As we go about living our lives each day, we do a lot of different things without much thought given. Most of our decisions are short-term and require no serious evaluation of options. We are going through our daily routine. As we get older, we tend to remember the bigger events in our lives with most of them falling into two categories; happy or upsetting. The warm feeling we get when thinking about our wedding, the birth of a child, a new house, or a graduation. On the other side, maybe there was the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, someone did you wrong, or a mistake you wish you had not made.
At this age, I find myself evaluating how I lived my life. Truth is, we don’t get “do-overs” in life. I think I have more pluses than minuses in my book, but did I make a difference in someone’s life? I guess I had always answered that question by thinking about those people close to me in my life, family, and friends.
Yesterday, April 25, 2024, I was working on something in my office when my landline phone rang. Yes, I still have one. Some of my extended family members and old friends still call that number; however, most of the calls are political, sales, and scams. So I don’t usually answer that phone. If they leave a message on the answering machine, then I will decide if I want to call them back. When I looked to see if a name was showing, I saw a name that I thought was familiar but not recent.
When I answered the phone, the man asked if I was the Richard Ray who had worked for First Continental Mortgage in the 1970s. At that moment, I connected the name Richard Spain to that time in my life. He then told me that he tracked me down to tell me that I had made a difference in his life by giving him a job as a computer operator. He said that he had a fifty-year career in IT. He also told me that he and his wife had celebrated fifty years of marriage. He asked if I knew what happened to Richard Blair. He wanted to let him know how he helped him learn and focus on the things in life that mattered. Richard Blair was the lead computer operator and was a good influence on anyone around him. Richard Blair was a dear friend who passed away several years back due to cancer.
When First Continental moved from the building on Smith St. to the new building on the Southwest Freeway, we moved the computer room processing to the new building a few months later. Due to several reasons, I needed an additional computer operator to cover more hours of processing time. That was my first time managing an entire IT Department (called Data Processing in those days). Budgeting and managing payroll was one of the steepest learning curves I had to climb. I had several years of experience training computer operators in more complex environments at NASA and at Texaco, so I knew I could hire someone with little or no experience if they had brains and were willing to work hard. The company did not usually pay agencies to hire employees, and not many even knew what a computer was, let alone what a computer operator was.
I knew the family that lived across the street from us had a son who had recently graduated from high school. I had never met or talked to him, so I asked his mother if he might be interested in a job learning to be a computer operator. When I met with Rick, I explained what would be involved including working nights and weekends at various times of the year. He seemed eager to learn, so I hired him and he began what was a career. One of the most important parts of the learning process is developing a mindset of “owning your mistakes and learning from them”. Problems are solved a lot quicker and easier when disclosed and not hidden. Apply those lessons to your life and they will give you better memories.
It has been fifty years since I left First Continental Mortgage and went to work for Gulf States Toyota. Much water has flowed under the bridge in those years. I have worked for several companies managing IT Departments and many staff members. Over the years, I have counted many of them as friends. It means a lot to me to hear that I made a difference to someone that many years back and that he would seek me out to let me know.
Has someone made a difference to you? Is there still time to let them know?
Discover more from RICHRAY BLOG
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
