With the Summer here, and it hitting over 100 degrees every day in Las Vegas, our Flook team decided to hold a watermelon eating contest. It was a very close competition, but our reigning eating champion Ryan took the crown once again. You may remember him from the oreo eating contest.

Good job to everyone that entered the contest. We look forward to the next competition, to see if anyone can dethrone Ryan.

Last week the entire team from the Kentucky Fulfillment center held their all hands meeting to celebrate our 10 year anniversary, as well as get everyone together to review our performance in 2008 and our goals for 2009. The Kentucky fulfillment center also built a time capsule inside of which each department placed several items that represent moments from 2008 and 2009. We'd love to tell you exactly what went inside, but you'll have to wait until 2013 or so to find out!

Team Canada and the Blog team at Zappos.com would like to wish our northern neighbors a very happy Canada Day.

Our most recent Customer Loyalty Team class graduated last month, and this week, they all got together for lunch to reminisce and talk about how their jobs are going. The best thing about these classes is that it's not just people from our call center taking them. People all through the company, no matter their position, go through the training. This give everyone a chance to meet people in different departments, and grow our team and family spirit.

Check out the class talking about how they enjoyed the training, and how it has affected their current job.

Back by popular demand, the Content Team had another picnic team outing this past weekend complete with “Content Olympic” games. Since the temperatures here in Las Vegas are slowly creeping up to the 100s, we decided to stock up on water balloons and water guns to keep things cool…and interesting!

We had a relay race where teams had to take turns filling up water bottles held on top of a single team member’s head, using small paper cups, as fast as they can without spilling water on the person’s head…and to make things more challenging, each person had to run back to the starting line while performing funny things like pirouettes, the “running man”, or the “Chicken Dance”! The results were definitely hilarious to say the least.

We also had a popsicle-eating contest to beat the heat…but instead we ended up with massive brain freeze. It’s all in good fun though; the winning team ate nine popsicles in under two minutes! They still can’t feel their teeth.

It was most certainly another fun team-building event in the name of Zappos family spirit and of course, a healthy dose of competition. However, some people definitely got a little water-gun and water-balloon-happy, but we won’t name any names (Rico!).

So, it's time once again to highlight some of our employee and their tattoos. With Zappos being such an open, employee friendly company, our employees have the freedom to show off their own unique personalities - and many of them show it off through their tattoos.

Some people just have one that they got on that one crazy night out with friends, and others, like Bill, have many years of tattoos across their body. But no matter how many they have, there are always stories behind them.

We, the C-Shift of Tech Support, have created life, and we shall call him… Nibble.

Nibble T. Half-Byte is our floppy haired new friend that was created out of madness, err… out of creating fun and a little weirdness. C-Shift (Blake and Kristy) each work alone except for one night a week. We get lonesome on some of the quiet nights as we work on our projects. It gets tough not having anyone immediately available to bounce ideas off of, and not having someone there when you’re thinking too hard about how to resolve an issue to tell you ‘Hey, silly, plug in the power cord!’. For these moments, Nibble is there for us. Don’t let his goofy exterior fool you; he’s a very intelligent and complex Tech Support Rep Jr..



Nibble The Half-Byte’s Bio

Hi! My name is Nibble, I work in Tech Support. I specialize in staring issues straight in the face and… well, waiting until staring fixes it. I am also a great tamer of the mischievous Kiva bots. I am a very hard worker and I love being part of the team. I resolve tickets in creative ways; usually I just throw myself into it (literally, as I have no arms to do much else). I love to have fun and frolic about the warehouse. I recently went on an outing with the team. We rode the conveyor coaster, played hide and seek, and worked on the world record for the biggest rubber band ball EVER! I also met a lot of new friends. Most people don’t quite understand me, and I love Zappos because everyone here accepts me for who I am. If you’re ever in KY and need some help with your computer stop by and I’ll help ya out!
Your friend,
Nibble

written by: Kristy W.

After the Passing of Michael Jackson on June 25th, we asked several Zappos.com Team Members to talk about their favorite Michael Jackson song. We were surprised how much different yet also similar everyone's taste in MJ tracks was!What's your favorite Michael Jackson Song? Please comment below!

Zappos.com athlete Jeremy Chardy played some great tennis in the First Round of Wimbledon on June 23rd versus American Favorite Andy Roddick. Prior to his appearance at Wimbledon last week, Jeremy was ranked 41st on the ATP Tour with a 21-16 record this year and no Titles to his name. We were extremely happy to see Jeremy Give Andy Roddick a run for his money in this awesome matchup.

Photos Courtesy of of Stuart at Corporate Graffiti

Photo Collage by our very own Matt W.

As we start to get into the summer months here in Las Vegas, everyone is always looking for ways to stay cool. With this week bringing us several days of 100 plus degree temperatures, our Cruise Ship team decided it was time to break out the summer activities. Today they had a snow cone day for us. With several great flavors to choose from, it was a cool treat for everyone.

If you work at Zappos.com in Las Vegas or have taken a tour of our offices in the past week, you already know that this game is spreading like wildfire. I'm sure we've all played games like this, but I must say this is the most difficult of it's type I have ever experienced. We decided to go around the office and see if anyone had the skills to battle, but I think we may have to let everyone practice for a week to get their chops up to par. Stay tuned for the Barrel on a Stick Tournament!

On most days the Casual lifestyle department is known as the Comfort, Euro-Comfort, Slipper and Size and Width and Housewares buying team. Yesterday however, they were known as the department filling the downstairs office with the smell of amazing food. Latrira S. gives us a little more insight into this cool and very delicious get-together.

Once the New Hires Graduate from their one month CLT training course they go straight to incubation where they are watched closely and receive helpful feedback to take with them once they are released into the wild. And we know it's stressful being new to the CLT Floor, so they schedule fun Core Value arts and craft time to help relieve some of the tension.

So just when you think you can tie your shoes correctly someone like Debbie Weitzman comes along and tells you that you're doing it all wrong (she should know, she is Stuart's niece). That's right, it all happened last week when we had the pleasure of having Debbie tour our Henderson Headquarters and upon introduction she glanced down at my shoes and screamed out "look at those laces! Come here, you're a mess!" And before I had time to take that remark personally, she was already in the process of retying and explaining the correct way to tie a shoe. And since the difference was so amazing, we decided to walk around the office a find other Zapponians in need of a shoe lace makeover.

Thank you Debbie for schooling me and all of Zappos in the art of shoe tying. Our bows will never be lopsided again!

This week our Customer Loyalty Team's graveyard shift celebrated its 5th anniversary. That's right, June 21, 2004 is the day Zappos started WOWing customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One of the reasons Zappos moved to Las Vegas from the Bay Area five years ago, was for the 24 hour workforce and culture that is alive and well in this town. So, shortly after moving to Las Vegas the graveyard shift was started.

The amazing thing is that even though the graveyard shift only started with just a handful of people, five years later, we still have a couple of the original members here working on the shift.

So just remember, when you're curled up in bed at night - "You sleep, they Wow!" And if you ever find yourself up on the computer in the middle of the night, and what to find some shoes, clothes or a handbag, just go to Zappos.com. While you're having fun shopping, if you need help or even just want to say hi, give our graveyard team a call, because they would love to help you out. We're here 24 hours a day, online and in person.