I used to work in an office that had a lot of great social events. They’d find any excuse to throw a party, had outside-of-work events like wine tastings and a kickball team, and an office space with some nice benefits like wooded paths next to a lake, a sandpit for beach volleyball, and a game room with pool tables and air hockey.
The culture at that company changed and I moved on from the place about 8 years ago.
My partner recently got a new job where they plan lots of fun events outside of work, like a 5k, bowling, and golfing. I join him at these events and it’s making me intensely miss working at a place that incorporated socializing, partying, and being active into their culture. I would love to have this again, but I can’t imagine structuring a job search or job interview around something like this. Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to go about doing this. None of my friends are currently in a job like this so I can’t just ask around, and my partner works in a completely different industry so I couldn’t just join his company.
You can mention it to recruiters. They’ll have some idea if a company has the kind of environment you’re looking for. You can’t always trust what a recruiter says but once you have an interview it’s usually something a company will mention as a benefit.
There are websites that will tell you what different companies pay employees, are there any that have workplace environment info too?
Company culture sometimes comes through on their social media pages, so check those. Yes you can ask recruiters, but recruiters have agendas that don’t necessarily match those of the job seeker. Also, be sure to pose the same culture-related question to every direct employee you interview with, at every level. On LinkedIn you can find former employees, and you can ask there too.
Keep in mind that employers can have departments which are more tight-knit than others. If you end up in one which is not all that social, keep an eye out for cross-departmental social groups. For example, my employer has a choir comprised of all sorts of employees; I was one of them for a year. The highlight of that year was performing at the director’s holiday party.
Can you take the lead where you work now and talk to HR/the boss if necessary, and propose a get-together or two? I wouldn’t start out proposing a huge schedule of games and parties, just one or two events.
Or what’s wrong with asking your colleagues, “hey, shall we all go out for drinks after work next Friday?” and if people respond affirmatively and end up having fun, maybe start making a regular thing of it (with alternatives to drinking, of course - regular alcohol-fueled events is probably a bad idea for many reasons, it just might be a way to get started).
Not everyone welcomes this sort of thing, of course. Some people may have family responsibilities they need to get back to, or long commutes, or they may just not want to spend more time with the people they already see constantly at the office. Maybe you’re already aware that this describes your colleagues and they wouldn’t be too open to more socializing.
I’m working on getting a job that pays about $6 million a year. The downside is that it’s not in a desirable location. But I figure that the comp offsets that and pays for a lot of fun.
Thursdays are usually better for after work events. By 5pm Friday, most people are pretty much done with work, regardless of how much they might enjoy socializing with their coworkers.
I’ve worked at a lot of companies and a good number of them had a lot of social events. It depends a lot on the culture of the company, the industry, location, and other factors.
Generally small to medium size companies seem better than large megacorporations. They need to be big enough to have a budget and critical mass of participants to make the event fun. But not so large that it feels like a major corporate branded production for a thousand strangers who never met outside of being CC’ed on an email chain.
Companies that skew younger seem to hold more social events… 20 somethings and single 30 somethings are often looking for venues to meet and hang out with people who aren’t complete randoms. Companies often play on this to provide incentives.
Certain industries may be more inclined to hold social events. I’ve tended to work in technology and/or finance consulting. There always seems to be some sort of happy hour or event or whatever.
I would also look at the people who work at the company and what sort of events they might like participating in. Do they look like people who are into being on a casual kickball team or attending a pretentious wine tasting? Or do they look like they just want to get the F out of there ASAP?
I wonder if such social events are less common these days, with more people working remotely, On the one hand, it’s a way to connect people who are otherwise disconnected. OTOH, a lot of people don’t want to go socialize with people they don’t really socialize with anyway.
My gf used to work for an ad agency that had lots of fun stuff always going on. They did some ad work for Huffy, so they had a few vintage-restored Huffy bikes that you could ride around if you wanted. They had a ping-pong table, a wet bar, pogo sticks, and a small room with ventilation where you could smoke anything but tobacco.
It was great in theory, but for most of the employees things were too busy to ever really enjoy the amenities. Now she works for an agency where she has ownership interest. Thanks to COVID, she works from home mostly. She doesn’t really miss the crazy/fun stuff.
Thanks for the recommendations. A couple comments I’d like to specifically respond to.
Oh CairoCarol. You make an excellent point that I’m really going to have to go back and do some deep thinking and soul-searching about, and probably also writing in my journal. What you suggest is something that I have, in fact, done at previous companies I’ve worked at. I attempted doing that a bit in the fall at my current company, but abandoned the idea for various reasons (too extensive to get into here). But there’s a lot to think through: to what extent I need to endure more discomfort to have a better experience, and whether my current dissatisfaction is due mostly to my own behavior or due to being in a company that’s never going to be an ideal fit.
This is an interesting observation that I was not aware of. The place where I’m working now is magnitudes larger than every other company I’ve worked for before.
You’ve hit on one of the reasons why I gave up interest on making the effort with my coworkers. I had a conversation with some coworkers one time where we were throwing out suggestions for team-building activities and what could be a fun outside-of-work activity. I was throwing out ideas like do a ropes course, go kayaking, run a race, go skiing, and my coworkers tried to gently point out to me that most of our coworkers are out of shape and would probably be more interested in, like, attending a baseball game or something else more sedentary. And I was just like “Fuck this, that’s no fun.” (Though I did successfully coordinate a trip to visit a ropes course with two of my coworkers!) I suggested going to a haunted house back in October and my coworkers were asking why you’d ever want to do something like that. They’re not active and not thrill-seekers.
I wonder if one of those locked room puzzles would appeal? I have never done it, but they sound like fun to me and the people I know who have gone say they had a good time. (In fact, you might have just inspired me to get a group together for that - we do have one in town.)
That’s so funny because I actually had a coworker suggest that! I suggested a destruction room, and then she countered with an escape room because you didn’t need to be as physically fit for that. I countered by saying “How about I chase after you with an ax and you try to escape, and that way we both get what we want?”
But nobody went ahead and actually booked an escape room (or destruction room), so that’s a good idea!
A few years back, the company I worked for sponsored a 3.5 mile Spartan race as a team building event. A lot of people signed up but only like 4 of us actually showed up on race day.
I’ll take that a step further: if you’re near the receptionist when (a) they aren’t noticeably busy and (a) no one else is around, quietly ask if they like working there/what they think of the culture. They have no stake in whether you get hired, they often know more about the place than people realize, and they’re no more or less likely to be biased than anyone else who works there. I’ve gotten useful info just from the way some receptionists have reacted to that question.
But as I mentioned, I feel like most places I’ve worked (tech and/or consulting firms in Manhattan or Boston) have had some culture of “fun”. Happy hours, booze cruises, indoor rock climbing, escape rooms, expensive dinners, 5ks, art shows, concerts, box seats at sporting events, even trips to Disney parks.
For awhile I just sort of assumed that’s how most companies worked (at least the ones that didn’t suck).
Don’t get me wrong. They’re nice perks and all. But I also feel like these sort of perks are designed to keep employees emotionally invested in the corporation in lieu of outside interests and distractions. Most of the time, family or significant others aren’t invited. Like it’s fine when you are a single 20 something right out of college who just moved to the big city and you’re looking for other young people to hang around with as if you were still in college. When you’re older and want to have a life outside of work, I don’t know that I want all my social activities to be bankrolled by my employer so I can hang out with the same people I see all day at work.
I can justify taking a night to go to my firm’s annual summer party. Telling my wife I want to take a weekend to go on the corporate ski trip is a bit of a hard sell.