When you talk to people about working from home, normally their eyes glaze over and they get this blissful expression and say something along the lines of "Oh, how nice to not have to get dressed everyday..." To which I normally reply, "Yea, but I miss shoes."
Seriously. I have missed shoes.
Even if you are one of those Type AA++ people who gets dressed to sit in your home office to work, I bet you still are not wearing shoes. At the very most I have on slippers in the winter, but besides that I slip on flip flops, running shoes or ballet flats before running out the door to do a lunch time errand. I would go to Nordstrom and stare at all the pretty shoes and dream about having a place to wear them {more than once}. High heel boots, bright wedges, a coveted pair of Christian Louboutin Simple Pumps, I could only dream! I mean really. I'm no Posh Spice traipsing around soccer fields in 5 inch stilettos.
At my last office job I wore heels almost daily. I loved my heels. Kittens, pumps, wedges, I dressed my feet up. A nice pair of pointed pumps immediately turns jeans and sweater into a "work outfit". I always felt more put-together, taller and skinnier. Also, and while this sounds a bit odd in retrospect, ballet flats were not en Vogue in 2005. The Tory Burch "Reva Revolution" (Her signature ballet flat that launched that style shoe into a wardrobe must have) didn't hit until late 2006/early 2007. Which means flats were not even in my work ensemble vocabulary the last time I was office-bound.
Last week I started a new contract with a new PR agency, a contract that actually is IN an office. For the first time in four years I'm working out of the house on a regular basis. Luckily, the office I'm working in is a super cool and creative environment with a definite "San Diego Business" dress code, so clothes to wear to work are not really an issue (well, not any more of an issue than normal). It's exciting. The office is in one of the more "urban" parts of town; walking into the office, away from the kids and the house, has been a nice addition to my mainly suburban life. I get a little rush from the little walk from my car to the office and if I close my eyes and happen to pass a homeless person who smells like urine, I can pretend that I'm a big NYCity girl for 2 minutes. I worried that I would have a problem going back to an office, but in reality, the only thing I need to adjust to is walking in heels again.