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| Ray Relaxing in His Buzzy Shirt |
Here’s a lesson I learned courtesy of Mr. Ray Gagnon: never dismiss an idea based upon how much of a non-starter you may think it is. Allow me to explain:
In my Government-worker life, I was the building manager of the five story NAVAIR HQ’s Building on Base and Ray worked on the second floor. He bopped into my office one day to suggest “How about using the space out in the atrium to place some tables and chairs there so people can use that area.” The NAVAIR building was built such that it had two wings joined by a common atrium area. I thought that Ray’s suggestion was a non-starter for a couple of reasons. One, it was heavily travelled area and folks sitting around may seem a little “non productive” to the casual observer. Two, there were conference rooms also located in the atrium area and I worried about conferencing folks complaining about the non-conferencing folks making noise. And finally, there was a cleaning issue about who would police the area and keep it free of trash etc..
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| NAVAIR HQ’S BLDG. NAMED AFTER ADM MOFFETT |
I initially told Ray that I would look into it. However, I never really followed up on it until he came back into my office and asked again. As a compromise of sorts I told him that if the Admiral in charge of the second floor operations had no problem with it then I would do it. That Admiral happened to be Tim Healy and he not only approved it but thought it was a good idea. Long story short, we placed tables and chairs in the second floor atrium area and before long, folks on the other floors were asking for the same setup.
Ray lives in Cornfield Harbor and whenever he drops into Buzzy’s Country Store I always smile at the memory of him teaching me a lesson about not being so quick to reject an idea that is new or is one that I don’t think is a good one. Ray’s coworkers appreciated his efforts so much that they renamed the atrium area “Ray-Ray’s Café” in his honor.
