Playing Telephone

“So Kaye, how do we enter answering all of these phones calls on our timesheet?”
- Megan Bornhorst

Much to the delight of her coworkers, Kaye embarrassed herself by mistakenly emailing a $250 sponsorship invoice to 660 members and contacts of the I-70/75 Development Association, which she sits on the board of. About 50 of those contacts (rightfully) called Choice One to talk to Kaye regarding the erroneous invoice. All at once.

Thankfully for Kaye, Megan and Brittany stepped up and answered the calls, apologizing over and over to confused (and, thankfully, understanding) invoice recipients. Brian Barhorst even fielded a call from the Governor’s Office.

This begs the question that if we need a time code for “Answering phone calls for Kaye’s slip up,” then perhaps there are a few more new time codes we might need around here:

• Guessing/discussing the gender and arrival date of Megan’s baby. (due June 11!)
• Helping Tony find his glasses. Or coffee cup. Or remember why he walked to your desk to talk to you.
• Predicting how Nick Sanders might next injure himself.
• Picking on Michigan fans.

In closing, what has Kaye learned? 1) Check the “Recipient” list a little more thoroughly before sending out invoices for the Association, and 2) If you want to get the Governor’s attention, send his office a fabricated $250 invoice.

Boo!

“Choice One has probably considered a subsurface exploration study.  But the bookstore on the south side of 571 between First and Second Streets is supposed to be haunted. So Choice One should add a Line Item for Ghostbusters. Lump Sum.”
-Vic Roberts
R.B. Jergens Contractors, Vandalia

We’ve never had a request to add a line item for “Ghostbusting” before. However, there are certainly enough Egon-esc nerds around Choice One who could figure it out. Wikipedia describes Egon Spengler, a character in the Ghostbusters movies, as “book smart, with not much social ability.” Yep, sounds like most Choice One engineers. The article continues to say “as a child, the only toy he ever had was part of a Slinky, which he straightened out. Spengler is a sugar junkie and sleeps an average of 14 minutes per day, leaving him ‘a lot of time to work.’” Wow. If that’s not Jeff Puthoff in a nutshell… Although Jeff claims to have only had old shoes to play with as a child.

Choice One nerds aside, we’ll have to take into consideration that “Ghostbusting” might lead to several other items that might be useful in our plans and estimates. Well, useful to us.

 


The bookstore Vic mentions is Browse Awhile Books, at 118 East Main Street in Tipp City. Check it out sometime, but don’t mind the ongoing construction outside in the street. Let’s hope the contractor isn’t disturbing any ghosts out there. Who ya gonna call?

Resident Experts

Brittany:  "I hate praying mantis."
Mitch:  "Is it 'praying' mantis or 'prang' mantis?"
Brittany:  "I think it is 'praying' mantis because it looks like they are praying."
Mitch: "Oh. Probably. I just always say it really fast so people don't know what I am saying."

 



Yeah, Mitch, you might want to protect that valuable noggin of yours. It's clearly filled with spot-on information about the world beyond engineering. Or maybe you just need to uncover your ears to hear "praying" instead of "prang."

Since we've successfully filled Mitch's head with traffic engineering data, we can't expect him to also be an expert in entomology (that's the study of insects, Mitch). Besides, if we had an insect expert, he'd have to compete with the other "experts" around here, like our lawn expert Greg, who accidentally sprayed his entire lawn with Round-Up instead of a non-grass-killing herbicide this past weekend.

Thankfully, we really are experts at the things that matter here at Choice One (you know, like farming, cycling, and pizza). Let's just hope that Mitch's fashion statement doesn't catch on around here. It would take Megan twice as long to get ready for work if she had to put bags on her feet and a lifejacket on her head...