Human Resources: Arguably the BEST department at Vera Bradley

Today is my next-to-last day at Vera Bradley, and I am definitely not ready to leave. This is for several reasons, but mainly, I just love the people that I work with in HR entirely too much. Since we have four buildings in Fort Wayne, and everyone in HR works in different buildings, I don’t get to see everyone every day, or even every week, but I have enjoyed every minute that I have had with each of them. Here are just a few of my favorite memories of my amazing summer here in HR ...

Celebrating

On Jill’s (one of the Recruiting Specialists) birthday, we decided to celebrate by decorating her desk … and the area above and around it. She was actually on vacation at the time, so the decorations were our response to not being able to party with her on her big day. She came back the following week to this beautiful and very festive scene ...

Jill’s desk – all ready for her birthday....

Traveling

Only about a month into my internship, I had the opportunity to travel to a store opening – Vera Bradley at Beachwood Place – in Cleveland, OH with Ryan and Amy, two of my co-workers at Production Road. Not only was this really exciting because it was my first “business trip,” I also really enjoyed getting to travel with Ryan and Amy as we explored northern Ohio for the day. I’m sure they enjoyed our trip as well; during the eight hours of driving I told them all about my family’s farm and my days of showing cattle, so they learned a lot!

Ryan, Amy and I enjoying the beautiful new store.

Just a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel with Amy, Ryan, and my mentor, Becky, to a recruiting fair in Indianapolis. This gave me the chance to see another side of the recruiting world, and it also allowed me to introduce the others to my favorite Indianapolis original cupcakes. It came just at the right time, because I was starting to have withdrawals from Indianapolis and Butler, my second home. We went to Patachou on the Park for brunch before the fair began (one of Amy, Ryan and I’s favorites), and we stopped for the famous Flying Cupcakes afterwards to reward ourselves for all of the recruiting that we did that day. It is safe to say that the day was a definite delicious success!

Our table at the recruiting fair complete with all things Happy Snails....

Gathering

One thing that I have learned about HR is that we love to get together for lunches, whether it is for someone’s birthday, to welcome someone to the team, or just because. So, in honor of my last few days at Vera Bradley, everyone met at Production Road for lunch today. It was so nice just to get to see and talk to most of the team again before I leave, and of course I loved having Jimmy John’s for lunch as well! (I now officially feel like a college student again!)

Everyone from HR that was able to come to my farewell lunch … I’ll miss them all!...

Being an intern in HR this summer has really opened my eyes to so many things that will be useful in my future. From understanding the ins and outs of the hiring process to seeing how this company functions on a daily basis, I really can’t wait to tackle my senior year and my next steps – finding a real job after graduation. Most of all, all of my fabulous co-workers in HR have shown me the importance of enjoying going to work every day, and they have made my summer internship more amazing than I ever could have imagined. Now that I think about it, do I really need to finish college, or can I just stay here forever?