This took place in the 1980s when I worked at a paint and adhesive supplier, I had only been working there for a week and most of the other women there were very nice except one, she was in her mid to late 50s and always wore the same thing to work every single day. You could say she would make a good schoolmistress she had that stern look and a voice to match.
One thing she didn’t like any of us to do was to slip off our shoes and especially not just one, also she didn’t like high-heeled mules she would say it the sort of things a prostitute would wear. The day I turned up wearing only one shoe didn’t go down very well at all, as I came into the warehouse and started up the stairs to the office she saw me and said what are you doing dressed like that you are a disgrace, put on your other shoe now, I told her that it had been kicked off on the platform in the rush hour and I couldn’t find it. She said don't be so ridicules how can anyone loose a shoe like that, you’re making it up, no I’m not I said, In that case she said you better go and buy a pair of new shoes and I will doc your wages for the time you take.
Just then the boss came into the warehouse and said good morning, then stopped and said having shoe trouble are you Karen, so I told him what had happened and he said have you finished that report I’m waiting for. No I said I was about to finish it now, ok he said if you don’t mind working in one shoe and went up the stairs to the office, he got to the top and turned, then said, Karen anytime soon will be good. I started walking up the stairs still wearing one shoe and she just looked at me in that schoolmistresses glare.
I could see it was really annoying her, me being in one shoe and a high-heeled one at that, instead of going into town at lunchtime to buy a new pair, I stayed and carried on working instead. Every time she looked at me she would give me that discerning look as if I was no one, I thought to myself there must be away of getting one up on her. At about five o’clock the boss was leaving and seeing me there still in one shoe said Karen I thought you were going to get another pair at lunchtime. That’s ok I said I wanted to finish those orders today, that was good of you he said would you like a lift to the station? Yes please I said and grabbed my handbag and went down the stairs with him. She gave me a really stern look because the boss had never offered her a lift and she had worked there for nearly 30 years.
About two weeks later she was in a very bad mood and went down into the warehouse and set into one of the new guys because he hadn’t filled in some of the paperwork correctly. We could all hear her shouting at this poor guy, so we looked out of the window that overlooked the warehouse-loading bay, she was standing next to a pallet with some drums of quick setting floor paint and we noticed one was leaking, but better still her right shoe was in the paint. After about twenty minutes she went to walk away and found her shoe was stuck to the floor. She tried to wiggle it free but it was really stuck and most of the paint by now had set, she called out for the foreman and he came over and said you better take your shoe off, I’m not doing that she said, but after ten minutes of trying she had to unlace it and slip it off.
Just then the boss came out and said to her I need you in the meeting now and bring the reports and spread sheets, but I can’t at the moment she said my shoe is stuck to the floor, all he said was take it off and get in here now. So she had to leave her shoe there and limp up the stairs into the office, then grab the paperwork and go into the meeting, she was in there all afternoon and to top it off she had to stay late to finalise the paperwork. We all thought this was very funny and she was very embarrassed wearing only one shoe when we left I could see her shoe still stuck in the paint.
The next day I came into work and her shoe was still there and we all said I wonder what type of shoe she will be wearing today, because none of them had ever seen her wear anything else. She always wore brown lace up shoes with a two-inch heel regardless of the weather, we were all talking about different sorts and colours of shoe when she walked in, we all looked at her feet and she had on a pair exactly the same. We all looked at each other and though, that is a surprise ‘not’.
Her shoe was finally removed from the floor but it was completely ruined and un-wearable. It seems that after her one shoe experience she mellowed a bit and wasn’t so bitchy towards me or anyone else, I think she leaned to live at bit and not to be so serious all the time. On one summer’s day we all had a surprise she came to work in sandals, ok they were only two-inch heels but it was a start and a shock to us all because we didn’t think she had anything else.
At the end of the year there was a staff Christmas party and we all brought in a change of clothes for later, I changed into a party dress and put on some ankle strap sandals with four inch stiletto heels. The party started and we all went down to the warehouse loading bay and we had some drinks and things started to get into swing, I saw a lady coming down the stairs from the office and I thought who is that, she was wearing a party dress with black high-heeled stiletto court shoes and had long brown hair. It was her, I couldn’t believe my eyes, she walked over to us and we all had some drinks and after a while she started to open up and talk about all sorts of things, by late evening she was a bit merry to say the least, she slipped off her left shoe and poured some wine into it, then one of the guys drank from it, but when he gave it back to her she said I can’t wear that it’s all wet and she put it on top of one of the pallets.
That is were her shoe stayed and she went home still wearing only one shoe, in the new year when I came into work her shoe was still there. When she came in she picked it up and said to me, so that is were I left it and laughed. After that she didn’t seem to mind if we did slip a shoe off. Even when I tripped out of one going up the stairs and I had to limp back down again to get it. I left that company a few months later and never saw her again.
THE END
By Karen Dean