When you do many small jobs, you run into many different types of atmosphere.

For instance, when I was working in Montana, one of the small jobs I was sent on was to put stock tank heaters in a feed lot.  I had to run circuits to several locations in the feed lots.  That atmosphere was permeated by living livestock and their accumulated waste product.  In effect, I was knee deep in mud and manure, and so were the animals.

Having grown up on a farm, I was used to caring for livestock and the waste that they produced.  On the farm we always used rubber knee-high waders.  Being so recently away from the farm, I was somewhat acclimated to the “atmosphere.”  Being in the fall of the year when this job came up, the day wasn’t too warm, and thus it was not offensively populated with odor.

Many years went by before I was once again called to work on a similar project.  By then, working in Spokane, I had lost my toleration for that particular “atmosphere.”

One of the most difficult jobs I had was to work in a cat atmosphere.  We did a job for a family that housed their cats in the basement.  It was a very undesirable air to work in.  The second day on the job we showed up with a lot of deodorant.  It was worth the effort.  The owners hired us for several new construction jobs.

Bad atmosphere can be encountered under a mobile home, especially if cats and/or dogs have been nesting there.

Another source of bad atmosphere I have encountered is in old folks’ homes.  Sometimes when I would arrive for the job, the odor of excretions, voluntary and involuntary, were overpowering.  I did find a product called (if I remember it correctly and can spell it appropriately) “Vom-oose.”  Applying it to the walls and floor of the work area took away all the unpleasantness of stomach distress and involuntary urination.

One job I had involved ditching across a yard.  I accidently cut through the sewage pipe between the house and the septic tank.  That job was outside.  The outside atmosphere made the odiferous atmosphere much more tolerable.

I came to respect working outside – in either hot or cold atmospheres.