Two women who met when one of them was a new neighbour and couldn't find the stopcock are still friends 26 years later - and now work together at Amazon. Karen Kelly, 52, and Tracey Owen, 53 met when Tracey, new to the pair’s block of flats, couldn’t find her stopcock, so came knocking on Karen’s door.
Karen said: “When the kids were young we’d take them for days at the beach, they’re some of my fondest memories. It was lovely, the kids were really close and to be honest we became a part of each others’ families – not much has changed.”
With similar aged children the pair started with playdates and over a quarter of century have seen and done it all together, from marriages to becoming grandparents. They even moved house at the same time and now live two doors down, instead of one floor up.
Tracey said: “We’re a proper double act, like Ant and Dec or French and Saunders. I’m the loud one’ . We’re always laughing and having a good time. We’re like the same person sometimes. We even get mixed up by other colleagues.
“The other day I was asked to go and help someone with something and when I got to them they said ‘oh, I meant the other one’ – I didn’t realise how similar we must be!”
Karen said: “We’re known as the ‘work-mums’ in our group. I love it – I call her my ‘work-wife’. Everyone knows us, we’re always cracking jokes. We have such a laugh. Working with your best mate is such a blessing, it makes the hours fly by."
“We love eating out together. We LOVE food,” Tracey said. “When the work day is done we tend to sit back and relax, have a chat. Although we did go for a night out not that long ago – we had a great dance. First time we’d done that in a while but I've still got moves! We have a little boogie at work sometimes.”
After nearly two years at Amazon, the duo have been promoted to instructors in their department.
Karen said: "Working at Amazon has been great for us. The company has provided us with stable employment, career growth opportunities, and a supportive work environment where you can bring your whole self to work. Well in my case my whole self and my best mate. I think Tracey will agree we feel fortunate to have found a workplace that values its employees like that”
Tracey said: “If you work hard at Amazon, you get rewarded. We work hard but we play hard too. I look forward to coming to work – not just to see Karen, I see her all the time – but because it’s a great bunch of people doing an important job. You get out what you put in.”
A recent poll of Amazon’s employees, conducted as part of its ‘Chatterbox’ research, ranked ‘helping neighbours’ as one of the key things to being a good UK citizen, along with ‘putting your family first’.
This unique research is aso brought to life in a series of short videos filmed in its UK fulfilment centres which both Tracey and Karen feature in, alongside other employees who share and debate their thoughts on the survey’s findings.
