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Croc Blocked? Redditor says he lost a promotion because of his footwear. But maybe it’s really because he’s a huge goddamn creep?

By David Futrelle

There’s a little bit of drama going on in the Am I the Asshole subreddit, where Redditors who suspect that they might just possibly have behaved a teensy bit improperly (but probably not) go to tell their stories and get a ruling on their asshole status from their peers.

Yesterday, a fellow calling himself TheCrocDude reported in with this leading question: “AITA [Am I The Asshole] for wearing “crocs” to work? (Serious, I may have just been denied a promotion)”

It was pretty clear from the outset that he expected Redditors to weigh in on his side.

Thecrocdude

I work for a local remote IT firm. Since we have no direct physical interactions with customers our only line on the dress code is “be clean and dont wear anything that causes a distraction.”

As such I wear my Croc sandals nearly every day. They are comfy, they are easy and they are cool. No one has ever had any issue with them.

But today promotion annoucements were made and I was passed over. In the post mortem with my boss he flat out told me that the woman who was promoted to management was neck and neck with me on every aspect of customer and technical knowledge it’s just that she presented a much more professional image. I asked him to explain and he said “David, off the record...you wear fucking kids shoes every day. Give me a break from having to offer any explanations.”

To me I was within standards and maybe I’m looking at a case of anti-male bias and have some grounds to go to HR. But before that, am I the asshole for wearing crocs to work?

Huh. That was a pretty quick jump from “I didn’t get the promotion because I dress like a slob” to “maybe I’m being oppressed as a man!”

First, as many people pointed out, Crocs — while tacky — may be perfectly appropriate office wear in a casual office, especially for someone who works out of sight of the public, or for some non-office jobs that require people to be on their feet all day. (In my exceedingly casual home office, where my only work colleagues are cats, I’m barefoot most of the time, and so are they.) But people in management at tech companies are generally expected to not wear giant cartoon rubber shoes.

And, no, CrocDude, the woman who got promoted over you would not have been able to get away with Crocs because she’s a woman. There’s no such thing as a “Croc Pass” that applies only to the ladies.

But the petulance of CrocDude’s post — I’m not going to call him by his real name, as he is an embarrassment to all Davids — and his belief that he was somehow discriminated against in his tech job for being a man suggest that the Crocs are really only the symptom of his unpromotability problem, not the cause.

And his other comments in the thread more than confirm this judgement. For, in the least surprising development since my cats starting to pester me for dinner an hour before it’s usually served, it turns out that CrocDude kind of a creepy misogynistic douchebag

When one Redditor asked him how exactly “wearing goofy footwear relate[s] to gender bias,” CrocDude offered this, er, observation:

Dude you can see she wears thong panties under her dresses, that’s unprofessional

Wait, what? Maybe she’s the one who should be going to HR, not you.

When another Redditor wondered why exactly he was monitoring his co-worker’s ass at work, he responded “Why are they looking at my feet?”

I dunno, dude, maybe because you’re wearing giant neon-colored clown shoes?

And then there was the whole George R. R Martin question. In response to a question from another Redditor that’s since been deleted — presumably for being offensive — Mr. Croc complained that his office rival is

the “quirky hot girl” who claims to love GoT but couldn’t identify GRRM in a police line up.

That’s right. He apparently thinks she shouldn’t get the promotion because he’s convinced himself that she’s a FAKE NERD in addition to being a thong-wearer.

Jeez, dude, you’re making Croc wearers look bad.

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Pyxxxie
Pyxxxie
5 years ago

You don’t need a prep school background to recognize that crocs are not becoming of an office work environment. Just common sense. Dressing better really does improve your reception in the workplace IME.

Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
5 years ago

Be that as it may, that does not alter the inevitable outcome of the red queen’s race: everyone one-upping each other until the ones left standing are the ones with the most money and/or the preppiest background.

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