Choice Mindsets

No, the server isn’t down, nor is the electric out (it’s clearly plenty bright in the photo thanks to all of our new lighting). It’s just Dane, trying to make a complicated putt from one end of the office to the other during another Choice One sports-related challenge.

We promise we don’t play games all day. Our engineering gets done first, but our random games do serve a purpose. If not for Choice One games, how would we know who the coolest person at Choice One is? Or who the best pop-a-shot player is? Or which person loves roundabouts the most? Indeed, these are the activities that get us moving, laughing, and maybe, just maybe provide the material needed to give each other a hard time.

It was sports lover Kyle Siegrist who won the putt-putt challenge that sent Dane under a desk. Dane, you certainly win a few points for putting style, at least. Next time, just raise that desk up to get a better angle on your shot. Perhaps Kyle will share his winning ways by showing you how to raise a desk to standing height.

Are you sitting down? If not, you might want to. Right now, before you read this next sentence. Jeff Kunk bought doughnuts. We know, we’re starting to look for signs of the apocalypse too (it did just snow a couple of inches this late April week in west-central Ohio, so…).

The occasion? Jeff won a Master’s Golf Tournament pool we had running at our offices. (You’ve heard us lament about the woes of winning things around here.) Jeff could have snuck away with his winnings, but instead, after 27 years of avoidance, he ponied up and treated both Loveland and Sidney to some freshly made pastry treats.

You’re probably wondering if these Mindsets will cease now that our overly-redundant story thread has been resolved. Fear not—we have something new to tease Jeff about for the next 27 years: he only bought two dozen doughnuts for 40 people in the Sidney office, so a good 15 didn’t get a doughnut. Keep trying, Jeff—we’ll cut you some slack someday.

Last week was the annual Sidney Choice One Charity Cup featuring friendly competition amongst our clients and friends. Jackson Center’s Bruce Metz (above right) gave us a hard time because he thought his team of JC Tigers should have orange shirts, not red. But given Bruce’s sense of humor regarding ketchup spills, we thought red was more appropriate.

Regardless of his shirt color, Bruce and his team were not the victors at this year’s event. And while Cynthian Township took home the bucketball trophy (pictured below), the best win of the evening was raising over $7,500 for the Miami Valley Down Syndrome Association and Ronald McDonald House Charities because of the generosity of all who attended! THANK YOU for your participation, enthusiasm, and most of all, the impact you’ve made on these fantastic organizations!

Bruce, better luck next year, both on the shirt color and the tournament. We can definitely be bribed for the assignment of shirt color, but we can’t help you with any bucketball skills. Please know that even without a tournament win, the contributions from all during the event will be winning lots of smiles from lots of deserving families very soon!

Sidney Charity Cup Champs from Cynthian Township, Shelby County (l-r):
Rob Siegel, Aaron Frilling, Jenny Frilling, and Choice One’s Dan Perreira.

You probably know the feeling: you walk out of the house or the office, get in the car, and forgot your lunch bag. Or left your phone on your desk. Or put your calculator in the refrigerator. For engineer Zach Borchers, forgetting something in the office on his way home happens a lot—to the point where he’s even forgotten how many times it happens.

Zach parks at the far end of the Choice One parking lot and sits at one of the farthest seats from the front door, meaning he has to retrace 200 steps a couple of times per week. Perhaps on the next Choice One seating chart Zach can request a desk closer to the door to minimize the impact of his forgetfulness. Or we could get him a stylish Choice One fanny pack so his keys and phone are always on his person.

Thankfully, it’s just the little, fixable things that Zach forgets and not the big things: he remembers to wear green every day, never misses a chance to help a fellow Choice Oner learn a new trick in AutoCAD, and always remembers to wear a smile, even when he forgets his keys on his desk and his coat on someone else’s chair.

The weather is always a concern for our field survey crews. Not only do they find themselves randomly in rivers and [someday] hopefully in a helicopter, they also find themselves out in run-of-the-mill elements, like rain. And since surveying in the rain is not ideal, watching the weather radar becomes an important exercise in guesswork.

Many moons ago, Jeff Kunk scheduled the survey crews and was notorious for sending them out if there was even the slightest potential break in a storm shown on the radar. While this resulted in keeping a project moving, it also often resulted in wet, grumpy surveyors. Hence Eric’s reference during a recent rainy day to a “Kunk Window,” which may or may not provide enough time to get a few topo shots/grade stakes set in while dodging raindrops.

“Kunk Window” joins a couple other favorite Choice One phrases like “Schmidty’d All Over” and “free lunch.” And really, all of these phrases speak to a couple of Choice One’s priorities: our core values, like timeliness, and our stomachs—which also appreciate timeliness, whether in rain, shine, or just a Kunk Window.

Remember how we had some new lights going in at our Sidney office? Well, when the lights went in over the survey crew’s area, they, like Casey, needed a moment to adjust.

In addition to brightening up the surveyors, the new fixtures have shed some light on a few other things around Choice One. It’s now a little easier to see what’s not available in the Canteen. It’s a touch harder to wait in the shadows to scare someone. And it’s more challenging to catch an in-office lunch nap with all those lights brightening things up.

After a few days, the surveyors (l-r) Craig Frilling, Kole Egbert, Dan Perreira, and Aaron Plas, shed their shades and embraced the brilliance of their desk area. New lights or not, Brian Barhorst is right—the surveyors always brighten our days. Some might say it’s the safety green sweatshirts, but we’d put our money on those big smiles.