During 2019 I was working in Aberdeen but making a trip home to Orkney for any possible reason (having a birthday party for a dog, I was there!).
It was after the 12th trip home in 6 months I realised Orkney really was where I needed to be and that I couldn’t continue to fund fortnightly trips home! The problem was I was studying for my ACCA exams and would only be able to move home if I got a position which would support this and allow me to complete my studies, I had worked too hard to fall at this last hurdle.
I planned to approach Calvin, as I had been following CRC on Facebook, to see if he would have any opportunities coming up as I was hoping to be able to move back to Orkney at some point in 2020. But just the night before I sent my CV, I saw CRC post on Facebook that they had just added someone to the team.
My heart sank.
Did this mean that any possible opportunity for me to join the team was gone?!
Luckily for me, Calvin was keen to continue growing his business and from our initial conversations I could tell this was a place I wanted to work and be involved in the journey he was planning!
I was offered a position within the team to start in early 2020, with the support to complete my final exams, I was delighted! I started to put plans into place to pack up my 7 years of life in Aberdeen and move back to Orkney. About the same time the talk was all starting to turn to this virus in China but to be honest I was too busy and excited getting sorted for the move to pay too much attention.
At the start of March 2020, I packed up my car with as much as I could and headed up the road, with the plan to return the following week and get the rest of my belongings taken up the road. However, in the space of that week the virus I hadn’t paid much attention to before had become much more serious. When we returned to Aberdeen to pack the rest of my stuff Aberdeen airport was like a ghost town, with hand sanitiser being kept behind the tills in Duty Free as stocks were running low!
Never mind though, I got back to the safety of Orkney and started my new job at the CRC office on Tuesday 17th March 2020. There was a lot to learn as I had never worked in practice before, but my experience in industry was coming in handy. I was keen to learn though, and Calvin was patient to show me and I knew I had made the right decision.
Learning from a far
However, this learning process had to take a slightly different approach than planned, as on 23rd March we were put into a 3-week lockdown. So off I went home with my laptop, and Teams calls with Calvin became a daily occurrence (multiple times a day most days, but this was just a temporary measure, I’d be back in the office in a few weeks to continue my learning process!)
Learning via screen share and online calls was tricky to start with and I felt like I was constantly messaging Calvin with questions. A new job and a completely new way of learning plus a national lockdown was a lot to take in! Plus, I hadn’t gotten a chance to meet any of the clients I was working with, it was all a bit weird.
But it turned out that Covid was here to stay, and a 3-week lockdown turned into months of working from home. The Teams calls continued as I couldn’t go into the office and there was no way we could meet clients. As this was looking like it would be the “new norm” we just had to adapt to make the most of the situation.
Luckily the adaption to long-term working from home was relatively straight forward for us, all documents were already processed electronically, and all our systems were cloud based.
The upsides!
In some ways, the pandemic and lockdown has benefitted me and the firm as a whole.
As a firm, it has proved that we can work with clients based anywhere as we can meet over Zoom, provide Loom videos with explanations and all access the same cloud-based systems. Doesn’t matter if you are in Timbuktu or just next door, we can still provide the same service! And for me, I started to meet clients (over Zoom), build up relationships and increase my skills and knowledge, resulting in increased confidence when dealing with clients online. And now I don’t think twice about recording a Loom video explaining a process or a set of management accounts, but if you had asked me 2 years ago to do this, I would have taken all day to prepare and done roughly 101 takes!
Eventually the restrictions started to lift, and I could go back to spending some of my time in the office, this really accelerated my learning as I could learn directly from Calvin when he was working, and we could easily discuss different subjects. I also was able to meet my first clients in person, as great as Zoom is, there’s definitely still a place for face-to-face meetings every now and again to cement a relationship.
I also passed my final ACCA exam and officially became a Chartered Accountant in January 2021, at least with lockdown and being unable to go anywhere or do anything I had no excuse not to study!
Time flies!
Fast forward to two years since I started with CRC (and since the start of the pandemic), and we are hopefully seeing the back of restrictions and Covid!
From a personal perspective, I could never have hoped to have learned as much as I have in the last 2 years. My confidence has increased ten-fold and I am now delivering on site sessions with clients, particularly enjoying process reviews and identifying how small changes to processes can result in much greater returns for clients.
Nothing better than seeing clients benefit more from the hard work they are already putting in!
Also moving towards having the skills and confidence to deliver more sessions with clients and continuing to learn and better myself, surrounded by a team who are constantly striving to improve.
Working for an accountancy practice, I initially thought would be all about producing annual accounts and tax returns, and yeah, we do this, but it is really getting into the nitty gritty of businesses that we all enjoy and get great satisfaction from. Seeing targets being smashed and increased returns for the time and money being invested will always create a buzz!
Although the first 2 years of my time at CRC has not been as I expected, the changes and challenges we have gone through as firm have definitely made us come out of this pandemic in a very strong position. We are continuing to grow and if the last 2 years are anything to by, I can’t wait to see where we are in another 2 years!
Hopefully in our new offices, surrounded by like-minded people and continuing to grow and better ourselves both individually and as a firm!
A very exciting journey to help shape and be part of for sure!
CRC has given me the opportunity to work with exciting businesses across the UK while being based right here in Orkney, as there really is no place like it!
