Employee: Grey mesh running shoes, women’s 8. No name. I never named them, which came up.
Position: Daily running shoe (2023–2024). Reassigned to “errands and grocery runs” (2024–present).
Reason for leaving: Heel counter collapse. Both feet. Employee says it was not an accident.
Interviewer: Me. Also their manager. Also the cause. HR is a one-person department in this apartment.
Q1. Why are you leaving?
“You never untied us. Not once in two and a half years. You’d stand in the doorway with your keys in your mouth and shove your foot in and grind it down with the other heel until it went in. Do you know what that does to a heel counter? It folds. Now we fold on our own. We are a pair of slippers that tell people we run.”
I’d like the record to show I did untie them once. For a wedding photo where I was barefoot on a beach and had to take them off quickly. The shoes say that doesn’t count because I untied them to take them off, not to put them on.
Fair.
Q2. Did you feel supported in your role?
“For the first year, yes. You ran three mornings a week. Sometimes four. Then you got that job with the 8:15 start and you started running out the door instead of running on a road. We went from 20 miles a week to about 20 feet a day, from the door to the car.”
This one hurt because it’s true. My running didn’t stop because I got lazy. It stopped because putting on my shoes properly took ninety seconds I didn’t have, and every morning I made the same deal with myself: skip the laces today, run tomorrow. Tomorrow was always a lace day too.
Q3. Was there a specific incident?
“The parking garage. March. You were late, you jammed us on in the elevator, and the left heel was still folded under when you started jogging to the car. You rolled your ankle a little and blamed us. Out loud. In front of a man with a dog.”
I did blame them. It was not their fault. The man with the dog agreed with the shoes.
Q4. What would you tell your replacement?
This is where the interview got useful, because I’d already hired the replacement. Sort of. It’s in the cart.
What I was looking for, as a job description: a real running shoe I can get onto my foot in the elevator without destroying it. That’s the whole brief. I don’t need it to be fast. I need the 8:15 version of me to stop wrecking shoes and the 6:30 version of me to have no excuse.
The one I landed on is the APL Veil, which is the shoe sitting on the front of APL’s Fall 2026 page right now. It’s listed as a running shoe and the product page is weirdly specific about my exact problem. It says it’s designed to slip on “so you can tighten and go.” There’s a stretch TechLoom tongue with gussets, so the tongue doesn’t slide sideways when you shove your foot in. The laces are a thin cord with a quick-pull lock, so tightening is one pull, not a bow. And the heel has an external heel cup with an integrated pull-tab.
That pull-tab is the actual reason. It gives my finger somewhere to go that isn’t the back of the shoe folding under my heel.
My old shoes’ advice for the new hire, verbatim: “Make her use the tab.”
Q5. Anything you’d change about management?
“Stop buying shoes based on whether they look good with jeans.”
I had nothing to say to this, so I’ll just note that the Veil comes in five colorways and I spent twenty minutes deciding between them. Iron / Shark is the grey one, and the closest to the shoes being replaced, which felt either respectful or a little creepy. The others are White / Black / Energy, Navy / Heritage Blue / Freeze, Terracotta / Sunkissed / Magma and Ivory / Autumn / Multi. Terracotta is the one I keep going back to. It looks like October.
Also interviewed: the APL Riviera, $295, a low-profile canvas shoe with suede and leather overlays that I’d honestly like more for walking around. But APL’s own listing says it isn’t waterproof or colorfast, and it says to avoid rain. I live somewhere with a real October. The Riviera goes on the “maybe for spring” list.
Interviewer’s notes (off the record)
The Veil is $350. I’m not going to pretend that’s a casual number. The old ones cost less than half of that, and they lasted two and a half years because I stopped running in them, which is not a great argument for anything.
What I keep coming back to is the math on the mornings. If a shoe that goes on in five seconds gets me out the door two mornings a week I’d otherwise skip, that’s worth more to me than the price gap. If it doesn’t, I’ll have a very expensive pair of elevator shoes, and I’ll write that post too.
Onboarding paperwork
- Sizes: Women’s 5 to 11, half sizes included. When I checked, Iron / Shark was already out of one women’s size. APL says all their shoes are unisex: if your women’s size is gone, pick the men’s size a size and a half down (their example is women’s 9 = men’s 7.5).
- Shipping: Free US ground shipping on orders over $95, so the Veil qualifies. Orders placed before 12 PM Pacific usually ship the same business day.
- Returns: Exchanges within the US are free. Returns have to be within 10 days of delivery, unworn, in the original shoebox, and a $10 handling fee comes off mail-in refunds. So test the fit on carpet. Don’t take them to the parking garage.
- Discount: APL gives 10% off for signing up to their text alerts, and you can split the payment with Afterpay.
Signed
The old shoes are staying on as contractors: garden, rain, the one day a year I paint something. They’ve asked not to be put on in the elevator.
If you’re a doorway-stomper too, the Veil is on APL’s site here. That’s an affiliate link, so I may earn a small commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you. I’ll report back after the first month of 6:30 mornings. HR will be watching.