The Shocking Truth about Specialty Box & Packaging

The first two drafts of this month’s blog were downright perverse, offensive and entirely unfitting for this family friendly blog. What else would you expect as I tried to honor the idea submitted by my friend from Arabesque? Tracey asked me to connect the world of retail packaging to the antics of the infamous shock jock Howard Stern.

Rather than use my previous drafts and risk having you permanently unsubscribe from my monthly madness, I will proceed to share with you the top 10 shocking truths about Specialty Box & Packaging.

#10: Daphne Playotes, our office manager, customer service guru and “doer of all things kind and good”, while younger than I, is now in her 20th year with Specialty Box & Packaging.

#9: One year at the annual holiday party, our entire group was cut off from the bar because a server believed I was beyond drunk. I truly had not had a sip of alcohol on that evening.

#8: Whenever I refer to our “graphics department” I’m actually talking about one person named Jess Jones who lives in Colorado.

#7: We are firmly convinced that the ghost of Leo Edwards (a marvelous character of a man who worked at Specialty Box for over 30 years) makes regular appearances in our warehouse.

#6: For Specialty Box, 3:30pm on Fridays is affectionately known as Beer O’ Clock. Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

#5: The 10,500 square foot Albany facility, on most business days, is occupied only by our warehouse manager Ray Wagar. Daphne, Tim Hodge, Jason Fialkoff and I work predominantly out of our home offices.

#4: Jason Fialkoff, each Friday at 3:30pm, likes to pick up the phone in his Florida home office, press the “loudspeaker” button and have his voice boom in the Albany warehouse with the announcement “Ray, this is God! Stop what you are doing and drink a beer.”

#3: Tim Hodge, Specialty Box’s jack of all trades and Jason’s good high school buddy, has as much hair today as he had when he was 19 years old. Tim’s mug can be seen at the About Us Page.

#2: David Fialkoff, the company’s co-founder and my father, learned about his retirement from Specialty Box at his surprise retirement party.

#1: If you are communicating with me during business hours, there is at least a 95% chance that I’m still in my jammies.

Sorry, gotta go, that’s my 8-1/2 month daughter Piper waking up in the adjacent room. Soon, she’ll be sitting on my lap and working with her daddy.