Gail works in a retail store, and one of her workmates has a real lack of personal presentation... Her hair often looks unwashed and messy; She frequently wears the same outfit to work several days in a row; and is happy to wear clothes with obvious foodstains on them... And - there's no polite way to put this -  she has a BO problem, quite consistently, and obviously doesn't use deodorant...

Now at first glance this issue may sound a little trivial... but it's actually quite a serious issue she's dealing with here. It's affecting not workmates, but customers too - You just can't work in retail and expect that customers don't notice your appearance or lack of attention to personal hygiene.

Gail has talked to her manager about it, and so has another staff member. The manager has then had a chat to the workmate  - but nothing has changed. The boss could escalate it by taking it higher, or bringing it up in a performance review... But Gail's wondering if there is a better way to deal with this before the poor lady has to be embarrassed or disciplined in some

Let's give Gail some second opinions.

DISCUSSION POINTS

• Gail's tried to raise the issue with her workmate herself, for example making a light-hearted comment about the foodstain on her clothes - - but the workmate has just shrugged it off.

• Is there anything she might be able to do to, gently, and out of love, to encourage her workmate to improve in this area of her appearance and caring for herself?

• If you've experienced a similar situation, what did you do?

• Gail is wondering why this lady doesn't care about her appearance: Perhaps she's a bit socially inept or just lacks self-awareness.

• Maybe she's just never been shown the value of looking neat and tidy, maybe she wasn't raised in an environment where it was considered important - or never shown how?

• Or perhaps there's something deeper - a real lack of self esteem or self-worth, perhaps, or maybe she's suffering from depression... that might make it harder to actually see a change