Choice Mindsets

Recently, surveyor Dan Perreira broke his arm and needed several permanent screws surgically installed. Lucky for him, he has quite a few Choice One friends able to loan him a sling (thanks to our buy one get one slew of surgeries last fall).

 

We went ahead and calculated the number of nuts and bolts within current Choice One employees thanks to sports injuries and our occasional clumsiness with a very unscientific poll. The results? 35 screws, 12 anchors/fasteners, three metal plates/strips, two 7” pins, and one ligament hook (in a pear tree). Oh, and as a boy, Brian Barhorst once had has hair tied together to mend a scalp laceration (it was the 1980s…). And here we thought our digital survey collection equipment were the only robots around here!

 

Honestly, we shouldn’t be surprised at the totals above. Surely, after reading a couple of these Mindsets, it’s obvious we have a few screws loose. But 35?! Now THAT’S crazy!

Imagine our delight to find Brian “Schmidty” Schmidt sitting at his desk, diligently designing a bridge or sewer system, with his pants rolled up and these charming superhero socks on. Not surprisingly, we didn’t even blink an eye. First, it’s, well… Schmidty. Second, this past week was Halloween, and many of us at Choice One feel that dressing up in a costume, even if it’s just on our feet, can be fun.

 

Unfortunately, we don’t all love Halloween. Some of us had less than stellar costume experiences in our childhoods that have left a few scars. Jake Cordonnier was a lizard one year, but his mask was of a Gremlin. Every house asked if he was a Gremlin and he was upset because he had no idea what a Gremlin was. Same thing happen to Kaye Borchers when her mom made her a flapper costume out of a table skirt and she didn’t know what a flapper was and certainly didn’t want to be one. And perhaps worst of all, Kyle Siegrist was required by his parents to be a cow, and then to make matters worse his parents gave him a Gateway computer box and said “figure it out.”

 

Judging by his smile, Schmidty’s superhero “costume” experience is an enthusiastic one. Plus, he gets to wear TWO capes instead of one—one on each sock! We hope his stint as Blood Donor Superman is more fun than Kyle’s cardboard cow box experience (which Kyle describes as “itchy, uncomfortable, and humiliating—I couldn’t even sit down in the car”). Most importantly, thanks for donating the gift of life, Schmidty!

Sometimes, these Mindsets just write themselves, no enhancements needed:

Mitch Thobe: Our surveyors should be glad they only have to fight through densely wooded properties or wade into rivers to collect survey data. A firm I know of in Alaska has to take a helicopter to survey certain rough terrains.
Matt Hoying: I don’t know, I would much rather topo in Alaskan snow on a glacier than in a dense woods.
Eric Kuck: At least their company gets them a helicopter…

It would be nice to have a survey helicopter, Eric. In addition to getting tricky shots like ones in the middle of a river, we could monitor traffic situations from the air (although we would run the risk of Craig Eley running the helicopter out of fuel watching roundabouts function). And we could get plans delivered without green flashing lights… although flashing lights are still pretty cool. But until we find a pilot–unanimously NOT Ryan Francis–you’ll just have to keep putting on your hip-waders and driving good old-fashioned wheeled vehicles!

P.S. If you know someone who would fit in with our loveable, hard-working survey crew, we’re looking for a field surveyor out of our Loveland office. Eric already spilled the beans that we don’t have a helicopter, but we do have… cool trucks. Check out the position here. Not sure what a surveyor does? Watch this short video to learn about Choice One’s crews.

If you recall, our controller Caray is really good at cartwheels, but then took advantage of that two-for-one shoulder surgery we “offered” about a year ago. As this week’s  photo series proves, the surgery was successful and Caray felt brave enough to once again able to perform a perfect cartwheel.

 

Caray is definitely an above-average cartwheeler, even post-shoulder surgery. Being above-average is pretty common here at Choice One. We are above-average pizza eaters. We find above-average spouses who are way more fun than us. And, of course, we probably wear more green than the average person.

 

Caray might try to be modest about her courage and say that others here at Choice One coerced her into this cartwheel. But those of us who witnessed this feat will tell you that Caray was very eager to prove her mettle without encouragement. (Just like we didn’t “encourage” her at all when she attempted to plow through the mud in the middle of Indianapolis and a vanload of us ended up stuck.) Caray, thanks for showing us all how to do it right: jump right in, face your fears, and come out right side up, every time!

A few weeks back, Nick Selhorst took a day off to celebrate winning a Tough Man competition. And Dana was… confused. We’ll assume it’s not that Dana thinks Nick isn’t a tough guy, but that when most of us think of Tough Man competitions, we think of Arnold Schwarzenegger-types pulling dump trucks with their bare hands and stacking 300-pound rocks 20 feet high. Which (no offense Nick) is not Nick. Rather, the Tough Man competition Nick won was a golf tournament held at the Mercer County Elks.

Really, Nick is just following the Choice One habit of participating in events with semi-misleading names. If you’ve ever attended one of Choice One’s Charity Cups, you know we call it a “cornhole tournament” or “bucketball tournament.” Of course, that only applies if your typical cornhole/bucketball involves spinning around three times and then throwing with your non-dominate hand while standing backwards. Heck, even our internal tournament bracket pools are based on fast food preferences rather than sports. And play to win? No way! It’s better to come in second so you don’t have to buy lunch for the whole office with your $20 in winnings.

Nick tells us that the golf tournament is called “Tough Man” because organizers make the holes as challenging as possible. Despite the difficulty, we shall congratulate “Seahorse” and his team-his dad and brother-who were the toughest men on the course that day. We’re very sure Nick didn’t have to swing his club while hopping on one foot with his eyes closed, but we’re VERY sure Nick won a little money, so we know he will be buying us lunch!