Choice Mindsets

Choice Mindsets

Adam Gill:
“The server was down, so we had to pass the time…”

…and Sledgehammer Putt-Putt was born.

 

What can we say? Most of us at Choice One like sports, or at least enjoy friendly competition, so when a few spare minutes are had, some sort of contest spontaneously occurs. Our Loveland office has a pop-a-shot machine that elicits daily lunchtime games of P-I-G. Our Sidney office has a pickleball court in the basement. Jacqui Lohman keeps her lacrosse sticks at work “just in case.”

 

It’s a testament to our engineering ingenuity (or more likely our extreme competitiveness) that we can develop a game of skill out of just about anything. Just take our annual Charity Cup fundraisers, which coerce–ahem, invite–our clients and friends into closing their eyes, spinning around three times, and throwing beanbags at various targets with their non-dominant hand to support a charity. Regular cornhole or bucketball? Not a chance! (Just a reminder that the Loveland event is November 3!)

 

Whether we’re “hammering” a golf ball into Jake Bertke’s “How the $#@* did I get to be 30?!” coffee cup or considering adding qualifications to our employment application like “must be willing to try off-the-ceiling shots during daily pop-a-shot games,” we will keep coming up with ways to compete. Stay tuned—we’re pretty sure our recent establishment of the National Association of Trashcan Football (NATCFB) is going to catch on beyond our office walls soon!

Kaye Borchers:
“I’ve made two major contributions to Choice One: Choice Mindsets and figuring out that cool page transfer thing in Adobe Acrobat.”

Believe it or not, these Mindsets have been coming to your inbox every other week for almost 10 years. If you haven’t known us that long or don’t remember, we invite you to check out the very first Mindset, written in October 2011. If we were to rewrite that Mindset today, almost 10 years later… well, nothing has changed. Kaye is still ungraceful, Andy still makes fun of her, and we’re still taking awkward photos to entertain our readership, as evidenced by the recreated photo above.

 

What has changed about Choice One since these Mindsets began? We have a few more employees now (about three times more), we have moved our Loveland office to a larger space (due to said three times more employees), and, obvious from original photo in the 2011 Mindset, we’ve redecorated our office. Otherwise, we’ve been pretty consistent: we’re still wearing green, we’re still laughing with each other, and, of course, we’re still wondering when we get to eat next.

 

At the risk of getting a little sappy, thanks for reading. You came along with us when Brian “Goub” Goubeaux had his kidney transplant, you’ve endured our obligatory posts about Tony biking across the US a few times, and you’ve done your best to figure out which Brian, Ryan, Nick, or Michael you need to talk to when you call. Here’s to 10 more Jeffs and 10 more years of Choice Mindset ridiculousness!

Brittany Clinehens:
“If you do anything today, please watch the video of Kyle Siegrist.”

To celebrate the recent Summer Olympics, Choice One held a cotton ball shotput contest complete with super official measurements and prizes as extravagant as bragging rights. While Kyle didn’t win with his mediocre distance, he certainly won “recognition” for an impressive throwing style.

 

The Olympics are always a fun topic to discuss at Choice One. Our conversations revolve around things like “How does the scoring in fencing work?” “What kind of BMX bike trick is ‘The Truck Driver 4000?’” and “How do water polo players tread water for that long? I would most certainly drown.” We cheered, we laughed, we talked about obscure sports like equestrian dressage, artistic swimming, and speed-walking. And when it was over, we got back to discussing regular, everyday stuff like European Tram Driving and Killer Whale Riding.

 

Perhaps with a little more practice we’ll see Kyle in a future Olympics, throwing a 16-pound shot put instead of a 0.5-gram cotton ball. Kyle, if you’re as dedicated to the shotput as you are to trying to prove Allen Bertke wrong by at standing at your desk, we’re sure you’ll win gold!

Inquiring Mindsets:
“What was your favorite county fair ride as a kid?”

With local county fairs in full swing, we’ve been discussing two questions: what is your favorite fair food and what was your favorite fair ride as a kid? On the food side, we Choice Oners are consistent, enjoying typical fair fare: funnel cakes, sugar waffles, and elephant ears (no surprise we’re sugar-coated fried dough people). But on the ride side, it turns out the kid version of Team Green was more adventurous, as numerous Choice One respondents listed their favorite childhood fair ride as the Gravitron.

 

Our fondness for the Gravitron debunks the general assumption that engineers are boring. Anyone who pays to willingly climb into an oversized children’s top, assembled on the spot in less than a day, spinning 40 miles per hour is NOT boring. Crazy? Yes. Boring? No.

 

Might it be the Gravitron that made our engineers who they are? Indeed, some of us enjoy driving endlessly around the same roundabout just for fun, several of us have been caught dancing [awkwardly], and one of us has been known to perform numerous consecutive cartwheels just to prove a point. Be it our engineering nature or that the Gravitron knocked a few of our screws loose—the love of the Gravitron proves that a-round here, our engineers are not squares!

Dane Sommer:
“Roundabouts are poetic.”

 

Roses are red,
Choice One wears green.
When roundabouts are the topic here,
You won’t get a word between.

They talk of deflection,
Angle of entry and yield.
The enhancement of safety,
Traffic congestion now healed.

The excitement will grow,
If ADT you do mention.
Capacity and curvature,
The perfect intersection intention!

So smile and nod,
Go along with the flow.
Because nothing’s worse for a roundabout,
Than someone who won’t just go!

Dan Perreira:
“Justin, since it’s hot, I’ll let you have one of the A/C vents in the truck today.”

 

If you’ve been inside an air-conditioned building this past week, you probably didn’t mind that it was hot and humid. No surprise that our field surveyors are a little more aware, however. So in an act of thoughtful generosity, field surveyor Dan offered to point one of the survey truck’s six A/C vents towards co-op Justin for the day. Justin was VERY excited.

 

Once in a while we are nice to each other around here. Brian Barhorst is always willing to offer a jump start for your car—even if it’s twice in one day. We show appreciation by making cookies, buying pizza, and bringing doughnuts (except for Jeff Kunk, of course). And, if you couldn’t tell from the previous 262 Choice Mindsets, we like to share a laugh or two with each other.

 

Despite only working as a co-op for about 45 days, Justin is clearly already feeling the ”love” we show for each other at Choice One. Justin, give it a couple more weeks and Dan might find it in his heart to give you two vents in the truck. But don’t expect three. He’s too much of a celebrity to let his buzz-cut hair get ruined in this heat.