Henry Schein team member Toni Leck assists with finding a supplier’s missing wedding ring in an order shipment.
By Jenna Hughes
Michael Schoendorf tied the knot with his wife, Keri Lynn, in September 2022. Freshly married, he was getting used to wearing his new platinum wedding band full-time. One day in June 2023, though, on the way home after a busy end-of-the-month workday shipping out deliveries, he looked down at his hand in surprise to realize he’d misplaced his wedding ring.
Schoendorf, IT Support Specialist at Parkell, works with all aspects of technology for the company located on Long Island, New York which manufactures dental products, devices, and materials. In his position, the end of the month means a rush to reach sales goals, and his job is all hands-on-deck in the shipping department to make sure as much product is moved as possible.
During the end of the month rush, Schoendorf was preparing to fulfill two important orders. He was working quickly to make sure that he could finish up the last order by the end of the day and be on time to pick up his wife to take her to the airport for a trip she was taking to visit her mother.
“It was a mad dash to the finish line that day, coupled with the fact that my wife needed a ride to the airport,” Schoendorf recalls. “I was rushing to make sure I could finish up that last order, pick her up, and bring her to the airport. It was on my way home after dropping her off that I realized my ring was missing. I looked down at my hand and nothing was there. I got home and proceeded to turn around and return to the airport because I thought it had slipped off there.”
Schoendorf spoke to the security guard at the airport, paced around where he dropped his wife off looking for the ring, searched his entire house, and even returned to work, hoping the ring might have been left there.
“I thought there was a good chance that the ring may have slipped off when I was packaging the boxes. When I came back to work on the following Monday, I reached out to Henry Schein to see if we could figure out where last week’s shipment was going to end up and if someone on the other end could check through the boxes to search for a ring,” said Schoendorf.
The search continues
When the boxes from the Parkell order arrived at Henry Schein, Toni Leck, Receiving Supervisor at Henry Schein’s Denver, Pennsylvania distribution center, received an email from the buyer asking if there was any chance they could look through the order for the missing ring.
Five boxes were unloaded that day from Parkell, and Leck was careful to go through each piece of packaging material in the box to make sure the ring didn’t slip through the cracks. With no luck on the first day, Leck knew there was one more box expected from Parkell, and held on to hope.
“I really wanted to find this ring. On the second day, there were two pieces of paper left in the final box,” said Leck. “I looked down and there’s a silver ring in this box. I did a dance. I was singing on the dock. We all threw a party. We were all jumping around because everybody knew I was trying to find this ring.”
Leck sent an email back that the misplaced ring had been located by Henry Schein’s team. Henry Schein, taking every precaution, packaged the ring, and Schoendorf received the package with the found ring by next day shipment.
All parties involved were elated that the story had a happy ending.
“Our marriage was so fresh and new at the time and more meaning than just a ring. My wife had a good feeling about finding the ring and reassured me that it’d turn up,” said Schoendorf. “It was an awesome sense of team comradery. Toni and everyone on the Henry Schein team came together to help me and make sure that all the boxes got checked as well as they could be, and I really appreciate that.”