When you're working a full-time job, finding time to enjoy the warm, bright summer weather can be a challenge. This is especially true for young professionals, as many of them are used to having summers off (or, at the very least, having a flexible summer schedule). But there's no need to feel trapped behind your cubicle walls. Go out and enjoy summer!
Here are a few tips for making the most of your summer while working full time.
1. Grab Some Foldable Chairs
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Keep a couple of foldable camping chairs at the office so you and a co-worker can catch some rays during lunch—whether it's in the park or the parking lot.
2. Keep A Beach Bag In Your Car
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Keep a bag full of summer supplies for your favorite summer activities. Having a bag (or, in my case, a backseat) full of towels, sunscreen, and swimwear keeps you prepared for anything. Friends hitting up the pool after work? You're covered. Once the clock strikes five, you can head to your destination of choice immediately.
3. Plan An Office Outing
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Plan an office field trip to the beach, the park, or the pool. Just do something fun so your brain can recharge and refresh!
4. Organize Group Walks
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Get a bunch of co-workers together and go on regular walks around town during lunch. (Or you could suggest a quick jaunt over to the ice cream shop.) This is a great way to get some fresh air, sunshine, and exercise.
5. Eat Lunch At The Park
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When you find yourself eating out, hit up places with a deck, porch, or patio of some sort. Obviously, eating out every day isn't really a feasible option for most of us, so look into alternative ideas as well. Pack a lunch and hit the park for your own little picnic.
6. Organize Office Sports
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Whether it's setting up an official office sports team or just hanging out with your colleagues a few times a week, playing sports is a great way to get out and enjoy the weather. Have a field nearby? Try setting up some slow-pitch softball games. Or see if you can get a basketball hoop for the office so you and a few co-workers can shoot some hoops at lunch.
7. Join A Professional Group
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During the summer, professional networking groups often have fun events like harbor cruises, pub crawls, and outdoor mixers. Find a professional group in your area and make networking fun this summer.
8. Have An Office BBQ
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Get your grill on! Talk to your boss about setting up an office BBQ. Ask everyone to contribute their favorite dish, side, or drink. Fire up the grill and relax! Hey, it's summer after all.
9. Wake Up Early
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Yes, yes, I know...waking up early is an incredibly painful and unbearable experience for some of us, but waking up even an hour earlier has its benefits—especially in the summer. Go for a morning run, putter around in the garden, or watch the sunrise with a loved one. Talk about starting the day off right!
10. Strategically Use Your Time Off
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Strategically use your vacation days around holidays. This way, you can make a potentially long weekend longer without having to use too much of your precious vacation time. Half days are also pretty awesome. It's amazing how much you can do with four extra hours! If you want an early weekend but don't want to burn up your vacation days too quickly, try taking a half day on a Friday instead of using a full day off.
11. Bike To Work
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If you're one of the lucky few who live within walking or biking distance of work, take advantage of it! Not only will you get plenty of fresh air, but you'll also save money on gas, which is always a plus!
There are plenty of easy ways to enjoy summer when you work a full-time job. So this summer, try out a few of these ideas and make the most of the sunshine and warm weather—while they're still around!
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LinkedIn is a great way to network with other business professionals. But it does have some easily corrected problems. Of course, LinkedIn is not the king (or queen) of customer service or listening to customer requests. So they probably won’t do any of this. But they should.
1. Get a decent customer service department. I am a paid subscriber. But it can still take days and often at least a couple of reports of the same problem to even get a response. Even then, LinkedIn rarely fixes the problem. This is unacceptable for even the free service, much less the paid service.
2. Let people invite others they don’t know. If I’m at a regular networking event, I can go up to anyone and introduce myself. They have the freedom to respond or not respond with information. But LinkedIn operates on an absurd principle that you either have to know someone or be introduced to them to invite them. Why?
3. Install a simple text editor. Right now the only emphasis one can give in a comment or discussion is TO CAP IT. This is very old fashioned and not very much fun. Almost everyone now has a simple text editor. LinkedIn should, too.
4. Stop letting group members move discussions to jobs or promotions. This should be the duty of group owners and managers only. At this time, competitors can move any discussions to never-never land, namely, jobs or promotions. There is a notification, but getting a post moved back to discussions is a real pain, especially since most group owners don’t do a very good job of responding to requests. In this cut-throat business environment, why give my competitors the right to silence me (or me the right to silence them)?
5. Require a photo to be on LinkedIn. This would cut down on spammers and frauds on LinkedIn. LinkedIn should also enforce their terms of service regarding photos, namely, no logos or icons. I like to have a picture of the person with whom I’m connecting.
6. Make it easier to respond to members who write you through LinkedIn. Right now it is a real pain. Let someone who receives a LinkedIn message respond by simply hitting “respond” on their e-mail program, rather than having to sign into LinkedIn and use LinkedIn’s inadequate response mechanism. Hint: When you send a message via LinkedIn, always include your real e-mail address. If you are going to ping me, I should be trustworthy enough to be able to write you back directly.
7. Make it easier to contact LinkedIn. Not only is LinkedIn’s customer service worse than that of airlines (that’s pretty bad), but it is incredibly difficult to place a trouble ticket. This should be a “one click.” Instead, customers have to jump through hoops to send an e-mail. For those of us who are paying customers a phone number where we can actually talk to a real person would be a nice touch — so long as that real person has the information, the authority and the willingness to actually solve the problem — something LinkedIn is really abysmal at.
8. Give us something for our money. I haven’t decided whether my money that is going to LinkedIn each month is being well spent or not. I still get the same lousy customer service. I can do a bit of enhanced searching. But not much else. If we’re going to pay, let us get our money’s worth!
9. Stop making me sign in so much! I should be able to sign-in and stay signed in. As it is, every so often I have to re-enter my password. I understand this is for my “security,” but I should be able to sign-in and stay signed in on the same computer.
LinkedIn is a great tool for business. But they aren’t very responsive to the needs and desires of their customers. This is the primary attitude at LinkedIn I’d love to see changed immediately.
For more business advice, join my LinkedIn Groups, “Getting Employed,” and “Spirituality in Business.” Thanks!
John Heckers has over 30 years of successfully helping people with their careers. He has consulted to executives from Fortune 500 companies, five-person companies, and everything in-between.Photo credit: Shutterstock
