Monday afternoons used to feel heavy, but lately they’ve turned into something I actually look forward to. During baseball season, the Capital One Café gives everyone a free coffee on Mondays—and if you’ve got a Capital One card, it’s half price the rest of the time. That little perk has become the highlight of my week.

Funny enough, I originally got my Capital One card for something totally different: racking up travel points. I even charged my egg freezing to it (yes, you read that right) because they had a 15-month no-interest promotion. Out of that gamble came a free ticket to Istanbul—so you could say the card has already paid for itself. Now it’s also fueling my Monday afternoons with free lattes.

But the coffee is only part of it. The real magic is what’s happening around the table. Every week I meet up with former coworkers—friends who, like me, are navigating the collapse of the development sector and trying to figure out what’s next. We sit with our laptops, swap stories, trade job leads, and sometimes just laugh about how wild this transition feels. I usually push myself to apply for five to seven jobs, but knowing my friends are there doing the same thing makes it feel less like a chore and more like a team effort.

There’s something oddly comforting about it: free coffee in hand, résumés on the screen, surrounded by people who get it. It’s accountability, therapy, and community all rolled into one.

And that’s the real takeaway for me: career transitions don’t have to be lonely. They can be shared, supported, even lightened by the right company. Sometimes resilience shows up not in big, dramatic gestures, but in small rituals—a latte, a Monday afternoon check-in, a friend across the table.

I never thought a bank café would become my little anchor in this season of change, but here we are.