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You might be wondering why Bella Kernan is holding an orange flip-flop

Founder life and leadership2 min readSam Page

You might be wondering why Bella Kernan is holding an orange flip-flop, shortly after her 10 year anniversary at 7DOTS. There is a story behind it.

Soon after we moved offices, Bella turned up one day wearing only one flip-flop.

It turned out someone had kicked her other flip-flop on the train.
It had gone flying, and she'd lost it.

Paul Laroy, our Technical Director, very kindly went out to Primark to get her some new shoes to wear for the day.

And the one remaining flip-flop got discarded into a box and forgotten about.

That box stayed in the office for the next ~7 years.

Until we recently started some building work at 7DOTS, reconfiguring our office and creating more meeting rooms, and Ed Gossage stumbled across said flip-flop.

So it felt only fitting that, for her 10 year anniversary, he should present it back to her.

Ed took it away, diligently sprayed it in the new 7DOTS orange and mounted it on a plaque.

We presented it to her in the office last week, in front of everyone, to a huge round of applause.

The flip-flop is a bit of fun, but on a serious note, thank you again Bella, for 10 years at 7DOTS.

We hope you enjoy the proper present as much as the flip-flop!

First published on LinkedIn.

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---
title: "You might be wondering why Bella Kernan is holding an orange flip-flop"
url: https://sam-page.com/thinking/you-might-be-wondering-why-bella-kernan-is-holding-an-orange-flip-flop
date: 2026-10-04
author: Sam Page
type: Post or article
categories: [Founder life and leadership]
reading_time: 2 min
summary: "You might be wondering why Bella Kernan is holding an orange flip-flop, shortly after her 10 year anniversary at 7DOTS. There is a story behind it."
first_published: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn%3Ali%3Ashare%3A7512519113919877120
---

# You might be wondering why Bella Kernan is holding an orange flip-flop

You might be wondering why Bella Kernan is holding an orange flip-flop, shortly after her 10 year anniversary at 7DOTS. There is a story behind it.

![](https://sam-page.com/img/thinking/you-might-be-wondering-why-bella-kernan-is-holding-an-orange-flip-flop-li1.webp)

Soon after we moved offices, Bella turned up one day wearing only one flip-flop.

It turned out someone had kicked her other flip-flop on the train.  
It had gone flying, and she'd lost it.

Paul Laroy, our Technical Director, very kindly went out to Primark to get her some new shoes to wear for the day.

And the one remaining flip-flop got discarded into a box and forgotten about.

That box stayed in the office for the next ~7 years.

Until we recently started some building work at 7DOTS, reconfiguring our office and creating more meeting rooms, and Ed Gossage stumbled across said flip-flop.

So it felt only fitting that, for her 10 year anniversary, he should present it back to her.

Ed took it away, diligently sprayed it in the new 7DOTS orange and mounted it on a plaque.

We presented it to her in the office last week, in front of everyone, to a huge round of applause.

The flip-flop is a bit of fun, but on a serious note, thank you again Bella, for 10 years at 7DOTS.

We hope you enjoy the proper present as much as the flip-flop!