White socks - sneakers (ever seen an Olympic athlete in black socks? I rest my case).
Black socks - everthing else.
My answer: I don’t bother to try. Or even think about it. I have mostly white, a few black and brown socks; I keep them in a bag in my dresser and just wear the ones on top. About my only concession to sock fashion is that I don’t wear two socks of different colors at once. Usually.
I don’t understand the confusion. People don’t actually wear black socks anymore. I don’t even know why stores still sell them.
Black socks, my stars, can you imagine what some people wear?
I voted pants and then read the OP. Sorry, white socks with dress shoes? Socks should match the pants, but not clash with the shoes. Had you been wearing sneakers, white would have been fine.
I wear jeans and loafers a lot. I have a drawer full of blue socks to wear with this combo. Once in a while, I get a bit crazy and match my socks to my blouse, but they never clash with either the shoes or the pants.
I couldn’t vote, there wasn’t a selection. If I’m wearing dress or office type wear,
my dress socks match my shoes and pants. I would never wear brown with grey or blue. If I am wearing grey and don’t have grey footwear, it would be blue or black or a multi-colored dress shoe that “goes” with the outfit. Most of my high heels and dress shoes are high fashion multi-colored types that have colors they “pull out of” the outfit I’m wearing.
If I’m wearing navy pants or skirt, both the hosiery or dress socks are navy, as are the shoes, or they are spectator pumps, or some other color that “goes”.
However, now that I’m a mere techie, I wear mostly jeans, tshirts and tennies. In which case I have brightly colored tees and fun “matching” socks. With my pink shirt I have a pair of cute pink white and green Panda socks for instance.
I know, I spend way too much time on footwear. 
I only wear white socks to play tennis or cricket so I am no help.
A fine username/post combo … and a better combo than white socks with dress shoes.
I agree with Gary T - your socks are being forced into an embarassing position. Your co-worker’s still kind of an ass, though, unless you were already both just bored and goofing around.
The poll doesn’t make sense with your situation. Regardless of how people voted. White socks were not appropriate with the jean/black dress shoe combo you were rockin’ that day.
And for the record, I’ll go with match to the shoe. Because this is the rule for women’s hosery. Women should never wear hosery darker than their shoes.
Nothing worse than seeing a women with black hose and white shoes!!!
Meh. The fact that I’m wearing socks shows I made an effort. In warm weather I tend toward boat shoes sans socks.
I match my socks to my pants. More or less. Sometimes, on the weekend, I’ll wear white socks with jeans and shoes, but usually I wear blue socks with jeans. The only time I ever wear sneakers is at the gym.
ETA: After voting, I see that once again I’m out of step with the majority here at the SDMB.
I’m no fashion maven, so take my opinion for what it’s worth (nothing), but to me white socks with dress shoes look terrible. Black socks almost always look good, no matter the pants or shoes. (Unless you need to match with navy blue socks or brown socks or whatever.) White socks only look good to me in a jeans (or shorts or other such casual wear I’m forgetting)-and-sneakers context. And boots, too, probably. But I still like to err on the side of dark socks.
After looking at the linked picture of a similar shoe in the OP, definitely black sock for that type of shoe, even with jeans.
At times I will wear socks that will transition from the pants (or shirt) to the shoes and that’s where argyle and socks with patterns or clocks can work. In point of fact I find that with jeans a bright colored sock can make a fun statement.
The “Proper” way (iaw the “Preppy Handbook” I think): With jeans or chinos the socks match the shirt. With dress clothes, the pants, socks shoes should all be the same Black, or Navy Blue. With a grey suit one can get away with black socks and shoes.
The way Celt actually does it: I have a dozen each of white, navy blue, and black socks. I wear the white socks with Crocs and jeans or sweats outside of work, and in the office the black or navy correspond with both pants and shoes. I work near DC, so we only wear black, grey and navy. Any other colors would tend to be jewel tones, and thus go with black hose and shoes.
Socks and shoes, together, constitute a “footware unit”. Therefore, your first priority is the integrity of the unit - meaning the socks have to match the shoes. Once you’ve achived that, then you can attend to matching your footware unit as a whole to the rest of your attire.
We work for the government. 99% of what we do can be characterized by “bored” and “goofing around”.
The problem here isn’t just the sock color. You’re wearing athletic socks with dress shoes. The color doesn’t even matter…yes it would be less noticeable if the color wasn’t white, but it’s still an athletic sock and dress shoe combination. This is a sartorial no-no.
“Go with” and “match” are not interchangeable. White athletic socks almost always “go with” blue jeans and sneakers regardless of colors.
Dress socks “go with” dress shoes. There are ways to work in dress socks that match your pants/shoes/shirt or any combination of thereof. If this is something that you’re not comfortable doing yourself I’d suggest stick to matching the shoe color. Keep a few socks to match each pair of dress shoes, and you don’t have to worry.
Of course there are tons of people here who say “none of this matters” but I’m assuming it matters at least a little to you, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked.
Well, What Not To Wear says your socks should match your pants, but that means dress socks and slacks. I don’t think white socks match jeans, nor do those shoes really go well with jeans, so technically you’re both wrong.
This. I voted the other guy to be correct because I couldn’t possibly vote in favor of white socks either with dress shoes or jeans.
The easy solution to this problem is to not weary any pants.