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Do you take your shoes off at work? (assuming you still have a non-virtual workplace) Any argument about how shoes are unsanitary (not that we live in a time wh

Do you take your shoes off at work? (assuming you still have a non-virtual workplace) Any argument about how shoes are unsanitary (not that we live in a time where the streets are covered in horseshit anymore) should apply equally to the workplace as in the home, no?

dmm 3y ago
Shoes carry large amounts of fecal bateria into homes, including E. coli: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/shoes-carry-poop-bacteria-into-nyc-buildings-study-finds-180981680/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/shoes-carry-poop-b... > should apply equally to the workplace as in the home, no? Probably. You should bring it up with your boss.
Terr_ 3y ago
(Not OP) I would like to but there's a Prisoner's Dilemma going on. If I take off my shoes but some of my coworkers still track icky crap in, then it is worse for me than if we all uniformly kept our outdoor shoes on. One option is to have some office shoes or sandals, which will also help protect from culinary mistakes in the break-room.
gopalv 3y ago
> Do you take your shoes off at work? (assuming you still have a non-virtual workplace) In India, when the dust kills computers by clogging fans, you'll see workplaces with computers have a "leave your shoes outside" board. I'm not sure what happens today, but this was true when I lived there. That's mostly because everyone coming in is usually spent the last half mile on foot and the shoes will basically flake-off indoors in the lowered humidity. Also, for some reason my dentist's office has a "employees must change into shoes" notice, suspiciously in the bay area. Maybe they had some contamination issues ("work shoes" that could be santized properly?) or maybe they had employees wear sandals into the office & they had to enforce the rule after someone dropped a sharp on a toe?
gadders 3y ago
I always thought people should wear slippers at work.
- DanHulton 3y ago
  Yeah, I always had a nice pair of "business-appropriate" slippers for any office I worked in. Especially great in the winter, when I can just shuck off my wet winter boots and swap into my comfy office slippers.
wombat-man 3y ago
Wearing house slippers or birkenstocks at work is great.
99_00 3y ago
People interact with the floor of their home differently than the floor of their workplace.
ChuckNorris89 3y ago
>Do you take your shoes off at work? (assuming you still have a non-virtual workplace) I do, and I switch to to my Birkenstocks at work, as my feet can breathe way better in them and it also gives my sneakers an ~8h rest to stay smell-free and cool until I have to go home and put them back on. Continuously wearing the same pair of sneakers for about 10h per day is ... not great. My feet would be in a swampy sweat broth.
- klyrs 3y ago
  > My feet would be in a swampy sweat broth. People who always wear shoes all day every day think tend to think that feet are gross. And that's because their feet are disgusting, and they project that onto everybody else.
  - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
    I didn't project anything. I said my feet are less sweaty in Birkenstock sandals than in Sneakers as they breathe less and less sweat and more fresh air is always better.
    - proto_lambda 3y ago
      > People who always wear shoes all day every day They explicitly weren't talking about you.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
mchaver 3y ago
It's honestly not a bad idea to have footwear dedicated to certain spaces. I support the idea of office slippers.
parentheses 3y ago
There is no reason for this equivalence. My main reasoning is reducing cleaning effort on my end. If the office were to have a no shoes rule I'd be walking around in socks or barefoot as long as others do. Sharing foot bacteria with my coworkers is also a different ballgame than sharing it with my wife and kid. The family is already sharing quite a bit of bacteria so what's a bit of foot stuff.
bjornasm 3y ago
Uhm no? Unlike in my home the work environment have professionals washing regularly, no food is prepared, no kids play at the floor and the floors and furniture is made to be easily cleaned. So no. Not at all. (But I wear birkenstocks at work, so nice taking off my shoes that are made to be used outside and rather use footwear that are more fit for the inside).
filoleg 3y ago
> Do you take your shoes off at work? No, because I consider the office to be a shared public space, and none of the people working in the office actually live there. Office is not my personal space, it is a transient area.
kklisura 3y ago
I do. Company I work for provides space for leaving your outside shoes and keeping your inside shoes or slippers. I wore slippers until few years ago, but now I wear comfy snickers in office. Some of my colleagues still wear slippers.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Where I currently work, you are required to wear shoes (because although I work in an office, the other half of the building is a factory where shoes are a safety issue, and it's easier to have a blanket "shoes required" rule for everybody). The place I worked at before also had a "shoes required" rule, but I don't know why. My assumption is that someone had stinky feet at some point.
dizhn 3y ago
I do and it's amazing (slippers). Of course not everyone can do that.
ReleaseCandidat 3y ago
I did when when still working in offices, as did almost all colleagues - wearing slippers, not without shoes. Not just because of the dirt but I also can't imagine wearing winter boots in a 23°C office.
unglaublich 3y ago
Yup! At a big company I am the only one on the floor, but I don’t care. I also don’t care about the dust on my socks. I only care about breathability and freedom of movement.
taeric 3y ago
Would also apply to eating establishments. Libraries. Basically any environment where you aren't wearing shoes for safety.
pyrale 3y ago
I wish office places made it doable. Get to work, get your slippers, be comfortable.
lesquivemeau 3y ago
I do. It's company policy where i work. It's very uncommon in my country though (France) to take off shoes at work, even though it's very common at home.
stevekemp 3y ago
I live in Finland, and people take their shoes off in their homes almost universally. At the office? It's about 50/50. Some people work in their socks, some have indoor-slippers. In my previous two companies I'd take my shoes off every day when entering the office, leaving them in the handy shoe-racks near the entrance. In my current job I admit I tend to keep them on, but that's largely because I'm smoking more than usually and putting my boots back on and off multiple times gets annoying in an office environment.

dmm 3y ago

Shoes carry large amounts of fecal bateria into homes, including E. coli: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/shoes-carry-poop-bacteria-into-nyc-buildings-study-finds-180981680/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/shoes-carry-poop-b... > should apply equally to the workplace as in the home, no? Probably. You should bring it up with your boss.

Terr_ 3y ago

(Not OP) I would like to but there's a Prisoner's Dilemma going on. If I take off my shoes but some of my coworkers still track icky crap in, then it is worse for me than if we all uniformly kept our outdoor shoes on. One option is to have some office shoes or sandals, which will also help protect from culinary mistakes in the break-room.

gopalv 3y ago

> Do you take your shoes off at work? (assuming you still have a non-virtual workplace) In India, when the dust kills computers by clogging fans, you'll see workplaces with computers have a "leave your shoes outside" board. I'm not sure what happens today, but this was true when I lived there. That's mostly because everyone coming in is usually spent the last half mile on foot and the shoes will basically flake-off indoors in the lowered humidity. Also, for some reason my dentist's office has a "employees must change into shoes" notice, suspiciously in the bay area. Maybe they had some contamination issues ("work shoes" that could be santized properly?) or maybe they had employees wear sandals into the office & they had to enforce the rule after someone dropped a sharp on a toe?

gadders 3y ago

I always thought people should wear slippers at work.

DanHulton 3y ago
Yeah, I always had a nice pair of "business-appropriate" slippers for any office I worked in. Especially great in the winter, when I can just shuck off my wet winter boots and swap into my comfy office slippers.

wombat-man 3y ago

Wearing house slippers or birkenstocks at work is great.

99_00 3y ago

People interact with the floor of their home differently than the floor of their workplace.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago

>Do you take your shoes off at work? (assuming you still have a non-virtual workplace) I do, and I switch to to my Birkenstocks at work, as my feet can breathe way better in them and it also gives my sneakers an ~8h rest to stay smell-free and cool until I have to go home and put them back on. Continuously wearing the same pair of sneakers for about 10h per day is ... not great. My feet would be in a swampy sweat broth.

klyrs 3y ago
> My feet would be in a swampy sweat broth. People who always wear shoes all day every day think tend to think that feet are gross. And that's because their feet are disgusting, and they project that onto everybody else.
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  I didn't project anything. I said my feet are less sweaty in Birkenstock sandals than in Sneakers as they breathe less and less sweat and more fresh air is always better.
  - proto_lambda 3y ago
    > People who always wear shoes all day every day They explicitly weren't talking about you.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

mchaver 3y ago

It's honestly not a bad idea to have footwear dedicated to certain spaces. I support the idea of office slippers.

parentheses 3y ago

There is no reason for this equivalence. My main reasoning is reducing cleaning effort on my end. If the office were to have a no shoes rule I'd be walking around in socks or barefoot as long as others do. Sharing foot bacteria with my coworkers is also a different ballgame than sharing it with my wife and kid. The family is already sharing quite a bit of bacteria so what's a bit of foot stuff.

bjornasm 3y ago

Uhm no? Unlike in my home the work environment have professionals washing regularly, no food is prepared, no kids play at the floor and the floors and furniture is made to be easily cleaned. So no. Not at all. (But I wear birkenstocks at work, so nice taking off my shoes that are made to be used outside and rather use footwear that are more fit for the inside).

filoleg 3y ago

> Do you take your shoes off at work? No, because I consider the office to be a shared public space, and none of the people working in the office actually live there. Office is not my personal space, it is a transient area.

kklisura 3y ago

I do. Company I work for provides space for leaving your outside shoes and keeping your inside shoes or slippers. I wore slippers until few years ago, but now I wear comfy snickers in office. Some of my colleagues still wear slippers.

JohnFen 3y ago
Where I currently work, you are required to wear shoes (because although I work in an office, the other half of the building is a factory where shoes are a safety issue, and it's easier to have a blanket "shoes required" rule for everybody). The place I worked at before also had a "shoes required" rule, but I don't know why. My assumption is that someone had stinky feet at some point.

dizhn 3y ago

I do and it's amazing (slippers). Of course not everyone can do that.

ReleaseCandidat 3y ago

I did when when still working in offices, as did almost all colleagues - wearing slippers, not without shoes. Not just because of the dirt but I also can't imagine wearing winter boots in a 23°C office.

unglaublich 3y ago

Yup! At a big company I am the only one on the floor, but I don’t care. I also don’t care about the dust on my socks. I only care about breathability and freedom of movement.

taeric 3y ago

Would also apply to eating establishments. Libraries. Basically any environment where you aren't wearing shoes for safety.

pyrale 3y ago

I wish office places made it doable. Get to work, get your slippers, be comfortable.

lesquivemeau 3y ago

I do. It's company policy where i work. It's very uncommon in my country though (France) to take off shoes at work, even though it's very common at home.

stevekemp 3y ago

I live in Finland, and people take their shoes off in their homes almost universally. At the office? It's about 50/50. Some people work in their socks, some have indoor-slippers. In my previous two companies I'd take my shoes off every day when entering the office, leaving them in the handy shoe-racks near the entrance. In my current job I admit I tend to keep them on, but that's largely because I'm smoking more than usually and putting my boots back on and off multiple times gets annoying in an office environment.