Beverly and Leah: Perks of Meeting Your Best Friend at Work

One of the hardest parts of being a “grown up” or living “life in the real world” is making friends. Our entire lives up to this point have been full of opportunities to pretty easily make friends… school, sports, camp, extracurriculars, living in a dorm, sororities, fraternities, Bev’s fencing team, etc, etc…

Once you start working though, you have this notion that you have to maintain a separate personal life and professional life. But the truth is that you spend over a third of your day (or over HALF of the day that you're actually awake for) with people from work. So if you prevent yourself from making real friends with people you work with, then how are you actually going to meet people?

Let’s run through the current options:

1. The Bar - but really who makes "friends" at the bar?
2. Dating Apps... yea ok... try asking your date to if they want to be “friends”
3. Kickball / Softball / Dodgeball / Volleyball "sports leagues"
4. People you went to college with that you weren't friends with before and that you never actually liked
5. People you meet at the gym who are too in shape for you to ever truly be real friends with
6. That awkward family friend (seriously you don't know until you've experienced the desperation)

At Capital One, you don't have to worry about that. When you start working here, you come in with a class of peers. You all start work together, you go to training together, you travel together, and you share your experiences with each other. When you start at Capital One, you join a development program for your job family (Product Management & Analytics, Tech, HR) which is made up of all the new hires who are recent college graduates (We also have a Professional Development Program and an Executive Program for our experienced hires as well). It’s honestly a huge relief when, on your first day of work, there are over 100 other recent college grads in the room who are just as nervous / overwhelmed / friendless / excited as you are. You spend that entire first week together not only getting brought up to speed on what your actual job is going to be like, but having networking events, dinners, happy hours, social events and more where you start to realize that you have a ton of potential friends surrounding you as begin to figure out how to successfully adult.

We (Leah and Bev, also known as BLeah) were both part of the Analyst Development Program (ADP) and are proof of the friendships you’ll form once you start working here. During the interview process you will hear SO many people say that it is the amazing people here that set Capital One apart. When you’re going through the interview process, it can be hard to believe all the amazing things that companies say about themselves. But as skeptical as we were, within less than 2 months of being on the same team, Bev and I had quickly fallen into BFF territory and had realized everyone in our interviews was telling the truth. Now a year later and living on two separate continents, our friendship remains strong with 20+ Instagrams, 2 upcoming vacations, 1 spontaneous visit last fall, weekly video chats, daily IMs, constant texts, and infinite bestie love.

Here are just a few of the benefits of making friends at work:

1. Running into each other’s arms at work after being away from each other due to vacation. And your whole team looks on and judges you, but you don’t care because you’re with your BFF again.
2. Have hour-long feedback sessions for each other (this is not typical unless it’s with your manager) where you will write at least three pages of strengths and opportunities for one another. With at least one page solely being a love letter celebrating how awesome your bestie is.
3. Do you miss AIM? Don’t we all? Luckily you get to IM your bestie all day long. (PLUS we just got new Emojis!) 
4. Share your calendar with each other so you can know where they are at all times. This is particularly helpful when they’re showing up as “in a meeting” on IM and you need to know whether you should actually interrupt.
   




5. Get massages together after a super stressful day at work.
6. Someone to always watch tv with when you’re traveling for work and bored at the hotel.
7. You can plan a vacation with all of the analysts on your team and conveniently leave out all of the managers.
8. Have sleepovers after team “fun” days.
9. Borrow work clothes following the post fun day sleepover.
10. Almost get your car towed after the post fun day sleepover but luckily be able to split the $50 ticket with your BFF.
11. “Work From Home” together when you need help moving, because your BFF obviously bought all of your furniture from you when you decided to move to another country.
12. Lock yourselves in a huddle room together and actually work.
13. Lock yourselves in a huddle room together and cry / gossip / eat / complain / watch the Bad Blood music video.
14. Be jealous when your bestie steals the mentor you want for yourself, but also be happy for them for getting a rock star mentor.
15. Write recognition for one another (obviously) and then unexpectedly winning gift cards for it.
16. Spend hours outside of work talking about work… even on the weekends.
17. Spend an hour arguing on a bus… about PAYMENT BASED REWARDS when we could’ve talked about anything else. Trust us, we aren’t proud of this.
18. FREE Swag benefits when your BFF is in charge of t-shirt designs and swag options for work.
19. Feel territorial when your BFF gets coffee with someone you don't know.
20. Video chat when one of you is in Richmond for the day and the other is back in McLean.
21. Continuing to constantly video chat even when your BFF moves to the London office.
22. Bring your BFF to work day when you visit your BFF after she moves to the London office and you book a trip with less than 2 weeks’ notice. And it doesn’t count against your vacation days because you’re working… from London.  
    
23. Passing notes during to each other during training… and then NOT getting in trouble because they are actually work related.
24. Win blow up sharks together when you kill it as a duo pitching a new project idea at your team’s internal business idea competition.
25. Get to start the new project idea from above, where you literally spend all day working together and get to think about how to change banking for good with your super inspirational bestie.
26. Sign off on all emails related to above project as BLeah (after you spend at least an hour coming up with your celebrity couple name).
27. Accidentally Twinning @ work. Or on purpose if you desire.
    
    
28. Be constantly inspired.
29. Find the person who is going to help you change the world for better.
30. Find your work soulmate, future start-up cofounder, and future b-school study buddy.
31. But seriously the best part of meeting your best friend at work is being lucky enough to find your work and life soulmate.

Beverly (Civil Engineering, Cornell ’13) is a Business Manager in US Card in Mclean, VA. She’s currently focused on bringing analytically rigorous underwriting and a customer-focused application process together for the ideal customer experience. In her spare time she likes to run marathons, cook yummy Asian food, and plan trips to visit Leah!

Leah (Biology and Economics, Wash U ’14) is a Senior Analyst in UK Card in London, UK. She’s currently working on product development for new and innovative ways of providing customers with digital, transparent, and fair lending products. In her spare time she likes to read, explore markets in London, and plan trips with Bev!

- Beverly and Leah