When I started working at MutualGain I was not sure what I was in for. I would be living and working at home for the first time since doing my A levels. While I knew the stress would not be anything similar, I wondered how I would cope.

The thing that I found particularly interesting was other people’s responses to finding out I was working from home. Obviously, because of the current situation most other people are working from home anyway. But I was different because I was not working from home until at some point, I go back to an office, I was working from home because of the nature of MutualGain.

Some people, mainly other students, would talk about how great that is because I do not have to spend money on food, or do my own laundry (big thank you to my parents of course) as well as not having to commute. However, some people would say something along the lines of, well you might not get an office atmosphere. Of course, most people are working from home now, so that is not such a big deal, but I am not sure if that is true anyway. In my time working at MutualGain I have made the same connections that I made in my previous experience in a small office. When I am on a Zoom call with my colleagues, whether they are Bath graduates or MutualGain associates, I still feel like I am part of the MutualGain team with the same level of involvement. The great thing about MutualGain is you can tell that everyone in the company wants to do great things for communities and is invested in doing so and that mentality is infectious. Aside from that, there is always room for chat outside of work, people are always talking to each other to ask for help or advice on things, so I am not sure what the ‘office atmosphere’ really means and whether I am really ‘missing out’ on it.

Due to this level of collaboration, I have had a lot of variety in the work I have been doing, whether that’s putting together bids for Citizens Assemblies, creating a flyer for the MET Police, or working to analyse the responses to the MutualiLearn courses. This variety has made each day interesting and different to the last, while challenging my ability to manage my time. Managing my time has been easier after getting, for the first in my life, a diary to keep track of meetings. I have never felt older than when I was first putting meetings into my diary, but it is now a crucial part of staying on top of my work and meetings.

In short, my first month working from home has been every bit as interesting and social as work in an office and I am thankful to everyone at MutualGain for making me feel welcome and involved. I cannot wait to see what other projects I will be working on in the future.

Written by Josh Milne

October 2020