A day in lockdown with EQ – Mark McColgan

As we continue to work remotely, we remain focused on supporting our clients and maintaining contact with them and the rest of the EQ team.

To provide a glimpse into lockdown life, we asked various members of the team to share their experiences of what an average day working from home entails for them.

This week, we spoke to Mark McColgan, Senior Manager in our Forfar office, to get an idea of how he is spending his time under the current circumstances.

What does an average day entail for you?

I try to keep my daily routine as similar as possible to working in the office. I’ll start at 8.30am and finish at 5pm most days, with an hour for lunch in the middle. It’s business as usual as far as I’m concerned, colleagues and clients are only a phone-call, an email or a video call meeting away.

What have you spent the majority of your time working on recently?

I have been helping clients apply for the new CBILS loans and Bounce Back loans. Otherwise it is the usual accounts and tax work that I would be doing in a normal year. Clients are making better use of getting information to us digitally instead of the usual box of books and records.

How have you been supporting clients throughout lockdown?

A lot of my clients are going through very difficult and uncertain times and it is my job to keep up to date with all the help and financial support that is out there and to make sure my clients know what is out there for them. The main queries that I get have been about raising finance, furloughing staff and eligibility for the self employment grant. The EQ Accounting team have been excellent in making furlough claims for many of my clients.

Given the current circumstances, are you doing anything differently? 

I have been guilty in the past of thinking that people who work from home would not be productive, what with the temptation of sleeping in and the distraction of Daytime TV. Now that I have been working from home for the past 3 months I realise that it is a real alternative to office working, and I can see this as being a real game-changer in businesses’ attitudes to how they work in future. I want to give a special mention to our IT team who have done a tremendous job getting us all hooked up at home.

At the end of the workday, what do you look forward to the most?

The good thing about working from home is that I have a nice view of my garden, I never realised how much time next door’s cats spend in my garden. At the end of each day I enjoy going for a family walk and getting some fresh air. Later in the evening it is usually Netflix, special mention to Ozark and Tiger King and we are currently enjoying Breaking Bad. Thank goodness for Netflix!

While working from home, we are still offering the same level of support and remain contactable. You can reach us on any of our usual telephone numbers and email addresses, which you can find on the Our People page on this website.