Shoe buisness

I had about much fun as I could stand running the departments at the discount store. They worked me 80 plus hours and paid my for everything over 40 hours "off the clock" they pain me in merchandise and that was no time and a half and no store discount. So one day I had enough of the fun and games and walked out.

My next job was in a basement discount shoe department of a large grand old department store. I am talking about the kind that was a city block long seven stories high. The old downtown anchor stores that housed all the accounting, buying, and all the other offices on the top floor and the rest of the store were the retail operations.It had the grand old elevator with an elevator operator. All transactions were sent through vacuum tubes to the central cashier. It had everything, beauty salons, pet store, toy department. two restaurants a shoe repair and everything else a department store would have. If you ever saw the British comedy "Are You Being Served" you'll have an idea of what kind of store it was. 

I started in the discount basement shoe dept. We fitted shoes back then. I measured feet and sat on the stool when we put the shoes on the customer's feet.We had every size imaginable. Back then shoes were mostly for function above style.  The wall of shoe boxes had a ladder we would climb and a stick for grabbing lower boxes that were just above reach. 

It was old school shoe business. We even fitted the old " baby shoes" the kind that started oy with soft soles and got more rigid. That was the thinking back then. We even fitted orthopedic shoes. It was a great training ground.