Just following directions

They're not right/left, they're typically simple tube socks with the grips on the top and bottom so you can just slap them bitches on the patient any which way and have em work (edit to add: the "L" is for "Large" as in S M L XL XXL. I can also tell you this person was likely deemed low risk for slipping and falling or the socks would be bright yellow, otherwise the color is usually also an at-a-glance a size indicator).

This is more important in the regular hospital when it's a grown man twice your size but half your strength d/t heart failure. Heart failure also means the legs themselves are inflated with so much fluid that your fingers leave prints like one of those stress balls full of clay (it's called pitting edema!). We won't discuss here what that much edema looks like when it makes its way up to the penis but you can put "scrotal / penile edema" into Google images if you really need a reason to watch your sodium intake.

Since your patient can't adequately hold up his somehow simultaneously stiff AND flaccid log-legs (including feet with 6-month long talons covered in skin flakes that blow around like snow) long enough for you to get the socks on (and hasn't been able to reach them in over a decade), you're going to have to haul them up onto your knee to be able to slide the sock on. It's at this point you realize that you've gotten the wrong angle and his leg is sitting across your thigh such that his foot is poking out behind you but you're not sure you have the strength to do it again and still be able to get the other one so you're just gonna have to do some gymnastics twists to get both hands back there to git er done.

Anyway that's why the grips are on both sides, at least from someone whose job it is to apply them occasionally (less than at the tech job I had through school). Mostly though I do actually work psych where I can just hand them to people in exchange for their shoes that have laces. Lots of people say psych is easier but these are the same people who also look utterly flabbergasted when people respond to them shouting "CALM. DOWN." by throwing hands.

Oh and these are my fancy grippy socks that I have like 20 pairs of to wear at home because it turns out these specific ones are the exact right sock for my (probable) autism:

Now for work I actually wear toe socks because I have long skinny toes and if I don't keep them separated they over and underlap every few steps and if I do 10k+ steps a night they're often actually bruised by the end. I tried silicone gel separators but they just gave me pressure sores.

my grippy socks have the grippy part on both sides 😊

(that way you can't put them on wrong)

EDIT: and L is for Large, not Left. The socks are not specific to the foot (again, so you can't put them on wrong).

You've never had a pair. The grip is on top and bottom.

How would you wear a sock on the wrong foot? Lmao

Yes, it's better for people at work to assume any odd behaviour you may exhibit has been completely unaddressed so far /s.

If you feel confident in youself now, I say rock them