【Detective Archives】

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,Detective Archives 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 somecontrol 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.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The second reason you might need office shoes is more disturbing: shoe betrayal. This is when you purchase a pair of shoes that seemsgood, but that you discover is very bad when you start actually doing things in them.

SEE ALSO: I tried the Amazon Plants Store and got covered in wet dirt

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.

Mashable Trend Report Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

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.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

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 thatmuch. 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.

---

Featured Video For You

---

This cyborg houseplant can automatically drive itself toward light

---

• Entertainment
• Life
• Deals
• Tech
• Games
• Digital Culture
• Shopping
• Science

• Toppling Monuments to White Supremacy
• Twice-Born
• Her Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest
• Yoram Kaniuk on 'Life on Sandpaper' by Joshua Cohen
• Emboldened Fight for Health Care as a Right
• NYT mini crossword answers for May 31, 2025
• Google launches citizen science project to help protect coral reefs
• Unhuman Resources
• If They Are Not Coming For You Today
• The Barbarians Are Coming Today

• Professor writes rant after no one shows up to his class
• This foldable cardboard desk gives kids in developing nations a place for homework
• Pikachu tastes like chocolate and bananas, apparently
• 2017's social media landscape in one stunning infographic
• 22,000 people accidentally signed up to clean toilets because people don't read Wi
• Microsoft's 'talking camera' app for the blind isn't as magical as it sounds
• Feast your eyes on these, uh, activated charcoal fish and chips
• Heed lord Zuckerberg's rules of visitation, lest your tiny village face great peril
• Watch Tesla rival Lucid Air reach 235 mph in a speed test
• Facebook Spaces adds live video, letting users without Oculus Rift peek into VR in real time

• Boeing Starliner arrives at ISS
• Playing War
• The first images of Earth are chilling
• Organized Abandonment
• Less-Lethal Weapon
• Norrie vs. Djokovic 2025 livestream: Watch French Open for free
• The Orchestra Minion
• Pray for Q
• A Telling Moment
• Organized Abandonment

• Looking for Twin Peaks
• A Big Week! by Thessaly La Force
• Biden’s Final Humiliation
• The Barbarians Are Coming Today
• Cardinal Cons
• A Big Week! by Thessaly La Force
• Nathan Zuckerman; Soon
• Francisco Goldman on ‘Say Her Name’ by Lila Byock
• Chess in Kiev
• Best smartphone deal: Save $250 on Google Pixel 9