Choice Mindsets

08 Aug Baby on Board

“Matt, I thought we were a family here at Choice One. Why did I have to find out you and your wife are having a baby through Facebook?!”
– Greg Albers

Choice One has a pretty “uncommon” family atmosphere. And it’s pretty obvious from the photo that we’re probably that one really weird family in your neighborhood.

See, several months ago, Matt announced his wife’s pregnancy on Facebook rather than in person, prompting Greg to make the statement above. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when Greg announced the actual BIRTH of his son to everyone at Choice One on Facebook rather than in a private call or message. Pot calling the kettle black, much?

This prompts us to compare Choice One to a stereotypical pregnancy and see many correlations: we love to eat ice cream, snacks, pizza, and pickles. We often feel awkward and ungraceful. We can get frustrated and be grumpy with each other. And when it’s all said and done, we are willing to put in hours of painstaking labor to deliver something we love and can all be proud of.

Matt, when you and your wife Amanda have your little girl this December, we hope you don’t just inform us via Facebook. And for the baby’s future sanity, we hope she likes green and purple.

25 Jul “She’s My Lady”

“Well, if I have to listen to ‘Lady’ again, might as well crank it up.”

– Nick Sanders

A little backstory here: Nick Sanders is NOT a fan of the 1980 Kenny Rogers hit “Lady.” At all. So, naturally, it gets played at top volume in our Sidney location often.

Nick’s “joyful” endurance of the song “Lady” is a” good lesson: sometimes you just have to grin and bear it. Heck, the lucky guys and gals who are delightfully spotlighted in these biweekly Choice Mindsets are good sports enough to exercise that same tolerance. Let’s just not mention to Nick that he’s both the victim, er… “highlight” of this week’s Choice Mindset AND has had to listen to “Lady” at top volume on repeat.

It’s probably safe to say we all have to do things we dislike. Matt cleans toilets. Wes endures hugs. Doing those things with a good attitude doesn’t make them disappear, but it can make them a little more bearable. Just imagine what it might be like if Jeff Kunk didn’t grin and bear it every time he spent $10 to bring doughnuts in for everyone? Oh wait that’s NEVER HAPPENED, so we wouldn’t know…

Thanks for the positive attitude, Nick. Maybe if you just listen to “Lady” one more time you’ll finally like it. We’ll play it two more times, just to be sure.

11 Jul Tony the Kid

“No cavities again. Because I’m a rock star.”
– Tony Schroeder

Or a cowboy. We’re not sure. Maybe he’s preparing to be a Cowboy Rock Star for this weekend’s Country Concert in Fort Loramie, just up the road from the

If Tony WAS a Cowboy Rock Star, perhaps the rest of us at Choice One could be his band, backup singers, and roadies. I wonder what kinds of songs we would perform?

• “I’ve Got a Box for a Briefcase, and I’m Stuck in the Mud” by Calamity Caray Schmiesing
• “Diaper Genies and Wipe Warmers Ain’t the Way it Used to Be” by Nick “One-Arm” Sanders
• “Business in the Front, Party in the Back” a duet by Hayseed Kaye Borchers and Sunshine Matt Hoying
• “Here’s a Quarter, Call Someone in Ada” by Angela “Deadeye” Polechek
• “Achy Breaky Truck” by Ryan “Lucky” Francis

Other than occasionally singing along to AC/DC on the radio, not many of us have heard Tony sing. So we’re not too sure what kind of Cowboy Rock Star Tony will make, although his song list does look interesting. At least one thing’s for sure: he’ll have clean, cavity free teeth!

27 Jun Crying Over Spilled Milk

Brittany: “I checked your file and did not find the signed form.”

Nick Selhorst: “Um, I may have had the signed one laying on my desk that I spilled coffee on everywhere, now that I’m thinking about it. How can I make this better?”

Brittany: “Well, maybe a sippy cup from now on?”

Nick is a bit…accident-prone. And as an avid coffee drinker, he frequently has a cup of joe on hand, just itching to be spilled.

At Choice One, we’ve had some memorable spills. There was the “Great Ketchup Spill” performed by Nick Sanders at a lunch during an educational seminar–he succeeded in covering his entire (green) shirt with red ketchup. Jackson Center Village Administrator Bruce Metz still laughs heartily recalling the occasion. And just this week Kaye took a spill when she tripped over a rail at the Trupointe Rail Shuttle Facility ribbon cutting in Milford, Indiana. Nothing like falling on your face (and smashing the company camera in the process) in front of a couple hundred people. A guy in a golf cart even drove over to make sure she was ok. (Rest assured, only her pride was hurt.)

Thankfully, we’ve been fortunate to have some valuable spills. The overrunning-and-spilling-everywhere coffee maker incident has granted us endless occasions to hassle Tony. Caray’s children recently spilled a soft taco in her “briefcase,” prompting her to start using an actual briefcase. And ultimately, we hope our fun spills over into our relationships with all of you.

Mr. Selhorst, if you’ll recall, Santa did bring you a lidded, dinosaur-shaped cup for Christmas. We propose you put the ol’ Sippy-saurus Rex back into service.

13 Jun Stacked

“With the new copier/scanner, Camille will be able to get 2015 archived before WE even get there.”
– Brian Barhorst

Camille, our seasonal gal, has quite a stack of work ahead of her this summer. Literally. With a new copier/scanner (advanced enough to be a time machine… that could run on Megan’s random Doritos, just like the Super Bowl ad), Choice One is going digital with its history/archive files to free up office space currently occupied by filing cabinets. Camille’s job here this summer will be to scan about five years’ worth of plans, contracts, Permits to Install, topographic surveys, and nonsensical, handwritten notes (and if they’re Brian Schmidt’s, they might be illegible).

Just think if we could work ahead now into 2015! The field surveyors could plan for rain and work only in the best, driest weather (therefore keeping Ryan Francis from getting trucks stuck in the mud). The tech geeks around here could already be figuring out their iPhone 6s. And we could all make sure we fix our brackets just right so we DON’T win the office NCAA pool (lest we have to buy lunch).

Despite the overwhelming look of the “Leaning Tower of Files” Camille has (indeed, it appears to have made her turn green like the rest of us), she knows her efforts will be greatly appreciated. Because, hey, with a couple of banks of filing cabinets removed, there will be more space in our offices, theoretically allowing us to hire more Jeffs, Brians, Michaels, Ryans, Dans, Allens, and Nicks to maintain our distinct conformity.

30 May What’s in a Name?

“Hey! Those all belong to me. They all have my name on them.”

Tyler Thobe

If you can’t tell from the photo, Tyler is surrounded by the Ty Brand Beanie Babies we used for the recent Choice One Charity Cup. Each one has a little tag on it that says “Ty,” so Ty felt they all belonged to him. Or were at least named after him.

That got us thinking:  what other children’s toys/cartoons could be associated with Choice One staffers?*

• The Toys ‘R’ Us mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe has a lot in common with Jeff Puthoff. Jeff is tall and awkward, and was blonde once, before he started going grey.
• The children’s cartoon dinosaur Barney could certainly take his name from Choice One’s Barney (Brian Barhorst). Brian loves purple and green and is almost as old as a dinosaur.
• While the “Geekman Action Figure” is not specifically named “Mitch” or “Matt,” we know that his name would be Mitch or Matt if he had a name, because they’re both traffic geeks.

As a final point, unlike Jeff, Barney, Mitch and Matt (who each have something in common with their name-sharing counterpart), Ty doesn’t share the characteristics of the Beanie Babies he has. Except maybe the turkey. And the goose.

*You may think we missed an obvious one here, but there is no correlation between Tony Schroeder and the Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes mascot Tony the Tiger. Tony Schroeder is neither a tiger nor does he eat sugary cereal. We won’t comment whether or not he’s “GRRRRRRRRRRREAT!”