Did I go a -bit- too far?

In My Humble Opinion
21

You’re fine. I wouldn’t have asked her to put her sandals back on, but I don’t think its a gaffe to make such a request.It’s been a hell of a long time since I’ve ridden a bus, but aren’t passengers supposed to have their shirts and shoes on?

I’m not saying that passengers should become the bus police if they spy anyone sans shoes, but surely it’d be okay to advise someone who removes their shirt that they should put their damn top back on because they’re in a bus, not a restroom, ferchrissakes. By that logic, I don’t think telling someone to put their shoes back on is so far out of line.

A little George Costanza joke up there. Carry on.

22

This is about the ninth time today that somebody posted a question, I thought up an answer, paged slowly down to the bottom of the thread and didn’t see anybody posting what I was going to say… until the very last post…

No shoes, no shirt, no service. It’s a bus, not a cruise ship. Please remain fully-dressed at all times, or the bus driver may toss your unsanitary self out onto the sidewalk, as he’s probably required to do in order to satisfy health codes.

23

Instead of making it a complaint about crass behavior (which I think it is), you could couch it differently: “I have a foot fetish and if you don’t take them away and hide them, I will be forced to begin furious masturbation.”

24

I’m chiming in to agree here. Except I sit cross-legged because that’s how I’m most comfortable, not because I’m afraid you may see my feet. If you have a foot issue, don’t look at the ends of people’s legs. :wink:

I wear Birkenstocks almost exclusively. My feet are clean unless I’ve been running up the stairs at work barefoot (which is why I wear my Birks on those stairs–they are nasty). Otherwise I rarely wear anything on my feet at all; I am militantly sockless. You can tell it’s truly cold here (Central Washington) if I’m wearing socks–if I’ve got “real” shoes on (or boots :eek: ), it must have snowed 6+ inches.

The people I work with put their feet up on the desks–kicked back talking on the phone or thinking about the next thing to do–with or without their shoes on. I put my bare feet up on the aisle file cabinets when I’m sitting in guest chairs and no one cares. I’ve even started a mini-revolution of shoeless people where I work. Hey, that’s why we keep the carpets so clean.

My office would be a nightmare if you have a foot phobia.

I would not put my feet (bare or not) up on a seat of a stranger or co-worker that I didn’t know well, but that’s because getting overly comfortable around people you don’t know well is rude–not because my feet are unsanitary. If it’s a personal space issue, that I can totally understand. However, if it’s a body part issue, my attitude can be summed up in three words–suck it up. I’m not wearing shoes and socks for people who don’t like to look at feet, just as I’m not going to start wearing gloves for people who don’t like to look at hands, or long-sleeved shirts for people who hate elbows.

In apparent contradiction to the above (hey, I’m a complicated gal), if I discovered that [generic] you had a foot issue, I would probably wear my Birks over to your office/cube/fattening pen :wink: if I ever had to work with you on something. That way you wouldn’t be needlessly bothered and we’d be able to get things done. I wouldn’t police myself every time I might be around you because you can’t please everybody and life’s too short to wear shoes. :slight_smile:

Crap, went off on a mini-rant there. Back the OP–telling her to remove her feet = perfectly reasonable. Telling her to put on her sandals = would color my impression of you, but I’m not her, so who knows.

25

Sounds like you handled it fine.

26

I don’t think you did anything wrong.

Besides, don’t most transit systems have rules about that sort of thing? IME there are signs posted all over about stuff like not putting your feet on the seat (shoed or not) Nothing about bare feet, but if I do slip my feet out of shoes when I’m on the train (or anywhere really, except for home) I places them on top of my shoes.

Have you seen those floors? They get rather icky and having seen no few people get ill and the like I don’t even want to put my feet down bare.

27

Wow, I’m surprised the foot fetishists aren’t all over this person.

28

I don’t think you did anything wrong at all. I don’t think that I would have told her that it was unsanitary or to put her shoes back on, but that’s just me.

I’m all for comfort, but if you’re on public transit, you should respect the space of those around you. Also, feet smell. They can smell bad even if they’re clean because a lot of people sweat on their feet, some without even realizing it. And while having her put her feet up there is in no way as unsanitary as her licking the seat or anything, who wants to smell foot-cheese all the way to work? That’s disgusting.

29

Glad that I’ve brought up a topic (albeit a bit of a strange one!) that has stirred some interest and replies. :slight_smile: I did want to clarify a few things too. It’s not that I have anything against feet (no phobias) but I really felt uncomfortable with the person’s rudeness and assumption that I wouldn’t mind her putting her bare feet right next to me. Okay, maybe that would qualify as a phobia; I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t have said it was unsanitary (although I still think it was; I don’t know where her feet had been or when the last time that she washed em was! :D) and I’ll also admit that I had no business telling her to put her sandals back on (I’d also like to confess that even as I was saying it, I was shocked to hear it come out of me! I honest to pete -rarely- say/do stuff like that!).

I did see the person in question on the bus coming home this evening, and report that she took a seat far away from me. LOL I have no idea, but I do suspect that she probably removed her sandals and put her feet up on the seat back where she was sitting, but at least it was’t on my seat. Heh. Oh yeah, and thanks for the chuckles (glad that I waited until I was home to read them though), Muldoonthief and Cervaise – although Cervaise’s suggestion would be … particularly weird to try to do on a bus. :stuck_out_tongue:

30

I see often people putting their dirty shoes on seats ,but askim them politely not to do this is asking for trouble,remember lots of dummies use the mass transit and some of them are very short tempered and angry.

31

I would’ve probably said it differently. Any offense on her part more than likely came from the fact that, in so many words, you called her feet unsanitary (dirty) and then instructed her to put her shoes back on as if she were a misbehaving child. Granted, though, she should have had better manners than to take her shoes off like that and then practically stick her feet in another person’s face. That’s just being inconsiderate and thoughtless. Or clueless. We can’t rule that out, either.

I think a simple, “Excuse me, but I’m bothered by your bare feet being so close to me. Could you please remove them from the seat?” would have been the best way to phrase it. Saying it like that would have been a gentler way of waking her up to the fact that her actions are rude and irksome, without making her feel as if her feet are covered in slime and fungus.

32

I have low blood pressure and circulation issues and if I sit with my feet on the floor, my legs fall asleep. I also can’t stand to wear shoes. So just about anywhere I go, I slip off my shoes and sit on my feet. I typically try to sit in a way that my feet are hidden from view of people around me, however.

I think that you were within your rights to ask her to take her feet off the seat, but not to ask her to put her shoes back on. I mean really, her feet are a lot cleaner than her (or your) shoes.

33

My feet don’t smell.

I’m not just saying that, either. It isn’t that I just don’t notice it or something… my feet just don’t smell. Many other people have verified this. When I was in high school I had really smelly feet… then after I finished up with puberty or whatever, they just stopped smelling.

34

I wish I had your genes! Hell, I wish most people I know had your genes. :smiley:

Sadly, while most people I know don’t have unnaturally stinky feet or anything, feet in general (but apparently not in your case, for which I am incredibly envious) do have a somewhat distinctive smell.

Also, I don’t get offended when people take their shoes off in public. Hell, shoes can be very uncomfortable. But taking your shoes off and putting your feet up close enough that you could easily touch someone else on a mass transit system is kind of gross. I mean, what if her foot brushed the floor, then rubbed up against the guy? I’m not sure about where the OP lives, but people sometimes pee or barf on the our mass transit systems.

I have no problem if someone simply takes their shoes off and tucks them under their butt or even plops their bare feet on top of their shoes. But when it comes to getting up close and personal as the woman in the OP, ewww.

35

Yeah I always either sit on my feet or sit on one foot and put the other on top of my shoes. I wouldn’t put my bare feet on the floor of a bus. Ew.

36

:: tries hard to remember that others’ points of view are valid too ::

I don’t understand at all the problem some folks have with bare feet. Personally, I’m much more comfortable shoeless and tend to be that way most of the time. I don’t know how it would go over in the office (though they don’t seem to complain about seeing my socks fairly often) but I often go to class barefoot in warm weather.

Yeah, I think you were rude. I’m all for folks keeping body parts to themselves on the bus, and if you wanted her to move her feet (shod or no) away, you were perfectly reasonable in asking her to. But to imply that her feet were dirty (when, as has been pointed out, they’re probably much cleaner than her shoes. Or your ass.) was quite rude, as was asking her to put her shoes on. I admit I’m biased, as I greatly enjoy going places barefoot, but it’s not generally done to tell acquaintances that parts of their bodies are a risk to public health unless the risk is quite significant (rules about hairnets and the like in restaurants obviously notwithstanding; this is outside the purview of etiquette.) Besides, how in the world is her bare foot any dirtier than everything on the bus? Buses are filthy, filthy things, and her feet are nowhere near as dangerous as the germs already doubtless blanketing every surface. If there was a sanitary danger, it was to her, not you.

Feet are not dirty. They are not inherently contaminated, though admittedly when closed up all day they can grow bacteria (as with the entire human body.) However, going barefoot more probably would result in dryer, cleaner feet. And her ass was sitting on a seat, protected by nothing but a little bit of cloth. The digestive system plays host to millions upon millions of bacteria, and here she is resting the end of hers on the seat!

The human body is a disgustingly filthy thing if you think about it, so it’s probably best not to (I sure don’t.) It doesn’t make sense to me to freak out over one potential exposure to germs when I don’t, for example, leap to wash my hands with anti-bacterial soap each time I blow my nose during allergy season. You’re exposed to other folks’ germs and bodily secretions constantly, and this was a pretty minor example of it. Either cocoon yourself in a plastic bubble, or learn to live with it.

But again, asking her to get her body out of your personal space is perfectly acceptable.

37

Umm, EUUUUUWWW. That is really gross. You have NO idea just WHAT has been sitting on those seats. I wouldn’t be caught dead putting my bare feet on a strange “been used by many strange bodies” surface.

At any rate, what others said. You’re perfectly justified in asking her to take her bare feet from your personal space, but if she wants to expose her bare feet to potential nasties on a public transport, that’s her right. (gross as it is).

38

No, you didn’t go too far. It’s public transportation for Pete’s sake :rolleyes:

What if everyone decided to put their feet on the seat? :eek:

39

:smiley: Out of the mouths of babes…

40

I am properly chastised myself. Honest! And I really don’t have anything against bare feet–in fact, my shoes are the first things I kick off when I get home, and I’m mostly barefooted while inside at home although during the cooler months I do tend to wear slippers on my laminate floors.

Thanks for all the responses, folks; it’s been fun to read them all and to look at other points of view. I should not have said feet were unsanitary, nor should I have directed the person to put their shoes back on. I’m contemplating making an apology to the person, although I think they are a bit … scared of me now. :smack:

Ah well!