STOCKTAKING is a discipline in business and government that we all need to learn.
At the end of the year, businessmen and government operatives just have to know what they have got, to move on into the coming New Year.
The process is more interesting than merely counting money, boxes, and supplies.
As a supervisor in an office, I do not have to count cows in the barn, or measure the stock of gravel at the gravel pit. I am more concerned with having the right people at the start of the year. The number of people and their salaries, I have already included in the agency’s budget.
My unit is still largely dependent on contracted personnel. If I do not have manpower in the first month or two of the year, our timetable will have to move backwards too.
We have to fix and achieve targets by the quarter. In due time those targets get overwhelmed with other work that are assigned to us from time to time by the boss. I must deliver both on my targeted outputs and those other assignments that superiors will delegate me.
When we take stock of our operations, we consider how we have done well and poorly and then make adjustments to survive the pressure that comes with the work.
I am head of the regional agricultural and information section of the Department of Agriculture-Cordillera Administrative Region (DA-CAR). At the same time, I am also coordinator of the information units of two foreign assisted projects of the agency. It is during my private stocktaking at the end of the year, that I get some insights on how I would manage the offices that I handle.
To be honest, I neither have power, influence, and ability to manage people and resources except to do the best I can do, under any situation – simple or challenging. I just have to pray daily, expecting God will always come to my aid. He held my hand as we walk through each of the miles we have already covered, each breathing moment.
When I considered writing this year-end article for my Mountain Light column, I read in the Book of Mathew, in the New Testament, how he took stock of the available loaves of bread and fishes in the desert to feed the 5,000 gathered who followed him there.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, we find this interesting verse in Ecclesiastes7:27: “Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account…” The verse was from Solomon taking stock of life and coming out with some findings.
As we cross to another year, which we know nothing about, the advice is for us to take stock, to think through with concentration. For instance, what were your best and worst moments? What made it the best and/or worst the moment?
When I go through these exercises and the discipline of stocktaking, sometimes I feel sorry for myself and the other people who are going through some difficulties in their individual lives.
Inspired or otherwise, I still go through with my stocktaking. I know that if I do it well, it adds to my growth and I mature as a person. More important, I become compassionate. It gives me a life and a good tune to hum deep within my soul. “You ain’t here just to live.”
Maybe you think you are not influential or you got nothing to give or offer. But you are a person who can respond to a need just where you are, just as you are. You can always do something. That is what matters in getting a life of your own.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!