Why does Brett – hard core rock ‘n roller, natural born Hoosier and wavy-haired God – look so sad? Look closely. Look carefully.

A rock God doesn’t wear a baby tee-sized sweatshirt. Baby tees, yes. But not a midriff-baring sweatshirt where the sleeves don’t even quite make it to his wrists.

You might be asking, “So, does Brett shop at Baby Gap?” The answer is maybe, because I don’t know Brett that well, but I do know that this sweatshirt is too small because his Mama put it in the dryer for a bit too long.

And he is sad about it. Clearly.

“I love my Mama…but I really loved that sweatshirt,” he said this morning. Lesson learned: a mother’s laundering skills fade over time.

We had 3 birthdays in Creative Services today. Happy Birthday Mayen, Jeff and Brian! It seems the TPing elves were busy last night. Yep, looks like they were on a roll…of toilet paper that is. Here’s one of the 3 desks that were so adorned. (yeah, we used more than 1 roll - as the only 6 footer in the room at the time, i did the ceiling work.)



Here are 2 of our 3 giant pizzas. 30" baby!


And here’s the Brian K, Mr. Argyle, getting serenaded by a giant tomato. You can't make this stuff up!


And then we had some super delicious cupcakes!
What a zany, yep typical day at Zappos. (LOL, Smurf Parade!)

Kris is a happy young man full of creativity, guitar knowledge, excitement and has a love of organic foods that rivals Ed Begley, Jr., and that's serious business. Kris formerly worked in our Kentucky warehouse as an image processor before moving to Las Vegas to pursue his love of grape leaves, expensive health food and organic tea. Kris focuses on the categorization of product and on reciting Adam Sandler movie quotes....constantly.

Kris is also the king of the smooth jazz guitar..he can seduce you with just a minor 7th chord or two...it takes not long, my friends. He loves Morrissey and Ween, as well. (On a side note, I think I heard him banging his head to 80's hair metal recently, when I saw an evil fire in his eyes, but it was probably just all the pesticide-free food releasing it's goodness into his bloodstream)

Kristopher is a fine individual and is insanely dedicated to Zappos...his car might be freakishly small and economical, but he has the heart the size of the fiercest lion.

Here is the interview with the man, this reporter refers to as Mr. Lippy.

Laurie and I are back in the madness that is the KYImages room again today, and things are getting even stranger. A wrestler named Bubbles Van Peterson Jr. entered the room today, and she will not leave us alone. She choked-slammed me and my shoes came off. It was terrible.

Below is her pictured when she attacked Dr. Vik while in Vegas....she came after him with the crown and a billy club shortly after this was taken. She toured the Memphis circuit for many years before being kicked out of the tag team, the Dueling Omblongadas. She actually ate an opponent alive....it was a terrible sight. She claimed that the deceased tasted like no-bake cookies....fyi. (Bubbles is pictured below)

Laurie and I continue to work with our friends out here in the beautiful state of Kentucky. Blue Skies, Allman Brothers style.....I should go, Laurie and Bubbles are grappling near Receiving. This might be bad. Real bad.

Laurie W. and I are in the land of KY this week helping our comrades
here with a few new processes....but the room is full of strangeness.

There are naked ghosts standing all about the room, and we are
frightened to the point of complete paralysis. Our imagery and photo
studios are actually located deep within the Zappos warehouse. It's a
strangely quiet room and a very tall, demon-like creature lurks about.
(who has an awful lot of Transformer toys at his desk, I might add).
His name is Max the Terrible, and this reporter knows better than to
come into his treacherous field of vision. We will be here all
week....I will keep you posted on our condition and whereabouts.

Tonight, Rico C. and I will venture out into the hills of Kentucky near
the Zappos warehouse and see what trouble awaits us. A great deal, I
would imagine.
Your friend in Indiucky, Brett.

Thursday at 3:30pm we all walked into the training room, which had been transformed into an awesome art show! Some rad people in the photo department put together our second Creative Services Art Gala. Some team members in our KY Content team put in their art masteries for all of us to see. I was truly amazed by everyone's talent. There was so much more than just photography and paintings. People also displayed sculptures, drawings, mixed media, and even fashion! They also provided delicious snacks for us. Sparkling grape juice, meats, cheeses, crackers, and desserts! The desserts ranged from chocolate covered strawberries to pineapple cake. We love food.

Quite a few people from the photo department put in their work. We did however, have one person from our very own images team submit work. I know, it's sad we didn't all participate, and we're lame.. losers.. L7 weenies..I know. We are our own worst critics, and we don't think our work is great, yadda.. yadda... except for Erin Ryan (our supervisor). Her piece was amazing and she does awesome work. Way to go Errrin! Her piece is a painting of sorts. She's been writing poems since she was little and thought she would give life to them by taking actual tangible things from the poems and putting them on canvas and using her favorite art medium, Liquitex Gloss Medium and Varnish. This particular piece titled, "The Woman," is based on a poem she wrote about a 1920's prostitute. She used almost all vintage pieces to construct a collage of sorts to give life to the poem. For example a few vintage portraits, a handkerchief, jewelry, and a powder case are just a few of the items that represented the life that this fictional character endured. This is just one of a series of these types of "paintings." We look forward to seeing more of Erin's work in the future and maybe work from the rest of us as well...yes.. ?

Here is Erin's work and a video of us walking around and looking at art!


Artsy We Are! -Posted May 2nd 2008

If your in the Kentucky warehouse anytime between now and May 9th, you should stop by.


Thanks to everyone who put this show together, it looked great! I cant wait until next year!

The Wolf is a Production Assistant here in on our Creative Services team. He claims to be part tomato. We fear that he is lying to us. The Wolf actually came to us from our Customer Loyalty Department almost a year ago, many moons indeed. We chose him for his quick wit, archery skills and Photoshop mastery. Upstairs in our Vegas headquarters, adorned upon a wall, is a large graffiti Zappos logo that the Wolf spray painted for our CLT friends. He is a wild beast with a spray paint can, let me tell you.

The Wolf comes from the wilderness, and he shows not his face due to the poaching threat. (He also is just having a bad hair day and forgot to wear his hat, that might have something to do with it) Jenn B. stood up for an interview with this fine man-beast to ask him of his love of Zappos, Pigs and smooth 70's arena rock.

Wolf: We salute you.

Ever walked into that red room, next to the huge blue photo room in the middle of the warehouse? Yes? No? Well, I guess you can't necessarily just walk in, unless you have a special badge to get you in...but you can knock anytime! If you haven't, you should stop by sometime and see what we're all about!
Either way, welcome to the Images room! It's where all the color correcting, switching images, and Photoshop magic happens. Enter at your own risk, to the no bully zone with the huge pictures of our faces, and unexplainable drawings on the board. If its real quiet, all you will hear is the ongoing typing and clicking that comes with image processing that is going on!

Beware if you're near the fridge and an awful smell comes out while you wait under the unearthly, airport-like lighting. What can I say? It is what it is! People love all kinds of food, and we need special lighting! If you don't like it, thats cool, we have a punching bag in here somewhere. I say somewhere, because since we had some mannequins move in our room, we don't go on that side of the room much. It's kind of eerie. They're pretty life like, so it looks like headless nude people standing in a group with clear plastic bags over their bodies. Reminds me of the scene in the Silent Hill movie. Yeah...

While visiting, if you have, you may or may not have noticed the little yellow notes stuck to our walls or our computers, with weird little faces drawn on them. Those are drawn by our very own Jon, sometimes we call him Johnny. He's been at Zappos for almost 2 years now. You know he loves it! We always wondered why Jon draws these weird faces, and what they mean to him. So we decided to bother him and ask. We like to put Jon on the spot!

Here are the many faces of Jon!
Many Faces of Jon -Posted April 30th 2008

Next time you come by, you should ask Jon to get your very own post it face! You never know, he could be famous for it some day!

We here in CS enjoy the finer things in life: poetry, abstract art,
throwing objects at co-workers, throwing large objects at Co-Workers, the Chicken Dance, The Money Pit (or any movie Shelley Long or anyone related to Shelley Long has appeared in) and..........Sugar-less Gum.

In particular, Brett H. and Alex K., love gum like no other grown men have ever
loved gum. They are connoisseurs of the finest, the best; we have literally traveled all over the world in search of a flavor that will fill we hearts with glee. We take photos of gum in other countries and pass them along. It all began years ago when Brett decided to cease his nasty smoking habit and began collecting gums of all different flavors....seriously, it was beginning to near an illegal amount at one point. I think someone might have called the authorities. But soon it caught on and we have been spreading the good word of our sugar-less addiction.
Below is a random snapshot of our very own Laurie-Bear enjoying Brett's
new flavor discovery. Just wanted to make you all are aware.

Good Day.....

I said Good Day, Sir!

LOL! We had about 100 kids come into Zappos today as part of the national "Bring your kid to work day." It was quite nice to see all their smiling faces. We had a wide range of activities for them hosted by several of the departments here. When they got to Creative Services we had several activities. For starters each child was photographed in front of a blue screen with a dramatic pose



Next their picture would be overlaid on a funny background picture for delivery to their parents tomorrow. Brett H. had his guitar and held a little jam session and took requests from the kids. Brett was quite impressed with their musical sophistication – many classic rock requests. Hey children are a reflection of their parents! And Nikki W. had a video session with some of the kids in our little nook lounge. About the only downside of these kids days is that the vending machine and ice cream treats freezer are barren. <shakes fist at sky>

So this morning, Brian K. (the Argyle guy ) says we all need to go up to the other building, to the Finance area in 10 minutes. We’re all like “um why, what’s up?” but he wouldn’t say. So naturally we start making up stuff like Finance is going to pelt us with water balloons or eggs, or give us packets of currency, or…we’re all going to get pink slipped, fired, let go, canned, terminated or since we sell a lot of shoes at Zappos, given the boot!

We assemble out front, join the Marketing people and start the long march, uphill both ways, to the other building. A couple of the Marketing folks were grumbling about the golf cart not being available but hey that’s Marketing for you! Just Kidding! Our Marketing people are pretty unstuck up and they hardly ever say stuff like “Incent the Channel” or “monetize the zippidy do da” – well maybe Scott does.

When we got up to the main building, we pushed the Marketing people in first. But that backfired on us because surprise surprise, no water balloons and no firings- but no wads of cash either. Though they did have a lot of eggs. What we found was that the entire Finance Department having a nice hot breakfast - seriously, pancakes, made to order omelets, bacon, sausage, even vegan breakfast meats. That textured Soy protein has come a long way baby! And guess what, the Marketing folks were first in line.

So of course we crashed their breakfast and descended like locusts. And let me tell you what, some of us Creative Services types can really plow down the chow. The Marketing people, they just like to “graze” so we “shunted” them to the sidelines and had at it. So yeah, we had a pretty fine and yummy morning! Thanks Finance!

Eric is with our Human Resources team and he is the recruiter for my department, Creative Services. Today was his birthday and our Web Producers, the people who code the webpages that you see and hopefully buy stuff from, surprised him by wearing special t-shirts that had his picture centered in a star and the faces of all the web producers around him. Eric was right in the middle of working with an interviewee and oh boy, we must have certainly made an impression on him! Several of us joked to him that everyday is like this!


Seriously, Eric does super job finding new people for us - they not only have to have the technical skills but also have to fit into our unique culture and embrace our core values. It's not a one or the other, but both, and in good measure. And yes, we're hiring. Please consider joining us! (Psssst, today's free onsite lunch is BBQ!)

Today we handed out our 2008 Zappos.com Print Ad Creative postcards
to Vegas employees! They are a sampling of some of the visuals being
used in our print ad campaign, which hit the newsstands this week!

All employees received five cards to send anywhere to anyone in the world! (I suggested we send them all to Val Kilmer. I don't really know why. First person that popped in my head.)In true creative service/marketing style, we just wheeled them around the office in a wagon and dove headlong into the seas of madness that are the CLT and Merchandising Floors.

Our Creative Service and Marketing crazies filled the aisles in a very non-disruptive.....well, ok, rather disruptive manner to hand bundles of postcards to the un-suspecting masses. Every employee has been given free reign to do what they want with them...who knows, you may be receiving one yourself!
These cards are a part of the 2008 Zappos.com Print Ad Creative, which is also coming along the same time as our brand spankin' new television commercial that began airing a few weeks ago. It is airing on multiple networks throughout the U.S. T.V.-O-Sphere, maybe you've seen one....if not, and if you're nice, I'll post it right below. I'm considering it......I'm considering it.....alright, you won me over. But barely. : )
It's a great new direction for us and we are very excited about it!
Anyway, back to filling out postcards, I'm sending one to my favorite
New Kid on the Block! (I won't say who)

Hey! Today is Brian K's fifth anniversary at Zappos. He started with Zappos back when it was in San Francisco. Now, look at him - one of the world's foremost proponents of Argyle and Argyle accessories. I thought I'd ask him a few questions about then and now. Please feel free to ask him other questions in the comments section.

1. What do you remember about your first day at Zappos?

I remember a lot less people :-)But I also remember a positive energy and a complete sense of unity in what we were trying to achieve as a company. We had so much to learn and when I look back I sometimes get all excited thinking about how much I have grown personally and professionally.

2. Any comparisons you'd like to make from then vs now?

I actually think we have enhanced our culture and work environment a great deal in the past 5 years. From the beginning (my beginning rather) I noticed it was a distinctly different place than any other I had worked at. Perhaps that was the beginning of the company culture forming and taking shape. But now, I see it as the core focus of the business, happy cows make good milk.

3. What did you think Zappos might look like now back then vs how it really is now. Any milestone moments?

Well honestly, I thought looking out my window that it would still look like San Francisco but it actually looks like Las Vegas! I know that is not quite what you meant, but really that is the only tangible thing I can say about it. Because back then we knew there was potential, but at least I did not know how much. While I had faith Zappos would grow massively I guess 5 years ago when I took the job I didn't fully comprehend the possibilities as I do now.

4. Any other stories about people from way back when you'd like to share with us?

Well, one of my first full days in the office was the day a certain someone arm wrestled a certain someone else and an arm was broken!

5. Anything else you'd like to add?

Well, I hope on my 10 year anniversary that I have grown and learned as much as I have in the first 5. It’s been a good fun ride so far, understanding where Zappos can go just adds fuel to the fire!



Brian shows off his Argyle trimmed shoes. His feet are propped up on several cases of offical Zappos shot glasses. Check out his quote on the white board. He has a bad case of hat head/hair today. And that is not his middle finger.

The Magical Mountain Tour
Our wonderful web production team led by valiant knight Alex K., took a
journey on Wednesday that led them to one of the most magical places on
this fine earth.The team of 8 who work on Front End Development within the Creative Service
department here at Zappos.com, chartered a van and headed to Valencia, CA to the roller coaster insanity of Magic Mountain.

"The path was treacherous and long, but we made it
in fine form," said Alex K. "But we are a strong group of mammals, make
no mistake about that".

The group made t-shirts for the event, or battle-cloth, as they would
prefer that you call it, that had each one of them visually depicted,
which gained quite a bit of attention along the way. "Everywhere we
stopped along the way, people would stare at our shirts attempting to
match our faces to the drawing," said Ray M. "I felt famous, like Ryan Seacrest or Edgar Winter or something," he said.


The journey ended up at their destination at around 11:30 AM, and the good time happy day began.Ray M. says that although he enjoyed the roller coasters a great
deal, some of his cohorts were deeply frightened.

"I really loved the ride Goliath; it made me feel like a kid again. But Ryan was scared,
too scared to move, I tell you." (Author's note, Ryan A. has declined
to comment on this accusation, but he claims to be seeking revenge by
vandalizing Ray M.'s desk, possibly knocking over his filing cabinet.)
The group spent 6 hours riding, eating and enjoying each other's
company and, after a long day, the group finally rolled back into Vegas tired,
hungry and ready for more. Alex K. was happy with the result of his
toil, and he felt that this was a great exercise for his team to grow
closer to one another.