"Taking Stock"

I think that means the same as doing an inventory? Businesses do this because they have lost track of what they have in their possession or at the very least they have lost confidence that they know what they have. From my personal experience in business it is often an emotional time. To start with it is very hard to take stock if you are in the process of manufacturing, moving, or selling goods and as such it is often necessary to temporarily stop all activities. For many businesses this can be difficult as it literally means shutting down those processes that make them money. Another consideration is the fact that you generally need to get it counted, tabulated and ‘entered in the system’ all in one go which can mean a long arduous stretch of work. As all this takes place the tension builds because the final tally is going to tell you a lot about how good a job you've been doing. The ideal result of course is that you have few surprises, and if there are any, you hope that they are in the positive-in other words you find some stuff you didn’t know you have. Again in my experience this is rarely the case. More often than not there is some of each. You find stuff that you no longer thought you had and vice versa. Hopefully when all is said and done the worst case is that they balance each other out, and therefore from an accounting perspective you don’t have to take a hit to the bottom line. Again this is rarely the case. Usually there is some kind of adjustment necessary and for this reason many companies maintain a reserve to cover for it. Generally public companies are expected to do regular inventory counts and also usually have external auditors monitor the exercise. The reason for this is that messing with the inventory value is one of the most common ways that organizations use to fool the investor (and often themselves) into believing that things are going better than they really are.

So why this accounting lesson I bet your wondering? Well I suppose one obvious reason may be to leave myself open to further criticism of “rambling on” or even of ignorance, if there happens to be any accountants out there listening?

Nope! It’s because somewhere between the airplane and the terminal today I thought to myself, “I should take stock.” Of course I don’t mean counting my car parts or my broom handles but rather my intrinsic assets. -- I hope that’s the right word? I mean those things that have an internal significance. Things such as the people in my life and how I treat them, the challenges in my life and how I cope with them, and I think especially the kind of person I am and how I treat myself. Doing a personal inventory seems like a smart thing to do eh?

Of course if I refer back to my business analogy I understand why a person would perhaps be reluctant to do so. First off you need to plan it. You need to schedule some down time which goes totally against my personality. Life seems too short as it is without taking time out to count my broom handles. But my biggest fear is that my inventory will be way out of whack, and what’s really crazy is that I don’t know which way the swing would be. Either one scares me. Will the count show that I have many blessings which I don’t properly appreciate or will I have to take a big write-down because I’ve squandered all the goods? Perhaps the greatest concern is that all my stock is actually obsolete…no longer of any value?

Despite these fears I think I’m going to try to schedule a count. In all my business dealings I took pride in my ethics and although many have tried it, ignorance is not a good enough excuse to have misled the investors. You need to know what you’re worth and you need to be open about it. I am my own public company, and my friends, my associates, and my family invest a lot in me. What I still have to think about is whether I want to have an external auditor? I suppose it would truly bring integrity to the process but I don’t know if I have the courage. What I wouldn’t want to see happen is that I cheat on the count out of fear of the public scrutiny. I’ll let you know on that one since you’re the obvious choice to be my accounting firm.

On a totally different topic I’m writing this post in the car on the way home from Detroit airport. I happen to have a little extra time because the driver took us somewhere the other side of Toledo before I realized he was going the wrong way. Since he had expressed his intention to return to Canada through Sarnia instead of Windsor I wasn’t paying any attention. When I eventually convinced him that we were going south instead of north the poor man was almost in tears. The reason I mention this is because it somehow fit in with my post. My mind started to process a very negative response to the whole situation and I think only because of the introspective mindset I was in, I managed to turn it around. I realized that any grief I was going to cause this guy or his employer would barely have scrap value when I set out to count my car parts. And the nice fringe benefit about this 2 hour detour is that it gave me time to “ramble”.

And still on rambling, I have a personal message for my dear nephew Andy. This morning I woke up at about 6:30 am, rolled over, and as is my habit to do so, checked my Blackberry to see what had arrived in my inbox. What I found there was a comment you left on my blog and even as I am reminded of it I smile again. It was one of those sweet, perfect moments that seem all too infrequent! “Dumb as a rock and good with it!” I felt like I had a kindred spirit in the world. Thanks Andy! You inspire me. I guess blood is thicker than water eh? :)

“To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future or indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust”---John F Kennedy

"Every man who has lived his life to the full, should, by the time his senior years are reached, have established a reserve inventory of unfinished thinking."---Clarence Randall

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