I would tell her especially if you talk to her every day. No one wants to smell someone's odors, lol! I would jokingly ask her what she ate for breakfast and let her know her breath stinks...guess I am just too honest, that and I wouldn't want to deal with it. I don't see how telling someone their breath stinks is rude or mean if you work with this person and yes, i would want to know myself.

This is an AWESOME suggestion, because in the work environment, if you're going to say something, how you say it is often more important than whether you say it. Better to say nothing at all, than to come across as a jerkess. You want to be diplomatic or it can come back to bite you in the butt, and brand you a person who is unpleasant and difficult to work with.

I would definitely recommend NOT making a joke about it. This generally backfires in the work environment, because people often consider jokes to be in bad taste and/or misinterpret the attempt at humor as ridicule.

Personally, I'd much, much rather have someone tell me calmly and directly (or even nastily for that matter) than to make it a "joke." Joking is far too similar in sound and tone to ridicule, and it feels like it did to be picked on and made fun of in grade school.

Making a joke is a natural impulse for many people, but it's usually a bad idea, and in the work environment it's almost always a bad idea.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

Her office is right next to mine and she comes to my office at least 5 times EVERY SINGLE DAY. Her breath literally makes me sick. Makes me want to vomit and I hate having the feeling of nausea every day I come to work.

If it were me and this is just me and I always tell my friends, relatives, co-workers that if there is EVER any problem with me (bad breath, underarm odor, etc) to PLEASE let me know and I will NOT be offended. But that is just the type of person I am. If something is going on with me and I am not aware of it, then I can't address it. That includes my clothes being wrinkle, etc. LOL. I WANT people to tell me if something is wrong with me. But I know everyone is different and don't want to hear that because their feelings will be hurt.

I can remember about 15 years ago, I noticed (smelled) that my secretary had a HORRIBLE smell coming from her lower area. I knew that she probably had a bacteria or yeast infection and she couldn't smell it. The ENTIRE office smelled like..........well, you can just imagine. This was an area where the owner, supervisors, managers, vendors, etc would frequent. There was no way that I could let that go without addressing. So, I had a private meeting with her and gently told her that I thought something was medically wrong with her because of the odor that she carried and I suggested that she make a doctor's appointment to find out what was going on. Well, she took the meeting VERY well and she made an appointment to the doctor. After her appointment she told me that she had a bad vaginal infection and the doctor prescribed meds for a couple weeks. She thanked me and told me that she was so glad that I told her because she could not smell herself and she had no idea. She said that she would have never gone to the doctor if I wouldn't have mentioned it to her. She said if there were any other problems with her to PLEASE let her know ASAP, so that she could take care of it.

Tell her, kindly. Wouldnt you want to be told if you had horrible breath?

Just like we're struggling with our weight. We wouldn't want someone to tell us we're fat. People struggle with different things, maybe that's her issue. I know I'm overweight and I don't need someone to tell me that. I'm sure she probably know her breath isn't fresh without you having to tell her.

Very true but our weight doesn't make people physically sick from the stinch. I don't think that she is trying to do anything about it. She NEVER has breath mints.

Our company policies and procedure DOES address hygiene and offensive body odors, so the bad breath would be included in both categories.

I know a couple people with peridontal disease and there constantly worried about how there breath smells and things like that, I would never say anything if I smelt there breath to make them more insecure. That's all I'm saying. If she's not doing anything about it I guess you could just try to avoid her, but sometimes even saying things with good intentions can be taken the wrong way.

From what you describe it is very likely to be tonsil stones. I have seen many patients with those. The smell is horrible and it really does linger. It's nothing compared to morning breath or stomach problems or unbrushed teeth. After seeing the first patient with tonsil stones ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonsillolith ), I remembered a guy from high school who had a similiar bad breath and how I really had to concentrate on something else when he was talking to me.
When you talk to her maybe give her the advice to go and see an ears nose throat doctor!

WOW!! Great information. Thanks for posting the link . I didn't know about that. I learned something new today.

If it is specifically addressed in your company policies then I would take it up with HR and let them deal with it (and I would ask to remain anonymous).

Anonymous is always good to be.

re:
 

BTW - I have sort of a side question on the topic.

Is there any way to get rid of bad breath without mint things or changing diet? My son has AWFUL breath because he eats a good deal of garlic and absolutely will not eat those mint things. (he's 10)

any suggestions would be great..........

I've heard that a glass of milk after the meal will help with the smell. I don't know if it's true, though.

Edit: I googled it and apparently this was the result of a study of Ohio state university. Also, it says you should drink the milk DURING your meal, not after.

tell her for sure; i'd want to know! (just do it in private, and make it sound like no big deal)

also, i heard bad breathe can be caused by dehydration so keep offering her a bottle of water!