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  • I lived in Japan for 5 1/2 years. I slept on a futon in a tatami room in my apartment most nights. I have a getabako (shoe cabinet) at my home in the US that I actually brought back from Japan. I understand the depth of the ritual, and the cultural respect for the home, but my American culture runs more deeply I am afraid, and I can't help but say "Please emergency workers, just leave your shoes on and say 'shitsurei shimasu' (sorry for my rudeness) as you enter the home".
    by waffletower
  • There are emergencies and emergencies, but removing your protective gear when you are entering in a emergency scenery is an horrible idea by several reasons.

    After thousands of interventions in this places, you are basically guaranteed to step while in your sockets on blood, syringes, broken bottles and glass pieces. Awful idea. Your toes smashing the leg of a table if you have luck. Hepatitis or HIV if not.

    Also removing shoes that were designed to assure maximum stability before to enter in an unknown scenery can be a big mistake. You will regret it later, trying desperately not slip while you navigate a stretcher on a narrow spiral staircase, carrying a heavy guy with a fractured leg.

    by pvaldes
  • > Another user attracted more than 800 likes for suggesting that strict etiquette could perhaps be forsaken at such times: “It’s an emergency. I would just tell them: ‘Please step inside with your shoes on!’”

    This seems like the best policy in an emergency where 30 seconds actually matters. And I actually like the East Asian custom of taking one's shoes off before entering a house and adopt it myself.

    by JuniperMesos
  • Got posted a couple times recently. This one got a couple comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49474734
    by rdmuser
  • Here in America, EMS personnel generally wear tall, reinforced boots; they are considered protective/safety equipment. We would never take them off just to enter a home
    by Georgelemental
  • In Dutch culture it is far more common to keep shoes on literally everywhere, so perhaps I'm biased, but I would think that in an emergency where every second counts, these people can be forgiven for not adhering to the strictest etiquette?

    I'm not surprised the person last mentioned in the article, who suggests exactly that, got 800 likes on their comment. I am surprised that it even needed to be said.

    Now I'm suddenly wondering (probably stupidly) whether firefighters also take their shoes off when entering a burning building.

    by shdon
  • It is mind blowing to me that the shoes-off-inside rule is so deeply entrenched that emergency responders remove their shoes at the front door
    by swiftcoder
  • In Canada, we wear steel-toe, steel-shank safety boots, and we're kind of required to keep them on. We surely give them a good clunk to get rid of mud or snow, particularly in the winter, and we try to wipe our feet as much as possible when it's not a dire emergency, but you called 911, so... your floor is going to get dirty. Might already have blood on it anyways.
    by purpleidea

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