Cut a string up to a certain character

I've searched the site and I've seen similar questions but I couldn't get them to work. I tried to follow: Splitting a string up to a specific location but it didn't work. I working with Korn.

I mainly want the directory of a file passed in. So the file would be:

/home/me/working/from/here/howareyou.txt

So I want to up get:

/home/me/working/from/here/

I've tried this but it didn't work:

THEDIR="${1%//*}"

But it just spit out the whole parameter. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.