For those of you who don’t work in dentistry, ‘that smell’ that you get when you walk into a dental practice is the smell of Kalzionol (it’s oil of cloves).
Historically this is a material commonly used in dentistry and acts as a sedative to the tooth to reduce discomfort and pain; it’s used for temporary fillings and sometimes for underneath fillings. It’s not used so much anymore but used to be used a lot and is very distinctive and has become engrained in the mindsets and world views of many people who went to the dentist who are my age or older.
I was speaking to one of our newer members of staff Nic when I was working with her the other day and she told me that one of the most amazing things when she walked in for her interview for the first time was that we didn’t smell like a dentist.
What’s even more interesting is that we never set out not to smell like a dentist, we just set out to not be like a dentist. Everybody here knows that we’re trying to be a little bit different to your average 1970s dental practice and it turns out that when you set the culture that way, it trickles downwards through 1000 little things, including somewhere that smells of coffee instead of Kalzinol.
Blog Post Number - 1245
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