Choice Mindsets

25 Nov Have It Your Way

Loveland Burger King Cashier:
“Do the rest of your guys know you’re coming here without them?”

Our Loveland Choice One crew often hits up the local Burger King for lunch together. But once, when Brian Schmidt went alone, the cashier noticed and wanted to make sure Brian wasn’t sneaking Whoppers without his green-shirted cohorts. Not so says Brian! We’re very thankful for our Choice One family (and for Burger King, clearly), and in the spirit of Thanksgiving, we thought we could recap a couple of current Choice One blessings:

• We finally got the third bathroom in the Sidney office. It even has a little light like in an airplane cabin that lets us know if it’s occupied or not!
• Tony became a grandpa about a month ago. (Congrats Tony!) Now at least he has a good reason to not be around.
• We got a new logo! (Although somehow it came without pockets…)
• Engineers danced. And more mercifully, engineers stopped dancing.

In closing, we think it’s safe to say there’s no shortage of turkeys at Choice One. And even though it’s a day late, Happy Thanksgiving from Choice One Engineering!

P.S. If you want something else to be thankful for, here’s a new video starring Choice One in which we’re NOT dancing at all.

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.