Choice Mindsets

29 Nov Letting it Ride

“When I played basketball in high school, we didn’t even have a three-point line.”

– Caray Schmiesing

Happy birthday to our beloved controller, Caray Schmiesing. We would have never guessed that she’s older than the basketball three-point line. Caray’s husband, Rogel, surprised her with a trip to Las Vegas for the momentous occasion. As much crap as she gives us for losing track of one penny, we would hate to see her keeping tabs on her pocket change in a casino. Hope you actually got to gamble, Rogel…

Getting older, for most of us, means taking fewer gambles. If you’re Nick Sanders, that means walking AROUND the gas pump line rather than OVER the gas pump line (lest he break an elbow). If you’re Brittany that means NOT trying to plow through that snowdrift in the parking lot with everyone watching (in hindsight, at least they were available to help push her out). And if you’re Caray, that means no long shots from behind the three-point line. Oh, wait, there WAS no three-point line for you…

With the stress of life these days, we figure it’s ok to occasionally cut loose to feel young again (like when Tony gets crazy and stays up past 9:00pm). Thankfully Caray didn’t cut TOO loose in Vegas (betting on basketball, no doubt) and get stuck there—we need her to watch our dollars and sense… er, cents.

15 Nov Lift on Three

“How many green shirts does it take to move one desk?”

– Megan Bornhorst

Believe it or not, it’s getting greener around here. Over the past week, the Sidney office has been repainted. You will no doubt be shocked to hear the new paint is blue and orange.

Just kidding, it’s all painted the best colors in the world: purple and green.

Having Brian Barhorst boss us all around (just like every other day…) to get stuff out of the way to paint means a lot of heavy lifting. Since some of the weak, er, “lucky” ones are able to observe (we know Brittany and Kaye can’t successfully lift something together), we have compiled the following:

• At five, Tony’s desk (pictured) requires the most green shirts to move. Note that Tony is not one of the five. Coincidental? We think not. (Hey, he built that desk, so he knows how heavy it is.)
• There’s been surprisingly little bellyaching. Until the heavy desk is actually in the air. And Ryan Lefeld has the heavy end.
• It takes a lot of cooperation, coordination, and timing to make a challenging task go smoothly. And since no one’s developed a hernia yet, we must have that part down.

Based on Mitch’s grimace (far right, above), we’re glad that the painting is completed and are enjoying the finished product. But don’t tell the guys–they have to move it all again (twice!) when the new carpet comes next week.

01 Nov Put ‘Em Up!

(via email)
Tony Schroeder: On a side note, Lonnie Cain came up to me at [soccer] practice last night and was laughing about how excited Tricia got; He gave me all these ideas on how to defend myself if she showed up at Lehman.

Tricia Bishop, ODOT DIST. 7: Like I told Lonnie – you name the parking lot!… I’m still scrappy!

Matt Parrill, ODOT DIST. 7: My money is on Tricia in a cage match!

Tony: First of all, I am hurt that no one has any confidence in me. Second of all, I wouldn’t ever get in a cage with Tricia, I need a place to run. Maybe that’s why no one has confidence in me.

We don’t know who to put our money on in a fight between Tony and Tricia, although Tricia might be the best bet. Tricia Bishop, the Environmental Coordinator at ODOT District 7, loves her work, and it shows–she is passionate, dedicated, and, in her words, “scrappy.” Once, after a particularly exciting public meeting, she told Tony that she was energized by the public’s zealous participation in the project. Tony, on the other hand, felt that the meeting was two hours of “sheer terror.” Watch out, Tony, she seems pretty fearless.

As our courageous leader, there are a few things we would not want to challenge Tony in: soccer, cycling, Nerf gun wars… But there are a few things we would be willing to challenge him on: sand volleyball, reading small print, plumbing…

In all sincerity, though, we’d put our money behind Tony for just about anything–he’s helped to keep us going in the right direction for almost 20 years. Still, Tricia seems like a formidable opponent, so we’ll try to keep Tony on her good side. Or at least sell tickets to the cage match at a fair price.

18 Oct Happy Boss’s Day…

“Well, it was either get pies from The Spot for Boss’s Day, or go around and give everyone hugs.”

– Brittany Clinehens

Since everyone at Choice One really loves his or her remarkable, motivating, caring, amazing manager (yeah, that might be some sucking up), we had pies from The Spot in Sidney and desserts from Julian’s in Loveland in honor of Boss’s Day. Brittany’s Boss’s Day hug suggestion would probably have been met with more clumsiness and apprehension than the delight and eagerness the desserts received. Hugs are just a little too… “expressive” for many of our crowd.

Our hesitation to hug it out doesn’t diminish our fondness for each other. Kaye really enjoyed the time Brittany ran Kaye’s head into a wall while moving a heavy box together. Ryan Francis offered his sympathetic support when Craig fell (screaming) down a creek bank. And Caray loved the fact that everyone was in the van when she got stuck in the only mud in the middle of downtown Indianapolis–we were all there to push her out!

When push comes to shove (sometimes literally, as in Caray’s stuck-in-the-mud incident), we really do get along and enjoy being around each other. It’s what’s kept us together for almost 20 years. Needless to say, Spot pies and Julian’s brownies help to keep us all coming back to the office, too. Well, at least more than hugs would.

04 Oct Pin the Tail on the Donkey

Kaye: “What’s up with this guy’s stomach?”

Brittany: “The guys thought it was a cummerbund. I think it’s a fanny pack.”

Meet Eeyore (from the abbreviation E-OR), the unofficial mascot of Choice One’s core values. He’s quite the looker, don’t you think? He was hand-drawn by Jeff Kunk during a company meeting some time ago, and we just can’t throw him away. He’s become part of our team. You know, like the color green, Jeff Puthoff’s clones, and the sandwich geniuses at Arby’s.

Eeyore represents our values with his broad shoulders, passionate mind, and guts (i.e. cummerbund/fanny pack). Therefore we like to work with and for people who look like Eeyore. Yep, you guessed it–expect Choice One fanny packs for Christmas this year. Unless we have a request for a green and purple cummerbund?

P.S. Wondering where Eeyore’s tail gets pinned (like the Winnie the Pooh donkey character)? Good question. Perhaps when we celebrate Choice One’s 20th birthday next October we can play “Pin the Tail on Kunk…er, Kunk’s Drawing” as a party game.

20 Sep Traffic Jam

“You can always tell when Mitch is on the phone with Matt: his voice gets higher and higher and louder and louder.”

– Brian Goubeaux

Traffic engineers Matt Hoying and Mitch Thobe talk traffic daily. Both have the same traffic engineering education from the Northwestern University Center for Public Safety in Chicago, but you’d never know it—they argue about the minutiae of traffic engineering CONSTANTLY. Should the pole be located here or two inches to the left? Should the delay on the loop detectors be 8 seconds or 10 seconds? Does an ice cream truck qualify as “heavy truck traffic” or just as an excuse for a tasty snack?

We have managed to discern that these two argue about perfect traffic design 1) because Matt likes to fire Mitch up, and 2) because both of them are passionate about traffic engineering (NERDS!). With all of this fire and passion, it recently caught us by surprise that not all of our clients know about our obsessive traffic engineers’ abilities. Admittedly, we just assumed you could all hear Matt and Mitch arguing from three counties away. Our bad.

Allan Heitbrink, our newest engineer, is heading for the NUCPS in Chicago this fall to become a (bigger) geek like Matt and Mitch. We’re hoping this somehow creates less gridlock for our phone system. More importantly, let’s hope that the EPA doesn’t get wind of the potentially higher, louder exhaust with one more traffic engineer squawking about side-street queues.