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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Do you remember that first job working at the local fast food restaurant or grocery store. Some of those first jobs were so fun you wish you could still do them today and some the exact opposite – you wouldn't go back no matter how much you were paid. Some people had big aspirations of working for a pro sports franchise when they get older – our very own John D. lived that dream in his early years.

On this latest first jobs video, Zappos employees tell us about some of their first and worst jobs.

At the end of each quarter, our Finance department has a team event to celebrate their accomplishments and have a little fun before the next quarter. Each event has a different theme, and this quarters was "Crazy Hat Day."

Check out how creative our Finance depatment can be.

Almost on a daily basis, you will find random, fun things going on here at the office, and it usually happens when someone comes up with an idea and just runs with it.

So the other day, our Cruise Ship Captain, Jamie N. decided we should have an eating contest. An email went out to the company, and the next day everyone gathered around a multitude of packages of Oreo cookies in the lunchroom, and the contest was on.

Congratulations to Ryan I. for being the fastest at eating Oreo cookies.

Like the mysterious things that are said to take place in Area 51, there were some really amazing things happening at our own Area 52 here at Zappos last week. Each day emails were sent out about promotions into this area. So we decided to investigate what was happening by speaking to Jane J., our Senior Manager in charge of our Customer Loyalty Team.

Our CLT team is our call center, which is our main interaction of Zappos and our customers. Area 52 is the management staff for CLT. While Zappos is know for customer service, and the amazing job our CLT does is one of the main reasons why, they feel like they want to continuously improve the level of service they give. With Zappos call center growing so rapidly over the past few years, they felt they wanted to make some changes that would strengthen the department, and the service they give even more.

Zappos believes that if you take care of your employees, they will in turn take care of the customers - happy employees = happy customers. The CLT department's goal for this year is to "Develop people and cultivate culture." By promoting several supervisors into management positions, this will allow each manager to have less reps under them, and therefore, build even stronger manager and team relationships.

Congratulations to all those going into Area 52's management staff, and thank you to everyone in CLT for continuing to deliver WOW through service.


Pictured above: Area 52 Customer Loyalty Management Team

Zappos Zollar program is a fun way that Zappos managers use to recognize employees around the office for doing a good job. Zollars are made up money that Zappos uses to allow employees to purchase things from the Zollar store.

It may not seem like much, but it's just another great program we have here to show employees how valuable they are. Our Cruise Ship Captain, Jamie, who is in charge of the merchandise for the program, talks about how it was started and some of the new item being put in store.