One of the definite upsides of being in academia is that you can basically do whatever you want as long as you’re doing what you need to do and not offending anyone. So no, I wouldn’t think twice about walking around barefoot if I wanted to, and I certainly wouldn’t be the only one.
I would not do it anywhere clients could see me without shoes, which pretty much includes anywhere in the building other than my office.
At your desk in a cubicle that’s all yours? OK. Walking around or sitting in an open room where others can easily see you? Not OK.
I used to keep a pair of hard-soled moccasins under my desk at work. I would frequently kick off the shoes I wore coming in to work, and go in just my socks. But if I had to go somewhere in the office (or my feet got cold), I would put on my moccasins before leaving my desk.
In Minnesota winters, the shoes you wear outside waiting for the bus & walking home are frequently too hot to wear indoors all day.
Sorry, but I don’t understand the problem.
I work in an office with a bunch of tech support & software developers. People walk around barefoot all the time here. No big deal.
Yeah, to me it’s one of the benefits of working from home. Bare-ass-naked, no; bare-footed, you bet!
You shouldn’t be without shoes in an office. At my last job people were sent home for not wearing appropriate footwear. Clogs got you sent home, which was great for all the other people that had to listen to, clomp clomp clomp. Only wearing socks broke the rule that all people had to have their toes covered in a shoe to prevent injuries.
Shoeless in my office, even for that “quick dash to the printer” would be so unprofessional that it would start one firmly on the short path to unemployment. And hey, in this roaring economy, that would open up allllllll sorts of other opportunities. Like being shoeless and living under a bridge.
In my pre-telecommuting days I worked in my company’s cube farm. I always kicked my shoes off when I was at my desk and never had any problem going to the shared printer in my socks. Like others, this was a closed environment with no outside customers, and very few workers with sticks up their pooters.
Ironically, I’m currently sitting at my desk – in my home office – with my shoes on.
The same thing for me, but I’ve got clogs instead of moccasins. For some reason, my feet are the keepers of body heat and I feel much cooler when I take 'em off. If I’m staying in a 3 cube radius, I’ll go in my socks, but anything further and the clogs go on.
Why, yes, I am at the office. Why do you ask?
Well, I certainly hope you put them back on before you Xerox your butt.
Just what I would’ve written. I tend to do it myself.
Eh. I vote for unprofessional but the Earth doesn’t crash into the sun over it.
At any of the offices I’ve worked at (and there have been many), shoeless at your desk would have been okay, but you would be expected to put your shoes on to go anywhere, even to the printer. It really does sound unprofessional to me, to be wandering around in your stocking feet.
In my office, shoeless at your desk is quite common. Going shoeless elsewhere is only acceptable after normal business hours.
I take my shoes off at my desk–I have thyroid disease which makes my legs and feet swell at times. I put them back on to walk around, though. It’s no worse than the people who wear open toed sandals; at least I have socks on.
I’m barefoot at my desk a lot of the time, but I would never dream of wandering around in bare feet. I put my shoes on even to go to the printer, which is literally three steps away. I’d like to see the look on my department director’s face if I popped into her office barefoot.
Nor mine. You’d probably step in cat pee, cat poop, or cat vomit. Also stray kibble, plates of cat food, or bleach solution if the floor’s freshly mopped.
But to each his/her own. Nobody would stop you if you did!