Responsibility is the act of knowing where something or someone is at any given time. This is critical in today's professional environment for a couple of different reasons. Corporations, businesses and pretty much anything that is used to represent a group of people or has some kind of image that it needs/wants to uphold has to maintain responsibility for many different things. Whether it's the equipment you use to do your job or the employees who assist customers and complete jobs that need to be done. Ultimately a job has to be done by someone and if the job is in high demand then it is essential to keep an eye on the position of things so that when something needs to be done everything can fall into place. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The Army. The United States Army. It is well known as one of, if not the, largest company/organization in the world. In 2017 the projected strength of the armed forces was 1,281,900 military personnel. Not to mention the other 801 thousand people present in the seven components of the reserve. What do numbers like this mean? It's simple. This means that there are well over 2 million people who can be anywhere at any time. This is a perfect example of the importance and effectiveness of accountability. For example, let's say a single unit of approximately 400 soldiers needs to be in a certain location in a certain period of time. Throw away all the procedures, the preparations, the orders in which to do things. Let's focus solely on a group of soldiers who are moved from point A to point B. Things happen and the allotted time period expires. The soldiers are counted. What happens? Less than half of the total number of soldiers is located there. Out of a total of 400 soldiers only 148 show up. Present and accounted for. Ok... Where is everyone else? This is where things start to go wrong. The group was needed to intercept an enemy group of approximately 268 individuals. Not only are the soldiers outnumbered, but they now don't know if a possible reason for their disappearance could be an enemy ambush. Perhaps the enemy already knows exactly where he is and was simply dwindling his numbers to eliminate each soldier one by one with guerrilla tactics. No one knows where the other soldiers are and that means there is a gap in information. Or rather, a lack of information. Information that not only crippled the mission, but also endangered the remaining soldiers who actually arrived where they were supposed to be at the scheduled time. Without information, the commander in charge of the operation must decide whether the mission can be accomplished or not. This story is just one example of how situations can become dangerous because the responsibility of something, in that case someone, could influence others who were actually doing what they were supposed to do. It's worrying to know that even though you did the right thing, you may find yourself in danger. This is just one point of view. Perhaps the mission was completed successfully. No doubt it was made much harder by not knowing who knows what and accepting the lack of one's knowledge, but it's the military and we're not known for backing down when things get tough. We adapt and make changes to get the job done to the best of our ability. As I mentioned before, making sure you know where someone or something is can be crucial at any given time. The previous example I gave focused more on 2 things rather thana. Not knowing where the soldiers were and also the implications that could be drawn from not knowing where they were. I would like to somehow redirect the focus to provide an example of what could happen when not having tools and/or equipment on hand could also be equally dangerous to demonstrate its importance as well. A tool is nothing without someone or something wielding it. I would also not focus completely on military situations. I would like to broaden the scope of possibilities to more common situations as well. It's getting closer to that time of day. Everything had been planned weeks in advance. Everyone knew what to do and which side they were on. The lights dimmed and the room grew quieter and quieter. No one was in sight. The line of sight had been stopped and everyone was waiting. Their hearts began to pound as seconds began to feel like minutes, minutes felt like hours. It felt like your heart was beating against your chest with a thousand forces. Sweat dripping from your forehead. But none of this was due to fear or pressure. It was excitement. Taking a breath that, to you, sounded like a groan, as if someone had just read the most boring speech and a random individual had asked to re-read it because they had fallen asleep at some part of the speech. So that's when the real moment came. The sound of the door cylinders clicked and spun before abruptly stopping. Metallic clinking sounded through the wall as you assumed keys were being used to open it. The door opened normally and in the next second the lights came on. This was your queue to go on strike!!! "SURPRISE!!!" The sound of birthday horns and confetti comes from everyone hiding. The guest of honor was no doubt shocked, if not surprised, that so many people entered his room when the door was locked, but that information could wait until another time. Everyone gathered and congratulated them on their wonderful day. So that's when it happened. "So what kind of cake did you get?" The festive cheers and chatter in the rooms soon began to die into silence as they turned to you. The one responsible for everything. The planer. The one who spent weeks to get everything as good as possible... "Well?..." Your face goes slightly pale. The key point of an average party. The one around which everyone gathers to sing the infamous song. Left? Your mind goes into rapid panic. But running, thought after thought. What happened? What did I do? Where did I put it? You gave a good answer. "Haha." The nervousness in your voice was quite evident if only due to the long pause you had taken before speaking. “It's in the back. I had to keep it safe before I took it out. The room laughs and continues chatting. That's when you slide back. Looking at the counters, the refrigerator, the pantry, wherever there is normally a cake. But nothing. You find the candles and the lighter but that cake escapes you. Planning weeks. By the end you could barely remember buying a cake because you knew baking wasn't your forte, so to speak. WELL. What can you do? You couldn't keep track of where you put something and not only that it was something pretty important. You retraced your steps as far as possible and also checked all the positions that would make sense for the cake. Just as you were about to give up a slight shiver runs down your spine. What was this? The freezer door appears to be slightly broken. A torment of memories floods your mind and you quickly rush towards it and there.