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Legends of the Workplace

Having quit my job to stay at home and be the Homedaddy, I am now qualified to speak to the respective pros and cons of these lifestyles. There are many obvious drawbacks to staying at home with a baby. Chronic backache, inferiority complex and Cabin Fever all figure prominently, not to mention that pesky little sense of crushing responsibility that occasionally rears its ugly head.

Of course, a Real Job is no picnic either, what with unrealistic deadlines, backstabbing co-workers, vicious office gossip (or lack thereof), and managers fresh from the Attila the Hun Success Seminar ("Stop being ashamed of winning!"). On the up side, Real Jobs are great for a steady paycheck, medical benefits, and a lifetime supply of paper clips, while the advantages of being a Home Parent include a sense of pride and wonder at your child's early development, plus the option to walk around the house in your underwear till 2 PM.

But best of all is the new-found freedom to comment openly about former co-workers. When you work with the same people day in and day out it is usually not prudent to draw attention to their flaws, whether they be tragic or just pathetic, since your job is not to turn them into better people but simply to kill another day and still maintain the guise of Responsible Adult. The employee who freely makes disparaging remarks about another employee's hygiene is not generally considered to be a Team Player, which is the kiss of death in today's corporate-driven workplace.

Now that Emma is my boss, I find that my job duties such as feeding and diaper-changing require a level of honesty that is truly refreshing. If something doesn't smell just right, or there's a suspicious-looking rash, it's my job to address and hopefully correct the matter. In retrospect, to have made similar observations with regard to my former bosses or co-workers could have been what is called a CLM (Career-Limiting Maneuver). For example:

SCENE 1 INTERIOR / GENERAL MANAGER'S OFFICE The GM is hunched over his computer playing solitaire. There is a knock at the door. The GM quickly hides the solitaire screen behind a dummy spreadsheet template kept handy for this purpose.
GM: Come in!
ME: Hi boss ... phew, something stinks. Did you cut one or is that your new aftershave?
GM: You're fired.

Thus you can see how such observations are not appropriate in a corporate atmosphere. On the other hand, they make add much-needed spice to the conversation when knocking around the house all day with a human who cannot yet talk back. Today we will pay tribute to a true legend of the workplace:

Bad Breath Guy
I think we have all worked with one of these. Usually they are comically (in the tragic sense) unaware of their condition and its devastating impact. Sometimes these people also have horrible personalities, which makes it easy not to mention anything to them, thereby allowing them to cruise along in funky oblivion while everyone makes icky-faces behind their back. You just know their careers are going to stay right where they are because their breath is so unbelievably bad that no one can face them through an entire conversation. On the other hand, some of them are genuinely terrific people, which poses a dilemma: Do you do them the favor of leaving the anonymous bottle of mouthwash on their desk, or try the more direct approach:

ME: Say, uh, Jim, I'm a little woried about you.
JIM (turning his head to face me): Why?
ME (turning green and holding breath): Well, I think you should quit. brushing your teeth with dumpster-jam.

There are some people with breath so bad that you can get caustrophobic just being in the same office with them. I used to work with this guy with breath that was not only smelly but hot. Through some feat of halitosis alchemy he was able to inhale normal, recycled office air and exhale a fetid, steamy blast that would fog the windows and cause computers to crash. Unfortunately, this was a guy we all liked. By the time I left the job for Baby Duty we hadn't yet decided whether to approach him or not. Perhaps he'll read this column and get inspired to do something, like show up at my house with a blowtorch.

Of course, he should realize that I don't mean anything personal by it, I am just trying to provide a little levity. Maybe I should send him some flowers as a preemptive apology. A simple little bouquet with plenty of baby's breath.

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© Todd Pinsky 1998-2002. All rights reserved.