When I was serving in the US military, we were given extremely strict official regulations to live by, which included dress and appearance. There were rules for how long your hair could be, how to properly button/zip/Velcro your uniforms, no wearing of dirty or torn clothing items, must be clean shaven at all times, always be clean and presentable, etc. All aspects of our lives were maintained by an extremely strict protocol.
One year, we got this brand-new young lady in our unit. It was her very first assignment in the military. At first glance, she was kinda cute. Had kind of the shy Violet from The Incredibles vibe going for her. But when she got close to you, you suddenly realized you could smell her. She reeked of feces and B.O., her breath was like death, and her hair was super greasy and clumped into thick strands. Her pale skin had a greasy sheen to it as well. Also, her hair was out of regulations. She wore it hanging straight down, no bobby pins, no buns or ponytails or braids. It was heavily brushing her shoulders; way too long for women’s hair. Hair that long (at the time) was required to be up in a tight bun while in uniform. Also, her uniform hat had very visible grease stains along the edges.
She was pulled aside by our commander and chewed out for not adhering to military regulations, then told to go home, shower, fix her hair (or get a haircut; her choice), and put on a fresh, clean uniform. She left crying.
Soon after, our commander (a Major) got a call from a Colonel at another base. The Colonel proceeded to chew out our commander for “targeting, harassing, and destroying the reputation” of his baby sister. Oops. A Colonel outranks a Major, so our commander couldn’t do anything but take the ass-chewing.
From that moment on, that young girl proceeded to be gross and filthy 24/7, and anyone who complained got an earful from her big brother. No one could reason with him; he absolutely refused to believe his darling baby sister would be such a pigsty. And he was stationed in a completely different country from us, so it’s not like we could drag him over to give his sister a welfare check. We were forced to leave her alone and suffer from her horrid stench. She was given a job in the back corner of the office, away from other coworkers, and FAR away from the customer front desk.
That was about 9 years ago, and I only worked with her for just under a year before I was reassigned. I wonder where she is now? I’m curious if she was ever forced to acknowledge her awful hygiene habits and change. Or perhaps she couldn’t tolerate the “abuse” of bosses and coworkers trying to correct her and decided to leave the military.
Like I said, she was pretty cute, if you could look past all the grime. There was a theory floating around that maybe she had been abused and/or raped in the past, and so she decided to protect herself by making herself as filthy and unappealing as possible. If that’s true, it worked. Everyone gave her a wide berth.