Our office is supposed to be a scent-free environment though I’d sneak in a spritz or two of the faintest smelling body spray whenever I wake up too late to wash my hair in the morning (me filthy thing!) I hope I don’t get written up for it one day.  And I think someone’s doing the same thing!  Once in a while, I would catch strong whiffs of pomade in my cubicle. Old man’s pomade—the scent that you’ll get if you mix coconut oil with old dried up garden soil. I’ve been secretly accusing someone for it. He’s very nice, funny and very smart by the way, but just the quintessence of the pomade-slathering league. But lo and behold, this place is reeking of that odor today and he’s not even here! Hence, I’m moving on to Victim…er…Suspect #2: the co-worker in the cubicle next to mine. There is nothing conclusive yet but if I’m right this time, then I therefore conclude that not all women who come to work clutching an original Gucci purse have good taste in the fragrance department. (If my co-workers can read my posts, I will soooo get in trouble).

I digress. 

Suspect #2 got in trouble with The Manager lately. If my eavesdropping data is accurate (which most often isn’t especially when relying on audible data---in other words, I’m biologically deaf aside from having Attention Deficit), she has been lagging on some important tasks involving BIG accounts.  Aside from that, I heard from Suspect #3 (she doesn’t stink, I just don’t know how to refer to her---but since she works on the cubicle across mine, she’s not fully acquitted just yet) that Suspect #2 got into an argument with The Manager while she was being reprimanded for not doing her job.  It allegedly graduated into a yelling match with Suspect #2 coming out of it claiming that she felt “harassed”. Suspect #3 and Suspect #4 (I don’t think this one should even be a suspect at all) asked if I heard it myself because they only learned about it from the grapevine; #3 was off sick that day, and #4 was on vacation. I could swear I didn’t hear any yelling at all so they figured it must have happened on my lunch break. But I never leave on lunch breaks! I eat my lunch in my cube while I write blogs like this one! I must have been in a different “realm” that time…

But it could be true. I hate taking sides but I believe that the manager had a point. I hear her yakking on the phone with friends for long periods of paid time. So seriously? It only proves that how we behave dictates how others will treat us. Our attitudes and behaviors in the different aspects of our lives court how we will be treated back. Give out sh*t, and you’ll get some sh*t back. Love and you will be loved back. Maybe not in all instances, but it improves your chances. But this shouldn’t even be the main goal.  Be nice, just to make the world a better place. Love, just because.

And don’t wear stinky pomade.