Choice Mindsets

As 2019 wraps up, we at Choice One have been reflecting on what we are grateful for, including our families, friends, and the joy of the holiday season. Additionally, we have a few personal bits of thanks that need special mention, including Nick’s above. (In case you don’t recall what he’s referring to, we’ll just leave this link riiiiight here so you can all accurately remember.)

Craig Eley is thankful for Starbucks iced coffee—because not having to wait for coffee to cool is worth the extra $1.15 for the ice. Jake Bertke is thankful for his perfect pop-a-shot shot. Brian Schmidt is grateful for super-elevated roadways and the Loveland Skyline’s inverted chili cheese fries. Conversely, Kyle Siegrist is thankful that there is no Skyline in Sidney, because “that place is garbage.” And Jeff Puthoff is, as always, thankful for shirts with pockets.

No matter our individual gratitude for things brewed cold or adequately pocketed, we can ALL confidently say thanks to all of you for allowing us to be a part of your 2019. We hope your 2020 is successful, enjoyable, and, heck, occasionally cheese-covered. And let’s be real, Nick, everyone is grateful that you are not wearing a bathrobe in the Christmas card this year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from everyone at Choice One Engineering!

 

It wouldn’t be Christmastime without a Choice Mindset centered on our annual Christmas card signing. It’s not that we feel obligated to provide a Mindset about the cards, it’s just that there’s so much good Mindset fodder produced when we undertake this yearly hand-cramping experience.

Thanks to the traffic engineers’ careful time-keeping and card-counting, we know that the maximum capacity of this Christmas card roundabout is about 12 cards signed per minute. After further analysis, we noticed that the system does experience occasional backups (with peak hour volume of nine cards per minute), caused by bathroom break queues, signers using cell phones, and disagreements over radio stations. And like any roundabout, safety is enhanced, as there are no drinks on the table; we clumsy engineers know that spills are inevitable.

In any case, we encourage you to take a moment to appreciate the signatures on the card when you get a chance—both the efficiencies (Jeff Puthoff’s quick scribble and Dan Perreira’s teeny-tiny print) and the lack of coffee stains. Just watch out for perspiration stains, as Jonathan claims he broke a sweat keeping up with that blistering 12 cards-per-minute pace.

*Clockwise from top left: traffic engineers Mike Goettemoeller, Brad Walterbusch, Craig Eley, and Jonathan Murphy, who isn’t technically a traffic engineer, but who says he took some traffic engineering classes in college.)

She may look cheery in the photo at right, but imagine a blunt object in Choice One controller Caray’s hand and that image feels a little different. Caray is absolutely amazing, but to do her job best she needs all of us to do–at the very least–one important thing: enter our hours into our time tracking software. And when we forget, well, Caray’s officemate Holly may hear some “select” phrases that are not in Caray’s typical angelic vocabulary.

 

We don’t mean to intentionally frustrate Caray (at least not about this particular matter), but sometimes entering our time takes careful deliberation. For instance, how do we specifically record scaring people, talking smack about the Cleveland Browns, or finding an open bathroom? Is picking on Jeff Puthoff a different category from picking on Jeff Kunk? And does hand-signing Christmas cards go under “holiday events” or “competitive contests”? (Get excited… they will be in the mail soon!).

 

Rest assured, Holly. There are a few tasks around here we do so well that Caray will never need to cuss about them: wearing green, helping her when she needs her car jump-started, and most importantly, appreciating Caray’s double-awesomeness. Because not only do we want Caray to get to heaven someday, we would like our paychecks processed, too!

Mr. Turton won the Longest Beard Competition at Wednesday night’s lumberjack-themed Choice One Charity Cup in Loveland, which earned him quite a trophy (that unintentionally kind of looks like him). And when he got home, that special trophy went straight to a place of honor in his house, as it should. So ignore the beautiful wedding day photo on his mantle and just zero in on that striking Longest Beard trophy, and you’ll quickly see that Josh is right.

We know that Josh has been growing his beard for many years thanks to the photographic evidence of Charity Cups past. With his powerful beard vibes, it seems that Josh has been able to read our collective minds years in advance to know that in 2019 we would hold a lumberjack-themed event complete with a longest beard contest. And Josh decided to step up and deliver quite impressively.

Seeing Josh’s commitment to a cause, then, helps us understand how our friends crushed our $10,000 goal and collected $10,870 for Sweet Cheeks Diaper Bank Wednesday night. Then we had an EXTREMELY generous anonymous donor contribute a match which brought the total support to $21,740. Seriously. We are blown away by all of this incredible generosity.

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).