Accountability_Blows

THE IMPORTACE OF ACCOUNTABILITY What is accountability' I define accountability as the state of knowing where something is at all times or being responsible if something did or did not happen. I believe that accountability is important in some aspects for instance, teachers have to know if the kids they are teaching are learning or if they decide not to show up at school. Being accountable of tools in the work center is another important factor because that is when tools get lost and could end up in an engine and cause another plane crash. I know that I would definitely want to know where my personal property for instance, I know that I would want to know who is driving my car and whoever that person is would be held accountable of anything that happens to my car. That is why personal accountability is very important in my eyes. There is a good personal accountability quote by a writer by the name of Dan Zadra. “Some favorite expressions of small children: “It’s not my fault. . . They made me do it. . . I forgot.”  Some favorite expressions of adults: “It’s not my job. . . No one told me. . . It couldn’t be helped.”  True freedom begins and ends with personal accountability.” I am taking personal accountability of my actions. I am writing this essay, I am calling Corporal Palomares every weekend day at seven at night and seven every morning. I should not have to think that lying about going somewhere that I should not have been. Accountability of someone, when that person is grown up enough to sign up in the Marine Corps and go to war, I think, is like a double edge sword. On one side it can be useful in the fact that if we were to go to the battle field and someone gets left behind and we do not notice then who knows what might happen. He could be captured by the enemies or who knows what else. Accountability can be very important for instance if I was to go for a night out camping but on my HARP form I just say that I am going to the beach or just staying on base and I do not show up for work on Monday. If they try to call my phone and I do not answer they would have no choice but to come and look for me and take me to work where I will deal with the punishment. They will look at my HARP form and they will see that it says that I am just going to stay on base so they will come to my room to find me but I would not be there because I am out camping instead. They cannot just go back to work and forget about me because I did sign a contract that states somewhere in there that says that I have to obey anything that the marines appointed over me tell me to do so I have to go to work and just put up with it. But if they cannot find me then that is when they would get in trouble by the ones appointed over them because they lost me. When it comes to what Lance Corporal McConnell, Lance Corporal Quillen, and I did was wrong because Staff Sergeant Anderson entrusted the three of us to go to swim quall. I can not to this day say why I decided to go along with Lance Corporal McConnell’s poor judgment call is beyond me. For some reason I decided to just go along with it. It was a bad decision on my part. If we were have to get recalled or seen where we were not supposed to be then would have been considered UA. That can fall under accountability in some ways I suppose. Now the other side of the sword. I honestly think that it is retarded that a grown man has to call another grown man who is just a few years older than I am to tell him where I am and where I am going or even what I am doing. It is just like being back at home with my parents. My parents needed to know where I am or what I was doing and I had to be home by 10:00. I joined the Marine Corps partly because I wanted to get away from that. I wanted to be treated like a grown man. Where I can do my job and then go to where I lived to have a cold beer and relax. If I didn’t join the Marine Corps and went to college instead then that would happen. I would have a career and have my own place instead of a single room and I would not have to call my boss every night and every morning to tell him that I am alive. If I wanted to get yelled at and punished for not calling then I would have stayed at home, worked three full time jobs, like when I was a senior in high school, to support both my parents and my five younger sisters. I did not want to do that anymore, I wanted to be treated for who I am and what I can do. I make one mistake and everyone gets all butt hurt about it. I have so much going on in my life right now and it is hard to remember having to do something Monday morning after a weekend. The weekend is my time to relax, I do not want to think or worry about a thing. I just lost one of my sisters the week before that. We were close and she was hit by a drunk driver. I was really depressed and I really was not thinking straight. All I wanted to do was think about where I am going and what I am doing with my life. Just thinking about having to call someone that is almost the same age as I am to tell him that I just did not feel like going to swim quall that day irritates me. I wanted to do swim quall after the holidays where I would have a few more days off. I did not get to go home to see my family. My mom and my sisters are living in a boarding house and my step dad is living in a hotel room and there is nothing that I can do about it. The only difference that I can see at this time between my life with my parents and the Marine Corps is nothing besides that in the Marine Corps I have to so much more stuff on my plate to worry about. I have to worry about what is going on back home and what is going on here. Having to call someone to tell them that you are alive and well is retarded unless you were to leave the state to and if you get in trouble. If I do not get in to a car accident or pulled over then yes I will call someone but if nothing is wrong then I should be trusted as the grown man that signed that dotted line to go to war and fight in the war to protect this country to do the right thing. I know I should not be trusted for awhile from this but it was just a bad decision on my part. Even if I would have gone to swim quall I would still feel this way about accountability. I found an accountability quote on the internet that I think kind of means what I am saying. It is by the writer and artist Walter Anderson. "I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself." Accountability in the our workplace impacts the productivity of everyone within it. But the success in instilling greater accountability in the our workplace relies on the ability of the leaders to use accountability as an encouragement not a requirement. Since accountability is often avoided by many people, the challenge is on how to use it in a positive way that leads to positive results. Further training and knowledge on accountability might be essential in order to effectively create a culture of accountability. Whenever people live or work together, they need to practice forgiveness because we humans are imperfect. No group can function long before someone breaks a promise and lets others down. Forgiveness seems like a wonderful virtue, but it is very difficult to practice. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis said, "Forgiveness is a lovely idea until you have someone to forgive." To move from theory to practice is often a great distance to travel. In the midst of our anger and disappointment, forgiveness seems impossible or at least impractical. In fact, forgiveness is one of the most misunderstood words in the Christian vocabulary. We often associate it with forgetting. To ask me to forget is to minimize or dismiss my pain. In fact, I need to forgive because I cannot forget what someone did. I am sure this was not the essay that you were expecting from me but I got feed up of being treated like a child. I want a job to where I can be treated like a man. A job to where I do not have to call another person that is not my parent to tell them where I am going to be or where I have to be. I think that I am grown up enough to make my own decisions. Weather it is a good decision or a bad decision. If I wanted to sleep in instead of going to swim quall and I say I went to swim quall then I should be trusted enough not to go and check if I did go. Even when I was busted for lying I still should have been treated differently. None of theses stupid games, having to scrape paint off of concrete. Which could be considered hazing but you would call it “MATMEP”. Also how is writing a two thousand word essay about the importance of accountability supposed to teach me not to do this again. Yes, I will never do this again but I am just saying that there really isn’t a connection between sleeping in and not going to swim quall and a two thousand word essay. I think that we should not even have to lie. If we did not lie and just said the truth the same think would have happen. We should not be afraid of just deciding not to go to work for the morning. Yeah, sure punish us but I feel that the punishment should fit the crime. I do not what the punishment should be but I am sure it is not writing an essay of scraping paint off the floor. I think that the only thing that should have been done is cleaning out the trash cans and cleaning the head at the end of the day. Pretty much anything that helps out the shop. Writing an essay does not really help out the shop. I hope that this helps to show how I feel about accountability. I will never pull this kind of stunt again but I just hate accountability unless it comes to personal accountability which I am doing by writing this essay I just do not think that it is the right kind of punishment for what we did.