Not much beats summer parties sponsored by your work — that is, if you work in tech. In addition to being a well-deserved break from the daily hustle, summer parties offer teams a reminder of why they work so hard every day and how lucky they are to share values with their coworkers.
And no one — NO ONE — has more fun than New Yorkers, who know well what life's really all about: working hard and playing harder.
If there’s one thing the employees of Stack Overflow can handle, it’s questions! 100 Stackers strong, they tackled the Chelsea Piers Scavenger Hunt for this year’s summer party. It included taking photos at certain pier landmarks, accomplishing feats such as juggling, driving golf balls, and, of course, answering Chelsea Piers trivia with hints and clues that could be found throughout the compound. The company was broken up into teams and the winning team received gift certificates for a massage.
But what about the remote employees? Well they don’t want them to be left out of the fun, so they give them all a free afternoon off on any day in August to take their families to the beach, visit a zoo, or just use the afternoon for a little much-appreciated R&R.
DigitalOcean's headcount doubled in size this week when all of their remote employees flew into the city for their second annual Shark Week. After a week of team building sessions, technical deep dives, and nightly social activities, the team enjoyed some well deserved rest and relaxation down at the Jersey Shore.
Casper knows how to throw it down. Last year, to celebrate Memorial Day, Casper skipped the mattress sale and mattress sailed down the Hudson (literally, they booked a yacht and threw a bunch of mattresses on it, and themselves on top). A few months ago, the team went shuffle boarding for the company's second birthday.
The Casper team also hosts regular happy hours, celebrating everything from their international launches (they recently launched in Europe), to the start of the Olympics.
Casper is also launching a new product this week — a dog mattress! To celebrate, the team is hosting a Dogfluencer Steak Dinner, and opening a pop-up dog mattress showroom, the Casper Dog House. Famous dogs (ya, they exist), will walk down a green turf carpet and feast on a three-course steak dinner prepared by a gourmet chef. The Casper Dog House will be open to the public on August 19 and August 20. Dogs are invited to try the new mattress, jump in a tennis ball pit, explore a smell museum, and slurp fresh hot dog water.
Bluecore held their second annual Party On The Hudson this July. For four hours they ate, drank, danced and laughed (mostly at each other’s dancing) as they cruised the Hudson River. Last year the cruise consisted of roughly 30 people, but this year they welcomed over 80 Bluecoreians aboard. No doubt, some of the celebration was for their insane growth! It should be interesting to see how big of a boat they get next year!
Betterment hosts a ton of fun events, especially during the summer. But, the one that stands out most, is their annual summer retreat.
Every summer, Betterment rents out homes all along the East Coast for the entire company. Usually, the second half of the trip families are encouraged to come! The trip serves as a remote working week for their employees, where they get to spend time with teammates, and generally do what they do best: work hard while having fun.
They have found that the summer trip creates some of the best and most memorable times they've had at Betterment. It’s been a great resource for them to get back to the roots of what makes their company so great. To top it all of, they've had over 90 percent attendance every summer, which is amazing!
To celebrate the launch of Splash's awesome new curated calendar of events in Brooklyn, the company brought together over 200 digital creatives for a night of fun. The event featured music from the rock band Dreamers, drinks from Brooklyn Brewery and, there was even denim on offer from their venue host, the Brooklyn Denim Co.
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