Breakin' the Law

“I have very strict photo taking rules.  No outfit changes, it can only last one hour, and it has to involve farm equipment.” 
- Jeff Puthoff

Well, hope none of you wanted to grab a photo with Jeff for posterity.

Jeff and his family (pictured above) don't take family photos too often. You can't blame them--Jeff's rules probably require his family and the photographer to plan for months in advance to keep under the rigid time limit. The one and only outfit probably has to be carefully planned and prepared. The farm equipment must be in perfect condition for the best aesthetic effect (i.e. must be John Deere). There are no re-takes here.

There are important rules beyond photo-taking around Choice One. For instance:

• Pay for Canteen purchases when you make them--NO EXCEPTIONS.
• Buy doughnuts for everyone with your very first paycheck.*
• If there are coffee grounds in the trashcan in Loveland, the coffee-drinkers in the office** MUST take out the trash on Friday.

Naturally, all of these rules have been broken. Some have said that "rules are made to be broken." Indeed, broken rules have led to some of the best minds in our world to think outside the box and step out of comfort zones. So how do we know when to break the rules? Oliver Wendell Holmes, a notable American writer, once said "The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions."

I guess at Choice One, that means our old fogies Tony, Steve, and Jeff Puthoff can pay the Canteen with IOUs, they can buy everyone doughnuts with EVERY paycheck, and they can blame Nick Selhorst for the coffee grounds in the trash. (Oh wait, that's going to happen regardless.) However, a word of warning to authorized rule-breakers Tony and Steve: don't ask Puthoff to change outfits for a photo. Ever.

*Unfortunately, we know from the last Choice Mindset, we know some people feel above the rule for doughnut buying.

**That would be you and only you, Nick Selhorst.

I Want These Doughnuts...

“I don’t want to break my streak now.”
- Jeff Kunk

If we go waaaaay back into Choice One lore, there’s a mystical legend that Jeff Kunk has never bought doughnuts for the entire company. See, there’s a rule here: when you receive your first paycheck as a new employee, you buy doughnuts for everyone. Seriously—it’s in the new employee guidebook. According to the tale, Jeff Kunk never bought doughnuts when he started at Choice One, and hasn’t bought doughnuts ever. The rest of us have bought them. Poor Tyler has co-oped here three times and bought doughnuts each time (he’ll whine about—er, tell you about it if you ask…).

Anyhow, when we had six co-ops/summer help and one new full-time employee this summer who all started around the same date, we didn’t want 12 dozen doughnuts here at once. Logically, we needed a doughnut schedule. The author of this schedule, knowing that Kunk STILL owes doughnuts from 1994, added him to the top of the list. As you can see, the schedule was revised and enhanced, as well, in hopes that Kunk would come to his senses and pay up

The moral of the story? If at first your don't succeed (getting Kunk to buy doughnuts), try, try, and try again. The outcome of the story? Jeff Kunk STILL hasn’t bought doughnuts. And as evidenced by his quote above, never will.