So your commute downtown to an air conditioned office building might mean some modification to what you carry -- what are some examples of urban office carry?

Looking at the offices I tend to go to:

• Dress shoes vs. outdoors shoes. I work hard to find shoes that I can walk a long way in that are still appropriate.
• Inconspicuous folder vs. any kind of fixed blade knife.
• Small flashlight in my pocket vs. something larger in a belt-pouch.
• Business appropriate laptop bag (in my case with medical and other emergency gear in it) vs. a hydration pack.
• I keep a lighter in my laptop bag on general principle (I don't smoke) but nothing more than that for starting a fire.

*Raincoat, most days. otherwise an umbrella
*Water bottle
* bus or rail pass

*spare dress shirt
*toothbrush
* spork, waterbottle
*charger and cords, various
*small flashlight

Good shoes are quite worthwhile. I am able to find comfortable dress shoes (Ecco, Rockport, etc.), but they are not designed to be rugged, to do well in rain, mud, etc. What are your recommendations?

My office prep is mainly for an overnight stay. Perhaps the road home gets flooded. Perhaps there is a chemical spill. I assume the office building is still "working," but maybe that's not a great assumption.

I used to do well with Dunham, which is a New Balance brand. I could run in them and they were waterproof, if not overly rugged. They changed their lineup and I don't wear them any more. More recently I've been wearing Johnston & Murphy shoes at work. They're about the same cost, a bit better looking (at least to me), last a lot longer, and still waterproof. Good for long walks or shorter distances running.

When I had a downtown office I surreptitiously stocked a locking file drawer with involuntary overnight supplies, being largely a change of clothes, a pair of boots, toiletries and snacks. Now with my "office" being my car more often than not, I have a lot more flexibility.

Top one of the essentials, IMO, is water

Before retirement, I had some lockable drawers in the office. So, I made a cache of essentials in case I was stranded in the office and couldn't go back home due to the weather or whatever. I stored and rotated a few bottles of water and biscuits/crackers that I bought from the cafeteria. In addition, I stored a few other items that would be helpful if I had to sleep in the office.

There was also a small bag containing flashlight, extra batteries, lighter, multitool ..etc. just in case I had to walk

Never needed them but was good feeling to know they were there.
Funny thing is , in the same drawers I kept a small personal tool kit, which has seen tons of use in the office.

My recent office experience has centered around seasonal work in our county's election office. We go into high gear at least the week before the election,working late well into the evening. Flashlights are good things to have.

Election night is typically an all-nighter,although those of us who started at 6AM can usually leave by 1 or 2 AM the next day. Power outages occur, although emergency generators do kick in. On one occasion of election day, our phone network crashed and I had to leave our basement office in order to deal with a problem in one of our precincts reduced to using my personal cell phone. At least this sort of thing is relatively predictable, like an impending hurricane.

It is really a good idea to have a few goodies and useful items at hand, because you never know....

Dec. 1st, time to go through my office kit.

spare set of glasses, toothbrush, chem light in addition to a task LED light, P95 mask, whistle