like I am going to throw up by the end of the journey at least once a week.
Oh yeah and there's the people who heat up food in the communal microwaves so that the whole area smells like someone has been microwaving roadkill.
In addition to this I have a very draughty air con unit blowing on my head all day and awful artificial light (more migraines!), but apparently there isn't anywhere else I can be moved to either.
I don't know what the answer is - I guess it depends on your workplace's attitude to "reasonable adjustments" as opposed to what they probably see as just us moaning about everything. Please do let us know if you find a way to get any improvements made!
This sounds like my office! It's really hard to get any adjustments because nobody knows that I have sensory issues (I'm waiting until I have a diagnosis to disclose my autism). People just assume I'm moaning when I say I'm too hot or can't cope with the noise of the air con/strength of the blowers (I sit right underneath it). The artificial light is horrible and they're on sensors, so they go off if nobody moves for a while. Just as I'm enjoying the sensory break, someone walks over to switch them back on (even if it's only the lights above me that are switched off, and I explain that I like it dull). I was once told, "We can't always cater to the minority" when I asked if there was anything we could do about the lighting levels!
Thank goodness, the knuckle cracker left about 3 months ago. That was a huge relief. I am lucky in that I get to do 3 of the 5 days per week from home. No distractions, good light, and frankly I can get twice as much work done.
I did in the end ask the office manager if she could have a word with "carrying voice lady". I can grit my teeth and put up with people having calls at their desks (and will just put my noise cancelling headphones on - the nice guy next to me even gives me advance warning now!) but that is when it is reasonable, i.e. there are a number of people on the call and the ones near me might speak for 5 mins of a 30 min call. Yes, it distracts me, but I feel I would be being a bit stroppy if I objected to that. My problem with carrying voice lady is that she will have a 30 minutes call and spend 25 minutes of it talking herself - she REALLY likes the sound of her own voice. Most of the time it's hard to understand why she needs the telephone at all, as she speaks so loudly people in the next county can probably hear her.
Anyway, I put it as a simple case of office etiquette, i.e. if you know you will be talking loudly for 25 mins and distracting the people around you, don't do it at your desk, book a room. I think that is what she was told, as the long and very intrusive calls seem to have stopped, or been taken elsewhere at least :-)
If you don't want to disclose yet/at all, my mother in law pointed out that she would also have to object to the perfume as she is asthmatic and it would set her off. Also, glaring lights of bad light level could cause problems for somebody who suffers a lot from migraines. You might be able to bend the truth slightly to see if something can be done before you get a formal diagnosis. People got the message about the air con when I started sitting there in a fleece hoodie with the hood up and refused to take it off as I was freezing and sitting in a howling gale. Since the "thug life" look wasn't that well appreciated in our fancy corporate office, they had to do something really!
Thank you - it's good to hear the diagnosis has helped you
You're welcome - I do hope you don't have to wait too much longer for your diagnosis.
For me, it was a huge relief and I can honestly say I have no negative feelings about it. It explained so much, about so many things in my life. It's definitely easier to take care of yourself once you know what you are dealing with too (as per the above topic!)