[T]he Japanese National Institute of Technology and Evaluation has apparently issued a public warning regarding the safety of wearing the offensively ugly plastic shoes on escalators. Supposedly some forty people in Japan have been injured wearing the shoes on escalators, including a five year old girl who is said to have lost lost three toenails and suffered a broken toe when her ugly ass shoes got caught in the escalator. (Read More)

Folks in the silicon valley tech industry are generally lucky enough to not have to wear anything even resembling business casual clothes to work, let alone suit and tie. The boy-designer’s uniform tends to be $200 jeans, a threadless tee, and the fiercest latest pair of Pumas. Girl-designers wear that, or whatever they want, because they have a wider array of jawdropping shoes and bags that would can transform a groundscore peasant blouse into couture. Product manager’s vary widely, and execs wear wrinkle proof business formal for those cross country panhandling trips and press junkets.

Then we get to the engineers. Engineers seem to think that anything covering their genitals is acceptable work wear. That’s not to say that there aren’t many fashionable engineers that take care in their appearance, but it tends to be in this crowd that the most unsavory fashion choices are made and ignored by their peers. A few of the more irritating wardrobe malfunctions are lauded for some bit of cleverness or hackiness, which engineers love:

The convertible pant (pants with legs that zip on/off to become shorts, thus creating a magical clothing chimera that is not just ugly but fucking stupid.)

Clip on anything, like Treos, or inexplicably large keyrings, or company badges (yeah I am guilty of the last one, but its still fucking ugly)

Ugly feet: It gets hot in the Valley. No doubt about it. I’m not averse to feet. I work under the assumption that your feet aren’t offensive unless proven otherwise. Go on and toss your shoes off whenever possible, but make sure they are manicured if anyone but yourself is going to see your toes, and never ever ever walk to the bathroom in bare feet. It’s just plain wrong.

Ugly coverings for your feet: If you are cleverly going to wear shoes that keep your feet partially exposed at all times, yay for you. But find a pair of shoes that doesn’t make every one you meet want to laugh at you, or be forced to imagine what your feet smell like due to some feature of the shoe. This is a universal truth including, but not limited to the following shoes: UGG, Birkenstocks, Tevas, Jellies, Crocs, and Clogs. (Crocs can also go in the first category, since they are garden shoes that somehow got lost outside their proper place. This is not hackiness. It’s misuse. You may end up with a fungus. And if not, you may end up with my car tire on top of your fucking ugly feet.)