Our Development Department redecorated each row of their department with a sports theme....and then tested it with real, live sports action!

The Zappos Customer Loyalty Team not only makes it part of their daily routine to wow customers, but they always go out of their way to help out fellow Zapponians. They set up a recognition program to thank those for being especially helpful in CLT. They call it the "Cultivator of Wow" award, or COW for short. Each team made a fun cow box to house all the nominations.

Jamie N. sent out an email requesting 20 volunteers to participate in an art project. 2 hours later, over 50 team members responded. While Jamie thought that this project was awesome and creative, she had no idea she would be participating in such a hands-on-feet project.

Our very own Jacob P. created a special program that allow Pat and Matt to speak to each other using their computers. It is so advanced that we almost didn't show it on the blogs. However, after Jacob sold this world class software to a huge conglomerate, we decided it was time. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the future.

As a way to keep everyone involved in living our culture, our Pipeline team teaches a culture class for all employees. This class helps explain why our culture is so important to us, as well as helps us come up with new ways to continually enhance it.

Each new class comes up with new ways they can promote culture and bring everyone together. By the end of the several week class, each team has a culture project they do around the office. Today, one of the teams from the most recent class, held a "Mad Hatter Tea Party." They served tea and snacks, had materials to make hats and just tried to get as many people into the lunchroom to hang out and have some fun together.

Blue hair spray and Face painting?... Spirit Sticks?... Cheer contests and fake tattoos?... Where are we, at summer camp?

No, this is spirit week at Zappos.com... didn't see that one coming did ya?



When I started here 2 years ago, I walked into an environment that I had never been around before. I was surrounded by people who enjoyed being at work. Within a month, I was hooked, not only on the culture, spirit, and values of Zappos, but on the happiness I felt when I went home. Still to this day I feel the same way. Spirit week to me isn't only a week out of the year.... it lasts the whole year. As of June 28th, I became B1 singles Lead.... I never would have been motivated enough to go for a lead position if it hadn't been for the spirit and culture of Zappos pulsing through me, and THAT'S A FACT!!!!

written by: Michael B.

Yesterday was Brett's 30th birthday, and we felt he needed an official Celebration with cake, song and allowing Brett to eat like his 6 month old Poodle/Pug mix. Of course, we would never feed Brett's dog chocolate cake, but we wouldn't expect him to use utensils either. Happy Birthday Brett! Here's to another 30 amazing years, Bubba!

What makes you the CEO of your household? What does it take to fill your shoes as the household ceo? At blogher 2009 Bill Me Later and Zappos.com set up a confessional booth in which we invited attendees to confess what it takes to fill their shoes as a blogger, mommy, an underwater basket weaver, an ant farmer – or whatever it is that they do – for a chance to win a $2500 shopping spree.

In order to view all the confessionals filmed at Blogher 09 and the video responses posted by other women going for the grand prize shopping spree, click here and you will find them under the video responses. The winner will be announced August 10th – stay tuned.

Until next blogher, happy blogging ladies!

As the saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." At the Zappos office, a lot of little interesting items end up all around the building, and Hollie has found a great way to display some of these little "treasures".

Hollie set up a display box in her area that she calls her "Tchotchke of the week" box. When most people hear the word tchotchke, they usually think of something that's a little tacky and probably worthless. Yet here at Zappos, since we are the company that embraces "Create fun and a little weirdness" as one of our core values, we look at Hollie's tchotchke box as priceless.

BlogHer is just hours away and I want to make sure that I am fully prepared to for what is about to take place. The Sheraton Hotel is quickly filling up with an insane amount of She-bloggers and a few He-bloggers and I'm beginning to believe that everyone and everything in Chicago will be at this conference.

Zappos Customer Loyalty Team takes great pride in their commitment to proving the best customer service possible. One of the ways they do this is their continuous training of CLT employees. Team Kaizen's job is to help everyone in CLT with the training available to them. All this training allows team members the ability to gain further knowledge and growth potential within Zappos.

This week, Team Kaizen held a "Snack and Chat" to go over some of the new training programs available for the CLT members.

A huge Truck pulling a Huge Hot Dog trailer arrived at Zappos today and set up shop in corporate circle. Loren B. and Drew K., as well as myself talk about our tasty Dogs, and relish on the thought of eating hot dogs at work. For Nutritional information, log on to Myspace.com/zapposdotcom

Most of us come to work on our birthdays because we enjoy the people we work with, as well as to to see what they have cooked up for us. While we usually always have cake for birthdays, there is usually something else going on in the kitchen. For Sandra A., birthday presents came in the form of her own office supplies, and they came wrapped in plastic! We've definitely all heard stories of this happening, but we always think it could never happen to us. Happy Birthday Sandra, hope it was the best ever!

There are several choices when it comes to purchasing a new smart phone, and it seems that we change up more and more all the time. We just found out about some brand new technology that is powered by potassium, and never needs a recharge, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Banana Phone is here.

Well, if you're in the New York restaurant industry or you're looking to get in it, then you're in luck! No more walking around from restaurant to restaurant with your resume in hand hoping to speak with a manager and crossing your fingers that there will be a position available. With Tablesetter.com, you can conveniently browse through restaurants in New York, submit your resume and read through employee reviews in order to find the perfect restaurant for you.

Founder and CEO of Tablesetter.com, Jeffrey Greenberg, graced Zappos.com with his presence and we were lucky enough to run into him outside the Zappos headquarters to ask him a few questions.

Remember that first job you did for extra money when we were young? Most people don't look at their first job as a career, or even something that helped them get to where they are now. Even though that job seemed insignificant at the time, and probable is not something you would ever want to do again, we can remember things from our first job as if it we just yesterday.

What was you first job?

How much water do you drink in a day? Experts advise that adults should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water each day - so if you're drinking roughly 2 liters of water a day, you are on the right track to staying hydrated. Of course, the eight 8-ounce rule is just a guideline. You know your body better than anyone else, so basically drink enough water so that you don't feel thirsty and if you're planning on going out in the sun make sure you take a large bottle of h2O with you.

Good morning, campers! We thinks that if you have not come over to the Zappos.com Facebook page yet, it's time for you to do so! We are having a lot of fun over there with our video of the day, Caption Challenge of the Week, Fan comments and discussion....you don't know what you're missing, yo!!!

Come over and give it a whirl, you won't be disappointed!
www.facebook.com/zappos

Everything must go! That's right people, Jamie N. is completely revamping the Zollar Store and in order to do that she must get rid of all the leftovers first. She's accepting anything from Zollars, to Dollars, to personal checks and I'm sure if you had something impressive enough, she might even barter with you, like in olden times....a raccoon pelt for a Zappos water bottle or some similar offer.

We had our very own Pat Lovey Dovey at the scene helping to promote and close out some sweet, sweet deals.

We are all wowed when the Help Desk Team picks up our Vendors from the airport, find our phones when we leave them in the lunch room, or hold the door open for us. Often, the Help Desk team displays the same type of behavior outside of work. We never thought that was a problem, until Missy got a visit from the local authorities...

We had no idea our local authorities were also such amazingly talented Actors!

It’s official. June 30th has been designated Joon Fools Day by the Photo Department. In a remarkable attempt to pull the greatest prank on our resident prankster, the entire team got together and, with some help from HR and some well placed articles by CNN, we convinced our resident prankster and techie nerd that Zappos had bought up all of the newly released iPhones and passed them out to team members at our All Hands Meeting a couple of weeks ago. One that Joon didn’t attend.

We kept the joke going all day with congratulations e-mails from HR and websites mentioning that the state of Kentucky was completely sold out. Joon was so eaten up that he missed out that by lunchtime he was begging those that had received one to either let him buy theirs at deep discounts or trading 6 hours of hard labor for one.

In the end we rounded up the team and pretended to present a new phone to Joon. Little did he know it was an iPhone box filled with images of middle fingers- a little joke that Joon likes to do with Post-it notes throughout the department.

Check out how excited he is in the video- he knows that something exciting is going on but he has no idea what lies in store. Thanks for being such a good sport Joon, and remember that you always get what you dish out tenfold!!

WRITTEN BY DAN C.

Missy and her Inner-Office Cockroach have struck again.

Our dear Help Desker Heaven T. received her just desserts when this cockroach showed up special delivery for her last week. It was revenge...for Heaven started the curse of the Inner Office Cockroach before...and now the curse lives on.

Holly, Altovise...look out!

Our June Customer Loyalty Training class graduated this past Friday, and, during the ceremony, they had a special treat from one of the graduating class.

Amanda (BOK!!!) C., who you might remember from a few blogs ago for her special chicken noise talent, really laid it down for the 60+ Zapponians in attendance.

Congratulation to all the new graduates! Roll it, yo!

If there is one thing that we love around Zappos, it's potlucks (among other food obsessions..read on)

Some department seems to have one at least once a week, if not more. We think it has to do with our Core Value of Team and Family Spirit. Or maybe we just love cooking for each other. Or we love eating? Or we love Tupperware? We're not sure, but what we are sure of is that Terry I., for the Clothing team's potluck, brought in something that we've all wanted at one point or another: a Hot Dog Roaster.

I know, I know, it's not the newest invention in the world, but who would think to bring that to a potluck? Terry would.

This brings up an excellent point that I feel has never been addressed. Something that had never occurred to me until just this moment. For some reason, we really love hot dogs at Zappos, and there have been many signs of this addiction over the years. Whether it be the early days in Vegas when James would roast dogs every few days in the lunch room, or the hot dog eating contests at the picnics, or the Pipeline hot dog social events..we even were visited by the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. Seriously, I think we need help.

But I digress....Terry, thanks for the Hot Dogs. And thanks for buying Clothing for us to sell on Zappos.com!

We love to eat here at Zappos, and socializing around food is a great way to share ideas with each other! Last week we were all invited to hang out and see what our Customer Loyalty Fanatics have been up to lately, as well as steal some awesome recipes. Thanks again to CLT for letting us take over their area for most of last Thursday.

"I like to SHOP! SHOP! SHOP! Cinderella is my hero as I too believe that one pair of shoes can really change your life! I love shoes,hair accessories, candles, anything fashion...I love it and will buy it!"

In honor of the Shopaholic of the team, the Merchandise Planners celebrated Michelle's birthday today by decorating her work area with shopping bags & boxes. The best part, beautiful home made cupcakes! Happy Birthday Michelle!

Pat has been told many times by Brett that he has "an abnormally sized watermelon head" and that his head "looks like an orange on a toothpick," and Pat is tired of the abuse. Tony believes that it's actually an illusion and he is going to prove it with a handy dandy headphone wire.

UFC fighter Frank Trigg and his family graced us with their presence at the Zappos Headquarters yesterday and our very own wrestling enthusiast Brett H. got the chance to sit down with Frank and ask him, well, pretty much whatever he'd like.

Ever wondered how to measure your child's foot without going to the shoe store? This video takes you through the steps using the following supplies.

1. Paper
2. Pen or Pencil
3. Zappos.com conversion chart

We hope you find this video helpful and entertaining!

We probably all had Friendship Bracelets when we were kids, and possibly friendship t-shirts as well. Why did we give up on this very unified idea of showing off our love for one another with the use of cotton and cool colors? Well folks, I'm happy to say that there are two BFF's that have not only held on to that feeling, but are also bringing it back in a major way.

At Zappos, we are always finding ways to have a little fun around the office. Of course having "create fun and a little weirdness" as one of our core values, we can only expect employees to play practical jokes on each other. Our Help Desk team decided it would be fun to send each other a little present that they found.

Heaven thought it was a bit strange that she received an extra Zappos box with her order, but she went ahead and opened it anyway. I'm sure she's going to come up with something good to get them back.

For over a year now we've had our wonderful coffee machines in the lobby of each of our buildings. In fact, they have become such a part of our family that we dressed one of them up and named it Rosie.

Express Oh is the company that supplies and maintains these wonderful machines so that no Zapponian is left without a quick pick me up. This week, as part of their annual customer appreciation day, our friends from Express Oh stopped by and whipped up some great coffee drinks for everyone at the office. All the coffee drinkers in the office were extremely excited and very grateful for those cool iced coffees on the 100 degree day.

You may have seen us eat Oreos, Watermelon and Hot Dogs Competitively, but we have officially graduated to Popcorn Butter Topping. Warning: This video contains excessive consumption of Popcorn Butter.

We get a lot of questions from our readers about a number of different topics. Everything from "do you guys really get free lunch?" to "Can we take a tour of the office when we visit?". Recently we got the question "How do you properly package a return?" , so we decided to make a fun and informative video to show everyone how. Let us know what you think!

The Zappos.com Fulfillment Center was recently honored for excellence at the Best Places to Work in Kentucky awards dinner! Thirty of our managers attended the awards ceremony in Lexington, KY where they anxiously awaited the ranking results. The award is based on an assessment of our employee policies and the results of the internal employee survey. Zappos.com was recognized as #22 on the list of best places to work in the “large companies” category. Hundreds of companies in Kentucky are assessed annually to compete for this honor and we’re very humbled to be on the list! It is because of our employees’ determination to drive our culture that we are truly one of the Best Places to Work in Kentucky!

written by: Melissa L.
photos by: Michele K. and Betsy D.

Does it make you cringe when you're talking to someone and they continue to talk about themselves in the third person? Or, maybe it's the person who borrows pens from your desk and never returns them.

All of us have "pet peeves" that bother us on a daily basis. We asked some people around the office to tell us about their pet peeves.

The second best part about Summer (the first being fun in the sun) is enjoying Summer fruits. And when I think of Summer fruit I think of a big juicy watermelon – and how I lost every watermelon seed spitting contest as a child, but that's besides the point. So, since eating watermelon on a hot summer day is as American of a past time as Baseball, we decided to spruce it up a bit and have a watermelon cook-off right here in the Zappos headquarters. From cakes to salsas to fancy drinks, the ways in which a refreshing watermelon can be enjoyed are endless.

The winning watermelon creation went to Shannon R. for the watermelon bundt cake with watermelon cream cheese frosting.

HERE'S THE WINNING RECIPE!!!

*WATERMELON CAKE *
PREP TIME: 10 minutes
COOK TIME: 35 minutes

INGREDIENTS:
Cake:
•1 (2-layer) package white cake mix
•1 small package mixed fruit or watermelon gelatin powder
•1 1/3 cups seedless watermelon cut from the center into 1 inch cubes
•3 egg whites
•1 tablespoon vegetable oil
•1 cup miniature white chocolate chips

Frosting:
•¼ cup watermelon juice
•½ cup butter, at room temperature
•2 cups powdered sugar
•2 (3-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
•2-3 drops of red food coloring, optional
•1/8 cup miniature white chocolate chips, optional

PREPARATION:
Cake:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a bundt cake pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk together cake mix and gelatin powder until combined. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat watermelon, egg whites, and vegetable oil until smooth. Add dry ingredients, half at a time, and mix until well blended. Fold in chips, if using.
Pour into prepared pan and bake about 35 minutes until toothpick inserted into the center comes sout clean. Cool to room temperature before frosting.

Frosting:
Blend watermelon juice, butter, powdered sugar, and cream cheese until combined and fluffy. Add food coloring to achieve a rosy watermelon color. Frost cooled cake. Place chips sporadically around the cake to simulate seeds. Refrigerate to set frosting. Remove from refrigerator at least 30 minutes before serving.

Here at Zappos, our KY Content coordinates monthly team-building activities to Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit. We are quite the large group, but we go above and beyond to try to stay close to one another despite this fact! Events have included cupcake-eating contests, water balloon fights, cornhole tournaments, extreme Jenga and cream-pie Supervisor target practice...among many others.

When my turn came up to coordinate a team building exercise, I decided to try and do something a little different. I have played guitar for many years, so, with that in mind, I decided to serenade my co-workers and grace them with the gift of song.

So we decided to have a sing-along with the entire department. Basically, I picked a few songs that I think everyone knows (plus a couple of my personal favorites), put together a set list - ranging from Johnny Cash to The Smiths - brought in my acoustic guitar, handed out lyric sheets and gave it a go.

The audience was receptive and sang the words right back at me...so, all in all, this was a success! If anything, I think I did manage to do something that was memorable considering all of the random, amusing things that occur here pretty much on a daily basis.



written by: Alex M.
photos by: Lynn G.

Amanda C. was born with an amazing talent, and we not only think it's awesome, but we're also extremely jealous.On a side note, Amanda's brother Daniel is a Process Manager in our Kentucky Fulfillment Center and just celebrated his 3 year anniversary with the Company! Do you have any wild or wacky talents? Let us know!!

Team Kaizen, representing our fabulous Customer Loyalty department and fully inline with our mission of continuous improvement, decided we were getting a little rusty on our ninja thumb skills. So, at Krissi's suggestion, we decided to have a little Kaizen Thumb War! Needless to say, it was a vicious and bloody affair...okay, not really, but we sure got in each other's faces about it! Here is the breakdown:

Round 1 – Jasime vs. Krissi
*Jasmine moves on
Round 2- Jasmine vs. Ernie
*Ernie moves on
Round 3 – Ernie vs. Jenny
*Ernie moves on
Round 4 – Ernie vs. Holly
*Ernie moves on
Round 5 – Ernie vs. Martha
*Ernie moves on
Round 6 – Ernie vs. Will
Ernie moves on and WINS!

So, congratulations to Ernie L., the Kaizen Thumb War Champion! Disclaimer: If any of you know Ernie and have seen his hands, you will realize this was not a fair fight. Sore losers?? You bet!

At this point, Kaizen decided it would be good to further humiliate me by highlighting my gross inadequacy in the battle of the thumb, so I went on to battle Krissi...and was ignominiously defeated. As I lamented by awful skills, Rob Seifker, who couldn't help but hear our antics, strolled over and asked to have a go. In the spirit of “Will's utter humiliation”, I was chosen to battle Rob...and subsequently lost. Let's go ahead and wrap this up now, but I just want everyone to know that I will have my sweet thumb revenge!

Today we at Zappos would like to wish everyone in the United States of America a Happy Independence Day! We hope that everyone is going to spend their day with friends and family and celebrate this nation that has done so much for all of us.

We would also like to extend a THANK YOU to all members of the United States Military who are fighting all over the world. We salute those souls whose selfless acts keep the rest of us safe from harm.

Happy 4th of July, America!

America's Independence Day is Saturday, and us at the Blog Team at Zappos.com thought it would be a grand idea to walk around the office asking random US Trivia questions (nothing too hard, just the basics) to see how many people could get them right.

Happy 4th of July!

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!).