Merchandise Planners Daisy L. and Sarah Z. declared Finance Frank Z. an ACCESS WIZZARD! Frank has been graciously sharing his Microsoft Access knowledge cross functionally, especially with his favorite team Merchandise Planning! To show their appreciation, they custom made a one of a kind Wizard hat and threw in a magic light up wand.

What a magical example of Zappos Core Value #5 Purse Growth and Learning! Thanks for all you do Frank!

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.

When you think about a Finance department, you don't normally think of guys doing crazy things like betting on getting a mohawk hairdo over a UFC fight – but then again, this is Zappos we're talking about.

Scott S. lost the bet and had to get a mohawk, and since we're all about team spirit around here, Daniel and Lakshan went ahead and joined in on the fun.

The Zappos Finance Department teamed up with Spread the Word Las Vegas to help Clean books for At Risk Children in Southern Nevada. Spread the Word gathers gently used books from Children who have outgrown them, find groups to help clean them, and place them into hands of children who may have never had a book to call their own. We feel this not only helps our Community, but also helps the finance team to build a positive team and family spirit.

Sure the Finance team is known for Random Acts of Kindness, but today they transformed the 2290 Breakroom into a Pancakery!! This morning on my way into the office, I was greeted with a Pancake and a smile, and I must say it made the rest of my day much brighter.They don't call Breakfast the most important meal of the day for nothing.

Our finance was once again showed us their fun and wild side today, selecting two Zappos employees at random to give their Random Acts of Kindness award.

Surprised with the honor this week were Crystal C. and David C...... Way to show that spirit, Finance!

Don’t get to Close to this desk unless your looking for a Baseball Bat to the Bobble Head! Not only does Patrick S. have a lot of fantastic Zappos Culture awards, he also knows what Gophers can do to a golf course.

Thank you Patrick S.!!!!

Our Finance Team at Zappos are quite a great bunch, and the Random Acts of Kindness award that they give to two employees every week proves that fact!

Our blog man, Jason C., happened to be on hand for their parade and presentation this week, and he caught it all on camera! Take it away, Finance!

So as a loyal soldier of the UX team I can stand behind the claim that Development lost the battle held this morning. While I am a firm believer that a war consists of more than one battle, the first battle does set the tone for the rest of the war. In the pic below you will see clearly the white flag being waved by those across the battle lines on the development side. All should bask in the glory of the victorious UX, PM, HR and Finance allied powers.

Fore score and several weeks ago our Dev team raised up a great army unlike Zappos has ever seen in order to claim the 2300 building for their own. Today it was PM, UX, HR and Finance teams that decided to join troops and to fight this great army of nerf gun nerds. Though their courage is something that all of Zappos should honor, their army was no match for the smoke machine and customized nerf weapons.

Today we all take our hats off and bow down to the new kings of the hill - Development.

Maybe once the Finance and Human Resources army gains it's strength back, they will strike back

By Alfred L. (COO/CFO), reporting live from ground zero of no-internet anarchy at Zappos.com Headquarters.

We had a little Internet outage today at the Zappos offices for a couple of hours. I was told that some router's firmware puked, whatever that means. There was a time when we were able to put in a full day's work just fine without this thing called the Internet. Those days are officially over -- at least at Zappos. Since we couldn't access our news feeds, personal emails, and internet radio stations...I mean, our corporate emails, servers, and systems, we thought we would have a little fun in the process.

Our Finance team had been planning for a while to have a 10-key Olympics. For those who don't know, we wanted to know who is most proficient at using only their right hand to enter data with the numerical keypad. Pretty geeky stuff, but they had a blast because they are geeks. Given this world of edi, xml, and all sorts of electronic data transfer formats, we seem to still manually enter a ton of data. i guess every now and then smart technology just isn't so smart?

Speaking of smart technology, our development team had been slowly amassing an arsenal of low-tech Nerf weapons of mass destruction over the last few months. it began with small revolver guns with 6 Nerf pellets, but it had escalated to motorized guns with modified banks of Nerf pellets and rubber bands to make the pellets fly further. Since the Development team couldn't connect to their precious code and whatever backdoor games they'd put on our servers, they entertained themselves by shooting anyone who walked by their desks.

As with the rise of any oppressive power, a revolution began, and developed (no pun intended)into a full scare Nerf war. Our finance team invaded their area and just started shooting. I held the door open to the development lair and have scars on my back from all the pellets fired upon me.

Our developers retaliated in full force, pushed the finance team back, disrupted a peaceful gathering of 10-key olympians, and kidnapped a few hostages. An armistice was called when the war started to intrude upon conference rooms where real meetings were being had -- must be those low-tech merchants who don't need the Internet to have a productive meeting.

Others took a more solitary approach to Internet withdrawal.
Keith C. decided to use the time trying to beat his own top score on Bulls-Eye ball 2.
Johnny p. decided to catch up on some much needed shuteye. How does he sleep with the noise of Bulls-Eye Ball 2 in the background and the cries and carnage of his team members in the development lair?

oh, Internet is back up...back to work...got to make up for 2 hours of downtime!

P.S. If you like to work hard and play hard, send us a note and your resume to jobs@zappos.com.

P.P.S. To our investors, your blood might be boiling about the thought of our internet being down, but i assure you that our website was up and running during this outage and still taking orders from customers. ;-)

Las Vegas, NV--On Thursday afternoon, the rebels of Finance crossed the border into Dev. to attack in fear of a preemptive strike, but were eventually overwhelmed by the Dev Forces.

The attack was prompted by sheer boredom when the Internet went down for a short period in the office on Thursday afternoon. After much deliberation, they decided that the risk of a strike from Dev was too great, so the attacked with their large arsenal of Nerf weaponry.

But the size of the Dev army overtook them and they were pushed back over into their border 10 minutes after the invasion.

"They fought like toddlers, really. It was sad," said Lt. Alex K., in a statement to the Zappos.com Blog Team. "Next time, we're coming for them, and there is no turning back," he added.

Below is a video of the attack.

Las Vegas, NV-- Tensions are rising as our Development team and Finance team are ignoring requests for talk of a cease fire of the ongoing Nerf war. Both teams have given up on peace talks, and the rumors of war are abound.

There has even been talk of a premptive strike against Finance from Development, and these rumors were proven today as Alex K., stated, "We feel that we need to strike before their arsenal of Nerf weapons grows any larger. I don't think we can wait, it might be too late".

Finance has stock piled some large Nerf machine guns and bows and arrows.

There is even infighting in both camps, our reporter Brett Houchin was caught in a crossfire today and it was caught on film.

The Zappos.com Blog Team will be here to keep you filled in on this developing story.

Jennifer P., Sept.12, 2008 Winner!!!

What is your favorite type of shoe and why?

I love any shoe/ boot that demands attention. A little bit shocking, even a little over the top. I know it's a hot shoe when even Zappos people are like "WOW, those are some cool shoes!"

Give me one Core value that you think best represents your fashion statement?

Without a doubt core value # 3: Create fun and a little weirdness. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I live for weirdness. I love living outside the norm! Helping people open their eyes to different options other than the boring old normal way of doing things.

What has been your favorite Zappos fashion Expo so far of 2008?

I actually really enjoyed the Private label expo. It gave me some good insight to upcoming fashion trends.

Fashion Pick- If you could have ANY pair of shoes on the Zappos.com website, which ones would you pick?

These!

Wowza, I say!

This month seems to be a "give back" kind of month for Zappos. The Finance team jumped right on that train and volunteered their services to help clean books for Spread the Word Nevada.

The goal of Spread the Word Nevada, is to promote literacy and to make it possible for all of Nevada's children to experience the magic of books. Its flagship program, Kids to Kids distributes books to elementary schools throughout Southern Nevada and has had a profound impact on the lives of thousands of children in Nevada schools.

The Finance team had a blast cleaning books and catching up on their elementary reading. The team made the day a true team bonding event and spent most of the two hours laughing and scrubbing.

Some of the books that were donated weren't always directed at children and we made sure to pull those and giggle about them later.