Mr. Parbold is told by Head Office that his branch of Dobson and Hawkes is one and a third head overstaffed and he happily delegates the task of correcting this to Leonard Swindley. Keen to avoid getting rid of the last person to join the company – namely himself – he takes up Miss Sinclair's suggestion to "early retire" the elderly and lazy cleaner Ada Hadfield. But he has not reckoned on the fact that Ada looks on her work as her social life and is so bitterly upset at her dismissal that the counter staff, led by a militant Pam Plummer, goes on strike. The situation is solved by a suggestion from Mrs Edgeley: Swindley employs Ada as his own cleaner, although she prefers to be called his "housekeeper" and wants a pound a week more than she gets at the store.