Inquiring Mindsets: “What is your all-time favorite Choice Mindset?”

We’ve written over 300 Choice Mindsets since October 7, 2011—which one is your favorite?

Nick Selhorst: “It’s not like dust flies up while I’m typing. It’s tucked in there.”

Thanks to our computer system at Choice One, we can easily visit either office and work from anyone’s desk. This is super handy, as we’re able to quickly log into a computer and get started in AutoCAD, Photoshop, or water/sewer modeling software in just a few minutes.

The catch, then, as engineer Becca McCready recently experienced, is that when you visit another’s desk, you also visit their habits. Nick Selhorst’s habit? Not dusting his keyboard. Cue Becca, pictured, and her slight discontent using Nick’s keyboard for a day. Despite joining Choice One only a few months ago, Becca embraced the Choice One way and made sure everyone was aware of Nick’s dusting deficiency with some good-natured ribbing. Exasperated, Nick lamented: “Is this keyboard joke going to flame out in a week, or be more like a “Kunk not buying donuts” thing and never go away?”

Nick, you know the answer. Choice One never forgets. Plus, now that your keyboard cleanliness has been carved into Choice Mindsets stone, we’ve ensured over a thousand readers outside of Choice One never forget, too. Besides, after all the “bonding” we enjoyed giving you a hard time, you said it best yourself: “My keyboard is the glue holding this place together.”

Nick Selhorst: “In the words of Yukon Cornelius, ‘You eat what you like, and I eat what I like.’”

Truer words have never been spoken at Choice One, especially about Skyline Chili. We have a fairly sharp divide between the “Skyline’s amazing!” crowd, and the “Skyline’s not amazing!” crowd (although stronger words than “amazing” are used by both sides…). And when Jeff Puthoff questioned Nick on his festive hat (and chili) choice this week, Nick used Yukon’s words to proudly defend the side of the Skyline fence he is on.

Nick’s nod to Yukon Cornelius harkens back to the 1964 stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer program and a conversation between Hermey the future dentist elf and North Pole prospector Cornelius about peanut butter and pea soup. While the Skyline debate rages in the background of just about every lunch conversation at Choice One, we can be fairly sure there is little controversy in the peanut butter versus pea soup debate, just like there is little controversy that “doughnuts are good,” “pizza is good,” and “Brian Schmidt wants Arby’s.”

Like Yukon, Nick unapologetically embraces the 3-, 4-, and 5-way of tastes on the flavorful journey of boiled hot dogs topped with chili… because Choice One is serious about lunch, especially when it comes to anything topped with or relating to cheese. And like Yukon, we’ll stick to what we like, whether on Team Skyline or a Skyline Skeptic, because the winner of that debate at Choice One is as up in the air as Rudolph on Christmas Eve.

Adam Gill: “We smashed the previous diaper wrapping record… set by 5th graders.”

Nothing like a bunch of adults crushing some 10-and 11-year-olds to put everyone in the holiday spirit! While recently wrapping diapers at Sweet Cheeks Diaper Bank, the volunteers from Choice One (including Adam, far left) took it upon themselves to wrap a record number of diapers in a shift, a position previously held by a local 5^th grade class.

If you didn’t know, we at Choice One tend to make just about anything competitive—coney-eating, sledgehammer golf, or normal, everyday things like whose spouse is the coolest. We can’t help but see a record or goal and not want to blow it out of the water, even if that means we are coerced into buying lunch with our winnings or that winning means embarrassment rather than achievement.

In case you’re wondering, the 5^th graders’ record was around 23,000 diapers wrapped, and the Choice One crew wrapped around 31,000 in the same amount of time. While it shouldn’t be a surprise that our group of adults could beat a group of kids, we at Choice One know better: we have all been previously beaten by a two-year-old in an NCAA bracket pool, so we have to be on our game, working hard at any opportunity.

Here’s to another year of record-setting fun and fulfilling work at Choice One in 2024. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas! “Is your person wearing GREEN?”

Merry Christmas from Choice One! If you didn’t catch our annual holiday card, you may be delighted to see we created a game that allows you to Guess Who? is coming to town. And, of course, it’s not just Santa who’s making a list and checking it twice—it’s a whole bunch of green shirts, too.

It’s been a year of humorous hijinks, high fives, and hard work at Choice One. We played a few pranks, found our inner celebrity, learned interesting things about each other, and raised funds with your help for several great causes. What a year!

What might 2024 bring for Choice One? We’re fairly certain our team will be brainstorming new mischief, uncovering more hidden talents, and designing great projects. Merry Christmas from all of us at Choice One—where the spirit of a cheerful “mindset” lasts all year long!

Nick Selhorst: “You don’t keep your green shirts together? What kind of barbarian are you?”

It’s certainly no secret that those of us working at Choice One have an extensive collection of green in our closets (or our cars…). But when engineer Luke Hemmelgarn mentioned his Choice One green was not hanging all together in his closet, the collective gasp from the surrounding Choice Oners barely left Nick Selhorst the air to pose his earnest question.

It’s hard to imagine Choice One folks wearing anything other than green, but, yes, we do have non-Choice One clothing in our closets. Shocking, we know—thinking of Choice Oners in other colors would be like seeing Santa Claus in blue or The Grinch (a.k.a Jeff Puthoff) colored red. But once in a while we do step out of our green and therefore become invisible, kind of like when Superman turns back into Clark Kent.

Perhaps Luke wants to add a bit of excitement to his daily method of selecting a Choice One shirt (although we think the off chance of accidentally not wearing green is pretty risky). Don’t let the rest of us closet conformers stop you from spreading your Choice One green amongst your wardrobe, Luke—we’re really all in favor of spreading the green (and therefore the fun) in every situation!