Choice Mindsets

11 Nov Out of Pocket

Tony Schroeder:
“I’m gone two weeks and you guys get rid of pockets.”

An engineer without a place to carry a pen at all times is a lost soul indeed. While Tony was out of the office, likely on a bicycle somewhere in Florida, our newly-logoed men’s shirts were unintentionally ordered without one [apparently] crucial feature: a chest pocket.

While this missing pocket is seemingly disastrous to many of our engineers who “need” said pocket to store their prized blue-only ink pens and giant red Sharpies, there are a couple of advantages of eliminating this storage feature from our attire:

• Choice One families no longer have to discover a forgotten pen or marker has ruined a load of laundry.
• There’s no chance of a washing machine destroying the coveted, original mechanical pencils from Choice One’s early days.
• We have been pushing to make Choice One paperless. If there’s no paper, why does anyone need a pen anyhow?

In the meantime, to keep his writing utensils close at hand, Jeff has creatively buttoned an old pocket to his new shirt. In our opinion, this act bears a significant resemblance (in more ways than one) to Winnie the Pooh’s Eeyore pinning on his tail. Whether the resemblance is predominately due to the pinning action or because Eeyore is a… donkey… will remain unspoken.

28 Oct Halloweenies

Brittany:
“We’re having a costume contest: dress as your kids are dressing for Halloween.”

Jeff Puthoff:
“Mine are dressing as Choice One employees, so I will just wear what I always do.”

Struggling to find the perfect costume for Halloween this year? We have the solution! Our trick-or-treaters Jake and Justin Puthoff  are modeling the hottest costume in 2016: the Choice One Employee.

The costume package includes the following:

• Green shirt (naturally)
• Temporary tattoo of the new company logo
• Choice One branded cell phone with Ohio’s and Indiana’s standard traffic manual apps pre-loaded
• Lunch money (excluded in Jeff Kunk edition)
• Green pen (blue ink ONLY, of course)
• Pocket change for The Canteen

Clearly, the Choice One Employee costume will make you the hit of your Halloween party. So if you’re looking to stand out like an engineer this Halloween (likely in a corner trying to avoid social interaction) pick up the Choice One Employee costume before they’re gone!

14 Oct Shear Genius

Megan Bornhorst:
“To satisfy 81% of the company, Jeff should regrow his mullet, then grow bangs and perm them.”

We occasionally use anonymous surveys to collect vital feedback on crucial initiatives at Choice One. Since Jeff Puthoff cut his mullet when Choice One was founded in 1994, we thought that maybe, 22 years later, we should give him the encouragement to grow it back.

Once Jeff agrees to this hairstyle change, we’re pretty sure it could transform Choice One for the better. For instance, he would save five full minutes each month not having to sit for his signature single-length buzz cut—that’s an entire hour each year. Think of all that extra time he can spend managing projects! And then there’s all the style points and attention he’s going to earn at White Snake and Def Leppard concerts. With his Choice One tattoo and with a green shirt always on, there is no limit to the brand recognition we can achieve!

If nothing else, Jeff, consider this: 81% of our company equals about 28 people, and each threw in $1, we could buy you a nice lunch for your efforts. And we’re willing to bet that a few of our Mindset readers might throw in a dollar, too. Heck, you might get TWO lunches out of this. Combine that with all your extra time and hairband concert fame, and this crucial initiative is clearly a no-brainer.

30 Sep Record Breakers

Inquiring Mindsets want to know:
“What feat might get you into the Guinness Book of World Records?”

	Brian Goubeaux, Designer “Hairiest legs.” (Although we think number of kidneys [three] might be some kind of record, too.)
	Matt Hoying, Project Manager “The most unnecessarily long excel equation.”
	Brian Schmidt, Project Manager “Number of ‘ums’ in a two-minute high school speech: 32.” (We don’t need Matt’s unnecessarily long equation to know that’s an ‘um’ every 3.75 seconds, Schmidty.)
	Ryan Lefeld, Project Manager “Eating 10 Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers from Wendy’s in one sitting.” (Geez Ryan, that’s Brian Schmidt-esc!)

16 Sep Inked

Jeff Puthoff:
“I think we should require every employee to get a new Choice One logo tattoo. That’s real ‘branding.’”

Coming to a green shirt near you: the new Choice One logo! Our awesomely talented graphic designer Kecia (above, with Jeff) has been working to update our logo to be a little more readable and a lot more, well, Choice One. What do you think?

Believe it or not, it’s been ten years since we last tweaked our logo. So ten years ago, in 2006…

• The one billionth song was purchased from iTunes. Don’t worry Nick Sanders, it was not Kenny Rogers’s Lady—that’s just been played one billion times at Choice One, just for you.
• We hosted the first cornhole-centered Choice One Charity Cup. You’re welcome for not having to see us un-athletic “clowns” like Jeff Puthoff trip over their big feet on the golf course anymore.
• Portland engineer Ryan Lefeld played football for St. Henry in the Division V 2006 State Championship. Even in high school Ryan was far more successful at football in 2006 than his beloved 4-and-12 Cleveland Browns.

In 2026 we might look back at this logo change and fondly remember that it was the year of the new refrigerator, Flat Tony, and how we still only had two bathrooms. At least we hope we have another bathroom by then… However, we think we can predict two things: Kecia will still be awesome, and our shirts will still be green.

02 Sep Office Space

Megan Bornhorst:
“I don’t know what’s more exciting: Tony cleaning his office, or the new refrigerator?”

This week, Tony has been busy straightening up his office with a thorough cleaning. The commotion has drawn most of us in to chuckle at hairstyles in old photos, kid Tony about a resume rejection letter he kept from 1984 (he claims he was rejected 500 times—why he kept just this one letter is a mystery), and admire the impressive stack of outdated textbooks older than half the staff at Choice One.

Apparently, as exemplified in the hidden-camera-esc photos above, equally exciting this week is the new refrigerator delivered to the Sidney office. Upon finding the original 2001 paperwork for the old fridge (likely amongst the cobwebs on Tony’s shelves), we realized that it was time to provide our larger 2016 staff a little more space to play refrigerator Jenga with lunches, Canteen soda, and leftovers.

While these two events may seem unrelated, they’re actually well-timed, as we will need more space for another engineer: we are currently searching for a new, full-time engineer for our Loveland office*. The new fridge will offer that future engineer a place to keep his or her bologna sandwich cold on company meeting days, and with Tony’s office now cleaner, we can consider partitioning off a space for that third restroom we’ve been dreaming of. And maybe, with Tony’s office space doubling as the third restroom, something can FINALLY get accomplished in there, whether he’s around or not.

*Know a civil engineer looking for a job who wouldn’t mind being picked on in a Choice Mindset? Send him or her our way!