WorkWise BlogTip: Learn to think fast on your feet

FAST ON HER FEET

Iana Dealey was job hunting at an old house renovated for commercial use (idealmarketingandpr.com). Waiting for people to come into the conference room, she stepped on a heat vent, “one of those old-style wrought-iron grates,” she says. The grate latched onto her heel like a barracuda and wouldn’t let her pull it out. The heat from the vent was so bad that she started sweating.

“I wasn’t able to free my foot,” she explains. “As each person filed into the room for the interview, I stood to shake hands and slipped my foot out of my shoe under the table so no one could see. I sat down and completed the interview, hoping they would leave the room and I could show myself out without them ever knowing I was stuck in this three-pound grate.”

The CEO, who concluded the interview, invited Dealey to view some artwork in the hallway. She reached down for the grate, pulled it up with her shoe, declined and explained why.

The walls resounded with laughter. The heel had to come off to get the shoe out of the grate. “I left with one less pump and no job,” she says, “but one good story to tell.”