Uruguay has a few traditions around watching the World Cup, most of them involving food. If the game is in the early morning (as often happens when games are played halfway around the world), families gather around the TV while sipping on the popular local tea called mate. Afternoons will find friends firing up the grill while cheering on the national team.<\/p>\n
Javier Anegon loves these traditions, but for the first time in his life he won\u2019t be watching the matches from his native Uruguay. He\u2019s in New York, where he\u2019ll probably be watching the first match\u2014a faceoff between Uruguay and Egypt\u2014with a group of expats from his country. And food will almost certainly be a part of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew York is tough at times,\u201d Anegon says. \u201cYou\u2019re by yourself, you\u2019re working a lot, so there\u2019s not much of a community sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old native of Montevideo found a community at WeWork, and believe it or not, soccer was the catalyst.<\/p>\n
When he was studying psychology at New York University, Anegon woke up early every day to run before his classes. One Friday morning he found himself alone on the field on the roof at Pier 40, which extends into the Hudson River.<\/p>\n
Noticing a group of athletes training for a soccer match, Anegon asked if he could join in. The players, members of the WeWork Football Club, were enthusiastic.<\/p>\n
\u201cImmediately we had a very good connection to him,\u201d says team manager Avi Yehiel. \u201cYou can really see from the first time he\u2019s a great guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, everyone liked having him around, so Anegon began returning for practice every Friday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cOriginally, I wasn\u2019t even on the mailing list,\u201d Anegon says. \u201cWe were just having a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yehiel took Anegon aside, letting him know that they\u2019d love to have him as a permanent member of the team, but that required being a WeWork member.<\/p>\n
That conversation turned out to be a major turning point in his life, both personally and professionally.<\/p>\n
A native of Uruguay, Anegon had moved to the U.S. to study psychology at Florida\u2019s Lynn University. He had a tennis scholarship, but an injury at 19 left him on the sidelines. He focused on his studies, working through the summers so he could graduate in three years.<\/p>\n
A hunger for a faster-paced environment brought him to New York, where last year he earned a master\u2019s degree in industrial organizational psychology at NYU.<\/p>\n
In June, after becoming a WeWork member to qualify for the team, Anegon became more interested in WeWork\u2019s mission and community. For one college class for which he had to help a company become more efficient, he jumped on his newfound connection.<\/p>\n
His teammates listened to his 20-second pitch for his class, and were so impressed that they brought him in to share his ideas with Adam Amar, then WeWork\u2019s head of Employee Engagement, on how to increase operational effectiveness in the WeWork community.<\/p>\n
Anegon built a tight connection to his teammates, who invited him to Summer Camp, WeWork\u2019s annual retreat that brings together members and staffers for a weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey made it clear that I was one of them pretty quickly,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Afterward Anegon was offered an internship with WeWork\u2019s Wellness team, where he focused on how soccer, basketball, volleyball, and other team sports can help build a sense of community. Now he\u2019s on staff at WeWork, and it\u2019s no surprise he\u2019s working to help members on the People team.<\/p>\n
Anegon says he\u2019s experienced firsthand the power of community. When he first came to study in the U.S., he didn\u2019t speak much English and relied on a tight-knit group of students to help him succeed in the classroom.<\/p>\n
And, perhaps most of all, he found a group of like-minded people on the soccer team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came to New York I had no family or friends,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I wasn\u2019t the only one. WeWork truly changed my experience of living in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As World Cup beings, Javier Anegon finds a community at WeWork<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":919,"featured_media":3000001686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43903,43912],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4000115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-stories","category-employee-spotlight"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n