2016
May 11
Go to work in the shoes you want
When I was young and started work in the City of London, everyone wore white shirts, dark suits, sedate ties and black polished shoes. I think that my arrival in a highwayman-collared suit, orange and red shirts, floral ties and black shoes (probably unpolished) may have been a bit of a shock to the establishment.
However no one was stupid enough to tell me that what I wore affected how I worked. I wasn’t really rebelling either. I just liked what I wore. I was going to say I felt comfortable in it, and after a while I did, but being different sometimes means you are apprehensive about how others will perceive you.
I am writing this because I read today that a young woman was sent home without pay for refusing to wear high heels at work. Now this is a very personal view but I think women in high heels at any time look ridiculous. The human foot is not made to walk sloping at an angle. In my view no one can do that elegantly.
Having said that I will admit to wearing black platform sole shoes for a period in the seventies while still working in the City. My run to Liverpool Street station nightly couldn’t be described as elegant though.
The point is that what might appeal to one person will not to another. I would always rather be met and greeted at an office reception by someone who looked relaxed, not in pain and not really looking as though she had just come off the catwalk and her knees still had the elastic bands around them. I have always felt this is how models are taught to walk but the way they do is so unnatural and so ugly.
I may, of course, be alone in this view. If so, I am happy with that. But if I am alone in the view that people should wear to work what they are comfortable in within acceptable boundaries, then the world is even sadder than I thought.
The danger of this point that this young woman is making is to bring it into the realm of sexism. It appears she asked whether men would be asked to wear them. The answer is obviously “no” and most people would agree with that. The problem is in employers dictating to people as to what they should wear with no valid reason other than what they think would make their reception area more appealing. Rather than question whether men should wear high heels, I would have been far more interested to hear why they felt she should.
However I do believe the firm were totally out of order and I have signed the petition she has introduced. The company were wrong.
May 19
Time for a holiday
Truly agog is off on holiday for a few weeks but rest assured I will be back on June 22nd just in time for the referendum vote.
Congratulations to the dad who won the High Court case over term time holidays. Maybe there is some sanity somewhere.