Choice Mindsets

Choice Mindsets

11 Oct

Posted at 11:15h in Uncategorized
Kaye Borchers:
“I feel like we should be able to get some kind of two-for-one discount here…”

 

Welcome to this week’s episode of General Hospital… er, Choice Mindsets. With three bum shoulders and one broken heel in the house*,  it’s clear we’ve really taken this Choice One “work as a unified team” mentality to another level. Unfortunately, their respective surgeons don’t have the same “one team” mindset: none of them accepted our “Buy Two Surgeries Get One Free” punch card.

 

Two-for-ones are a real thing at Choice One for reasons other than surgery. For every one computer, most of us have two (or even four) monitors. We pay for one snack in the Canteen and take two (merely to thwart Barney’s vacation fund). And for every one Jeff, Brian, Michael, or Ryan around here, we have at least two more.

 

Regardless of the fact that none of our coworkers got their surgery for free, we are glad they are all physically repaired. Although we’ll miss Andy zooming up and down the hall on his scooter, we’re hoping that we’ll see at least two less slings for one less knee scooter in the office in a few weeks. And that’s the two-for-one that everyone can honor!

 

*Pictured left to right are Caray Schmiesing (shoulder surgery), Andy Shuman (heel surgery), Kaye’s husband Neil Borchers (shoulder surgery), and Matt Hoying (shoulder surgery).

27 Sep

Posted at 11:14h in Uncategorized
Chad Henry:
“I think I’m gonna make a card for Craig. It’s his week.”

Last week was National Roundabouts Week, and we could hardly hold Craig Eley back from skipping merrily through the office while tossing little yield sign-shaped confetti on everyone. If there’s someone, somewhere with more passion and love for roundabouts than Craig, we haven’t found him or her yet (although Dane is probably a pretty close second—note his signature on the card).

 

We would never want to curb Craig’s enthusiasm for roundabouts, but we do want to remind him that there are other important weeks and days we celebrate here at Choice One. The third week in February is always National Engineers Week (although we carefully avoid “Hug an Engineer Day” that week). Kyle and his thin, blonde mustache look forward to No-Shave November. And we can’t help but celebrate World Toilet Day (November 19), which allows us to acknowledge both the need for sustainable sewers and this amazing photo.

 

Craig, we know you proudly celebrate roundabouts year-round, and we appreciate that you only really let your enthusiasm out once in a while (for our sanity’s sake). Your enthusiasm and the fun that comes from it helps to make Choice One a year-round celebrator of another national day: National Fun at Work Day (April 1).

13 Sep

Posted at 12:43h in Uncategorized
Nick Selhorst:
“Billy Highfill with Deerfield Township told Dane that he looks like Tom Brady. Dane was quite flattered, but I don’t see it.”
Thanks a lot Billy. You just inflated Dane’s head as quickly as New England Patriot’s QB Tom Brady deflated the AFC Championship game balls. But, since Billy is our friend (and on the reigning Loveland Charity Cup team, which is no small feat), we won’t completely dismiss his statement. Yet.
Let’s take a deeper look into this comparison, shall we?
  1. First, the award. The Choice One “Best Places to Work” award Dane is holding is clearly superior to any of Mr. Brady’s six Super Bowl trophies or four Super Bowl MVP honors. Dane: 1, Tom: 0.
  2. Second, the smile. While Tom looks kinda excited about his fourth MVP designation, we have never seen anyone with a prouder smile than Dane after he ordered and received a plaque commemorating Choice One’s achievement. Dane: 2, Tom: 0.
  3. Third, many call Tom The Greatest Of All Time (GOAT). Dane is also a GOAT, and a better one: Geekiest Of All Time. This has been established by his affinity for roundabouts. Dane: 3, Tom: 0.
  4. Fourth, the team. While Tom commands his ten talented, athletic teammates with elegant precision on the football field, Dane commands our team of awkward, musically-deficient, slightly-off-beat engineers in the Choice One “Design Your Road” video. Which of these jobs is harder? Dane: 4, Tom: 0.

Clearly, there’s no real comparison here. Billy, we hope we’ve helped you understand that while you may think that Dane looks like Tom Brady, that’s where the similarities end. If you have any other insights about accomplished celebrities who are similar to Choice Oners, be sure to let us know. We’ll take the compliment, as in the past we’ve only been compared to clowns!

13 Sep

Posted at 01:15h in Uncategorized
Megan Bornhorst:
“Good thing Kaye has those fake tiny hands to use this tiny keyboard!”
We recently purchased a rather large TV for one of the expanded Sidney office conference rooms, and it came with a rather small keyboard. While we’re sure using this tiny keyboard is more efficient than “typing” with the TV remote, it still seems a little, well… little.

 

Good thing Kaye keeps a pair of tiny hands* “handy” in her desk. Why? Well, for starters, they make her long, goofy arms even longer for reaching behind desks. They help give her fellow Choice Oners a little pat on the back. And they provide a tiny bit of applause during a Ryan Francis pity party. Plus, without those tiny hands, the conference room TV/computer would be more frustrating to manipulate than Matt’s ridiculously nerdy spreadsheets.

 

In this day and age, technology seems to be getting both bigger (as in 100-inch TVs) and smaller (as in nano-chips [which are not nearly as tasty as Dorito-chips]). Choice One is no different-not only do we employ little hands for little challenges, we employ tall employees for taller challenges–such as frustrating Mitch.

 

*Complements of the 2018 Greene County Township Association Holiday Party.

30 Aug

Posted at 13:07h in Uncategorized
Matt Hoying:
“You’re planning on flying the whole company over to Spain for Christmas, right Ryan?”

 

Believe it or not, the routinely clumsy, ungraceful folks at Choice One have a legit professional athlete in our midst. Recent Ohio Northern University grad and Choice One employee Ryan Bruns is on his way to play professional basketball for team Aquimisa Carbajosa in Salamance, Spain. Since Choice One and ONU have pretty much taught Ryan everything he knows (although Choice One has nothing to do with any athletic abilities, obviously), we’re pretty proud of Ryan and are excited to watch him succeed on the court overseas.

Disappointingly, Ryan hasn’t formally offered to fly us all to Spain (yet). We can only deduce that he’s afraid that we’ll somehow embarrass him. As if! What could he possibly be concerned about? That some of our engineers would never make it to his games because they would get caught up admiring the hundreds of roundabouts in Spain? That we’d somehow show up his professional teammates with our remarkable basketball skills? Or, worst of all, we would convince his team to dress in green and purple instead of their traditional orange and red?!

Ryan, we would NEVER embarrass one of our own, so enjoy your time overseas without cause for worry. We’ll stay back here in Ohio—a safe 4,000 miles away—while you experience the world. Just try not to forget about us. We’ll be sure to keep our calendars open over Christmas this year. Feliz Navidad!

P.S. There’s another couple of Choice Oners in Europe right now: Tony and Joan Schroeder are on their 25th Choice One Anniversary trip: another bicycle adventure! This time they’re pedaling from Zurich, Switzerland, to Budapest, Hungary. Follow their travels at https://tonytransportingjoan.blogspot.com/.

15 Aug

Posted at 08:15h in Uncategorized
Chris Fluegeman:
“I studied detention a lot in school. I was detained after school and released slowly.”

In the engineering world, we often talk about the detention and retention of storm water (typically in manmade basins), and it’s easy to confuse one with the other. Thankfully, our surveyor Chris has provided us a real-life analogy to help us remember that a detention basin is typically an empty, depressed span of grass and a retention basin is typically full of water (and probably full of cheerfulness, too).

The photo, obviously, was staged to reflect Chris’s continued misbehavior that once landed him in “detention.” I bet you can almost hear the beautiful sing-song voices of our Loveland staff chanting “You can’t survey in Mason, you have to sit by the basin!” Or even worse (at least according to the perpetually-hungry Brian Schmidt), “You won’t eat Skyline a bit. In detention you must sit!”

Chris, we’re confident your behavior has vastly improved since junior high school. But if you (or any other hooligans in Loveland) misbehave, we know that the threat of “detention” is just outside the doors of Choice One’s new Loveland office. Take note: we’ll be forced to use best engineering practices to decide how slowly you get released.