Office shoes will make your nine-to-five exponentially better
Essentials Week spotlights unexpected items that make our daily lives just a little bit better.
Office life isn't always the most pleasant. There's the coffee you inevitably spill while walking up the stairs, the lunch that disappears from the fridge, the temperature that's always either "Arctic tundra" or "unadulterated hellfire." But there is one way to exercise some control over your office experience: Get yourself a pair of office shoes.
These, very plainly, are shoes that you keep in the office. They rarely, if ever, leave. In fact, they should not do so unless it's an emergency. My office shoes are a pair of silver flats with a weird and useless top zipper, and they live peacefully and permanently underneath my desk. They don't come out often, but when they do, I'm thrilled they're there.
The various conditions that call for office shoes are each dire in their own way. The most common is that you have worn snow or rain boots to work due to inclement weather, and now your feet are hot, wet, or both. Fear not! Simply slip off your damp boots and slide into your dry, room-temperature office shoes. There they are under your desk, as comforting as a mug of tea and a viewing of Clueless on a Sunday afternoon.
The second reason you might need office shoes is more disturbing: shoe betrayal. This is when you purchase a pair of shoes that seems good, but that you discover is very bad when you start actually doing things in them.
Shoe betrayal is the reason I started keeping office shoes in the first place. Once, I wore a pair of new black lace-up ballet flats to the office without considering the possibility that they might tear my feet into shreds the second I started walking in them. Well, they did! When I arrived at the office, the backs of my feet were in considerable pain. When I took the shoes off to see what was up, they were literally filled with blood. I was forced to hobble to the nearest H&M (bad!) to buy a stand-in pair of shoes to wear home.
Now that I have office shoes, that will never happen again. Want to a similar sense of shoe security? Designate your own pair of office shoes using the following guidelines.
1. Office shoes should go with most outfits.
It should go without saying that office shoes must coordinate with most things. After all, you never know when you'll need to wear them.
2. Office shoes must be easy to walk in.
If you have a shoe disaster (i.e., the heel of your shoe breaks off when you're walking up the stairs), your office shoes are going to have to run point. Thus, they must be extremely comfortable and at least vaguely weatherproof.
They should be extremely comfortable and vaguely weatherproof.
3. You should not believe that your office shoes are ugly.
Office shoes should not feel like a consolation prize. What's worse: shivering in the sexist air conditioning of your office, or shivering in the sexist air conditioning of your office while you're wearing ugly shoes? That's what I thought.
4. Office shoes should not be in pristine condition.
Yes, office shoes are highly useful, but you're not going to be wearing them every day. They shouldn't be your most beautiful or your newest shoes. That would be a waste of shoes!
Instead, your office shoes should be a fairly reliable, worn-in pair that you don't wear that much. Like, maybe your second string everyday shoe. You know exactly what I'm talking about here ... I didn't specify a shoe, but he popped into your head, didn't he?
Enjoy your warm, dry feet.
Chloe was the shopping editor at Mashable. She was also previously a culture reporter. You can follow her on Twitter at @chloebryan.
