An office worker says their coworker has a habit of removing her shoes and going barefoot while at work.
In a post shared to Reddit, an anonymous intern writes: “Since we share the same table, the smell becomes unbearable. (She wears shoes without socks, and with the building’s elevator out of order, we’ve been climbing five flights of stairs daily in 31°C/87.8°F weather.)”
The intern adds that she’s “been addressing this issue privately for a few days now—starting with subtle hints and eventually directly asking her to keep her shoes on,” but the same issue keeps arising.
Now, she’s done being quiet.
“Today, the same issue arose, but this time, I confronted her in front of other coworkers (who happened to be her juniors from the same college).”
Her fellow intern says she has no plans to stop. She wears “uncomfortable” heels that she plans to “continue” taking off while at work.
Now, the poster wants to know if she’s in the wrong for requesting her coworker keep her shoes on.
Reddit users by and large say the poster was right to chide her coworker for the habit, with one writing, “It’s a shared workspace, and it’s fair to ask for some basic consideration. Nobody should have to deal with smelly shoes.”
Adds another: “She was openly hostile to you first and also it’s outright just unhygienic to take your bare feet out in an office.”