That one thing you never want to smell...

[Dark-Star]

In the spirit of 'that one sound you never want to hear'. Basic format:

"When working at_____ (or 'when doing _____') the one thing you NEVER want to smell is_____, because that means _____."

Feel free to be much more creative than this, of course. And please describe the Bad Smell in as much detail as possible since we may not know what you're referring to!

[gunsage]

When at home, the one thing you don't want to smell is when you suspect, then confirm that aaaaaaaaaaaallllllllll that miralax has finally worked...just as you open the diaper.

[crazylegs]

Pork in a building fire
If your squemish DO NOT highlight the following----->human bodies, when burned smell like cooked pork <------

[Saydrah]

When working at Petco, the one thing you NEVER want to smell is decay coming from a box held by a customer, because that means they're returning a dead animal that they haven't made any efforts to prevent from decomposing in the several days between when it died and when they managed to get to the store.

[InsanityInc]

When you're driving a truck, the one thing you never want to smell is smoked brakes when you're going down a mountain. (If they are smoking, you are near to losing them).

[Primer]

The only smell I can recall that I never want to smell again, is actually rather indescribable, but anybody who has ever worked for a veterinarian will know the smell....Parvo poop. It's the worst poop smell you could possibly imagine, mixed with the hot coppery smell of blood; and it means the poor puppy is probably going to be put down.

[gunsage]

No buildup necessary here. Ahem. On a field trip for my environmental sciences course...SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT. Needless to say, after getting ONE wiff, I breathed through my mouth for the rest of the place...even outside!

[Victoria J]

Alcohol.

It's not the nastiest smell but it's the worst thing to smell at work. I sometimes have to deal with people who haven't washed in a long time (including one guy who had something crawling on him, and someone who just talking to him and taking a piece of paper from him left me with a rash !) but even if someone is generally smelly it doesn't reflect badly on me.

But when someone comes in (all my work with customers at the moment is in the mornings but it still happens sometimes) and stinks of alcohol then I end up seeing everyone else that morning in a room that reeks, and makes people think I have been drinking.

Victoria J

[Yfandes]

The pungent odor of moist, very long dead fish in a warm, rarely used storage closet off of the fish lab.

Backstory: After a collection trip, a large ice chest full of zebra perch was put away with the fish and water still in it (the fish were supposed to go into a chest freezer for later processing).

When found a MONTH later it was the most jelly-like, rank, nasty, disgusting soup in the world. Since this collection was actually fairly important for a size study, the professor made the grad students responsible for the screw-up measure the skeletons that could still be fished out of the disgusting mess - in a vacant lot far away from the building. It was so sad, you could see them gagging, retching and the girl crying - but they did it! And then they buried the contents and the cooler...


oh oh and another!
The one thing you never want to smell is formaldehyde in the elevator shaft after hearing a crash, the sound of glass breaking, and "ooops".

It was a gallon glass bottle of the 37% formaldehyde, and since it was the elevator shaft the whole building had to be evacuated - stinky! But not as bad as the fish...

[blas]

Here's a more mild one....

When working with blas87 at the factory, the one thing you never want to smell is farts.

You smell that sulfuric smell, you run. If it's permeating some sort of fog, run faster.

[edible_hat]

Smoke. Because it means something's burning. Doesn't sound so bad excepot when you're sitting on top of upwards of 15000 liters of petrol, diesel, and LPG.

[Seshat]

When I was still a sysadmin and/or programmer: overheated plastic. Something critical in the computer is about to go.

Now? A particular (and subtle) pheromone smell that seems to usually precede a really bad week healthwise.

[Salted Grump]

This didn't happen at work, but the ~worst~ smell I have ever encountered is 10-month old squash. 100 pounds of it. In a 'cooler' that had been buried under a pile of stuff in the home workshop.

Needless to say, that smell was washed out with a liberal application of the pressure washer, and several days of being kept far away from the house.

[chops]

Rotting chicken.

Convenience Store Hell™ had volunteered to store some chicken that was to be used for a local civic group's annual barbeque in their walk-in beer cooler.

They stored the chicken next to the inside door. People generally leave the inside door ajar despite being told repeatedly to close it completely.

The result: all that chicken was exposed to the warm air seeping into the cooler, and spoiled.

Not only that, but the smell lingered for weeks. That is one of the single worst smells imaginable, especially if you have to go in there and stock the beer.

[Andara Bledin]

Not only that, but the smell lingered for weeks. That is one of the single worst smells imaginable, especially if you have to go in there and stock the beer.

Does rotten chicken trump rotten fish?

There was a fridge in the warehouse where people could store stuff, and someone left some fish in it so long it went bad. You could smell every time someone opened the door to the fridge for at least an hour afterward.

^-.-^