Reprinted from May 1997
People who do not work with the public have little or no idea about the way it really is. For instance, have you ever seen one word written about how customers smell? I doubt it.
At the risk of offending those who live in a state where tobacco is a prime source of income, I want to discuss how smokers smell. This is not how grandpa used to smell with the sweet aroma of tobacco smoke which permeated his clothing stemming from his pipe; this is the smell of people who chain smoke cigarettes.
Some scents like Swisher Sweet cigars lingering on a person can enhance their appeal, perhaps, but not the chain smoker whose clothing is totally drenched with cigarette smoke smell. I wonder how it is no one tells them about this or urges them to at least air out the clothing once in a while. It is not appealing to non-smokers.
Past this problem, there is the problem of the day drinker. They seem to lean over the counter and their breath wafts on the breeze of the air conditioner, sharing whatever it is they have been sampling. We have a couple of bums who live in the alley who smell the same way. People who have had a couple of belts are often amiable and want to hug or kiss you, which makes matters worse.
Then there are those who either have a terrible body odor problem or who simply do not bathe. This smell waffles its way through the building and circulates among the other customers or employees until everyone is looking at everyone else wondering which one is to blame. Can it be we live in an era where there must be 500 brands of soap and body cleansing products which do not appeal to those who do not want to bathe?
There are also women who believe their perfume is so great they want someone in the back pounding out jewelry to notice their arrival. I wonder if they even notice people around them sometimes gasp and sneeze, trying to draw a fresh breath of air. This same thing can apply to after-shave, but fortunately, after-shave does not go all over the body and unlike women who thrust their arms forward to adjust watchbands, most men do not have highly scented skin.
There is the fresh scent of hay some farmer drags with him when he comes to town to get a bolt for a bailing machine or something, which is not offensive. There is the scent of the man who has been doing an honest day’s work and has worked into a sweat and yet has to do errands on the way home. These scents are not so bad.
There is the unfortunate scent of the person who wants to talk about 3 inches from your nose and whose breath is not particularly fresh. Sometimes, I watch traveling salesmen get out of their car and pop a breath mint on their way in. At least they are making an effort to make a good impression.
There are all kinds of scents. The good, the bad, and the ugly, so to speak. If there is one scent that is universally appalling, I think it is the scent of mothballs. Last week, a customer came in prepared to have a big custom job done. Boy, did we need the job! In a situation like this, sometimes two employees will work with her, a jeweler and another person to remove the mountings or discarded ideas in the process.
This lady was pretty and likeable, but at a distance of a couple of feet, she would have exterminated any bug in range. Both of the people working with her were dabbing their eyes and noses. Their skin nettled. How she could sit there adorned in that heavy suit which had obviously been tucked lovingly into a box of mothballs, perhaps in 1940?
I never thought I’d see the day when jewelry store employees would have to wear masks to wait on the customers. We used to think it was bad when someone had a wonderful meal of spaghetti and garlic, and for three days, one could know this without asking. Maybe if we sprayed the store with air freshener. No, I doubt it. It would just smell like fake flowers coming out of a moth-proof container.
