Health, Lifestyle, Mental Health, Work

Love Me, Love My Slippers

Wearing slippers and a hot water bottle at my desk.
Wearing slippers and a hot water bottle at my desk.
Wearing slippers and a hot water bottle at my desk.

Wearing slippers and a hot water bottle at my desk.

I wear slippers at work. Yes, you read that right. Yes, I do work in a fairly conservative office in what some would call rather high ranking administration. But I wear slippers.

Mostly I just wear them in my own office, where it is cold and I get cold, and I find if I’m comfortable I can work better. But sometimes I will wander to my colleagues in our section, or head to the bathroom in my slippers. The fact is, the’re comfortable and I’m more comfortable wearing them.

But what about my reputation?

Well, I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

Back when I worked for a marketing company, I used to have a blanket at my desk for when I got cold, as I often did. Once I made the somewhat catastrophic mistake of walking to a photocopier with said blanket. I was publicly reprimanded for doing so by a member of HR and, humiliated, never used the blanket again. Unfortunately the incident was never forgotten and to the day I left the company, a particularly spiteful member of staff would write emails bitching about me to my colleagues with the pseudonym of “blanket”.

Back when I was a teenager I decided I wished to complete the 40 Hour Famine. I couldn’t give up food for 40 hours, weighing only 47kg at the time (and I’m 5’9), but giving up technology seemed like such a boring alternative. So I decided to, as I put it, “give up my dignity”. For 40 hours I showered but I did not brush my hair, I wore no make up and used no fancy products. I wore only my pyjamas and slippers no matter where I went or what I did, including attending a church service, and a sign affixed to my back that said “I am giving up my dignity for 40 hours to help World Vision. What are you giving?”

I got a record number of donations.

But, a year or so later, I had a guy I was interested in turn me down on the basis “A girl I would date wouldn’t go to church in her pyjamas”.

At first these instances hurt me, humiliated me, and encouraged me to be more “classy” more “respectable” and more what I thought people would want me to be. It stopped me letting my freak flag fly and encouraged me to tone it down. It didn’t help that afore mentioned work place also told me to stop socialising with people because I was starting to get a reputation for not doing any work. A reputation I hope was justly proven wrong when I quit and they had to replace me with 3 people.

But I’m at a point in my life now where I don’t feel like I need to adapt myself to suit anyone else anymore. Why should I have to? Sure, there are basic courtesies we all employ in the workplace, and it’s best for everyone to make an effort at getting along, but at the end of the day if you can’t deal with me being a little left of centre and doing things like wearing slippers to make myself more comfortable, you’re probably going to have a hard time working with me to begin with. And while letting my freak flag fly doesn’t mean I have to be overt in my idiosyncrasies, it does mean I accept that I may do things other people consider to be a little bit weird. And possibly a little bit funny or endearing.

If you can’t laugh at my slippers, or the hot water bottle that lives on my lap, you probably just aren’t going to love me. And that’s OK, you don’t have to. I get my work done, and I do a good job, so what does it matter if I’m a little bit weird?

Do you do anything weird in the workplace? Would you consider it weird if someone was wearing slippers at their desk? Have you ever been humiliated or bitched about in the workplace?

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  • 26 Years & Counting

    Things that are ‘shocking’ like having a blanket are the things that drive me absolutely bonkers about working in corporate workplaces. It’s really just not that big of a deal. Some humans are cold. Some are hot. You don’t suddenly lose who you are and/or how you feel just because you’re at work! So when people don’t like something I do, I take it as them failing my standards, not vice versa. I mean, do slippers make you dumber & unable to do your job? I highly doubt it.

    • https://kikiandtea.com/ Tamsin Howse

      Good attitude! I hadn’t really thought about them failing my standards, but that’s a very good way to think of it.

  • Maryann

    Well a corporate workplace is a very different atmosphere, with different expectations to a univeirsty workplace. It is one reason I work at a uni. I can wear basically whatever I like 98% of the time (there are times when I need to “dress up” ie wear my verison of a suit) and so does everyone else. We have a guy who likes to wear full make & purple velour track suit, another who goes bare feet eveywhere and looks like a modern Jesus, and my boss is a mod. As long as they do their job no one cares. However, I do sense this is changing to some extent as universities become more business oriented due to lack of funds from government sources. Sad really, where esle will the eccentrics of this world survive and thrive?

    • https://kikiandtea.com/ Tamsin Howse

      At the university where I work there are vastly different dress codes depending on the office/faculty where you work. Where I work all the men wear trousers and business shirts with our Head of School wearing a suit most days and I wear corporate clothing most days (jeans around once a week).

  • Jessica Chapman

    Having a blanket under your desk seems like a much better solution to being cold than complaining about where the thermostat is set. My mother constantly has to wear winter wear in summer because at her work place people want the thermostat down at 18 and summer wear in winter because they want the thermostat up at like 26. Slippers and a blanket is more productive than engaging in thermostat wars.

  • Casey

    I personally wouldn’t have a problem with a colleague wearing either a blanket or slippers and, like others have pointed out, that is far preferable to the air con wars. I think working in offices versus working in an open plan situation lends itself to a little more leeway – I can’t see how other people can really be affected by you wearing slippers in your office. Also, I think people like your co-workers who complained about your blanket are just probably too shy to do the same thing themselves.
    I work for a well-known media company where the creative divisions wear all manner of things to work and have a lot more freedom in that respect. I could see a blanket being cool in that department. However, where I work, in an open-plan corporate technology department, is business casual but conservative and I don’t think wearing slippers would go over so well. It’s a judgement call.

  • Gary

    You’re not weird at all. I think it’s awful you were reprimanded for bringing your blanket to the photocopier and being snubbed by a bloke because you wore PJs to church.

  • http://www.ispyplumpie.com/ Liz @ I Spy Plum Pie

    Blankets and gloves are commonplace at my office as the particular part I sit in is freezing compared to the rest of the building (and with a centralised air-con system it can’t be fixed), but I often walk around barefoot too, but only in our little area! I think people who get stressed about other people doing things like wearing blankets are the ones that need to reassess their actions, not you. If it’s not harming them and is helping you be more productive then what on earth is the problem?! Possibly a different matter if clients/members of the public can see you, but in the privacy of your own office it really shouldn’t be a big deal!