Today is the day of the Smurf here at Zappos! The halls of our offices were invaded by dozens of Smurfs just after lunch. Word has it that the Kids team was responsible for the random act of Smurf but no one will confirm for sure.



Not only did the Smurfs steal the attention of every department here, they also overhauled the Zappos Core Values! Find a few words of the wise from the creatures in blue below:

1. Deliver SMURF through service
2. Embrace and drive SMURF
3. Create SMURF and a little SMURFiness
4. Be SMURF, SMURF, and SMURF
5. Pursue SMURF and SMURF
6. Build SMURF and honest SMURF with SMURF
7. Build a positive SMURF and family SMURF
8. Do more with SMURF
9. Be passionate and SMURF
10. Be SMURF

Salutations, rapturous readers! I hope this merry missive from yours truly finds you reasonably chirpy! There was no wayI could let the week come to an end without one last update, as there was a boat-load of stuff that happened in Zappos.com's HR and Training teams since last we spoke!

So much culture, so little time…

Much of that boat-load had something to do with Jamie N., Zappos' resident Cruise Ship Coordinator! Also called “JamStar!” by those who know her best, she creates and coordinates myriad and momentous employee-related events, activities, and programs…kind of like Julie from the Love Boat, but without that 80's perm and with a bit more of an edge.

Our 4th Annual Zappos Employee Picnic was the largest to date, and ridiculously successful…


The calm before the crazy.

Kris Z. and Angela M. realizing they’re clearly outclassed. (Not that there’s anything classy about Bryan T.’s utter abandonment of all civility…)

L to R: Steve P., Mark G., Steve H., Fred M., Meghan B., and Eileen L. Winners of the Team Challenge!

...and JamStar just couldn’t resist making some mischief along the way:

“Ever since HR’s very own Dave H. won the typing contest, there have been vicious rumors aboutHR rigging results. Some of us decided to fight back. We held a raffle at the picnic, drew the winners yesterday, and sent the following email:

---

Congratulations to the following folks lucky enough to win a prize in the Picnic Raffle:

• 1 Play Station 3 (Valued at $400) = Dave W. from HR
• 1 Stainless Barbeque Grill Station (Valued at $200) = Drew K. from HR
• 2 Flip Video Camera (Valued at $155 each) = Rebecca R. and Hollie D. from HR
• 1 Espresso Coffee Maker (Valued at $100) = Christa F. from HR
• 2 Polaroid Digital Camera (Valued at $90 each) = Jacob P. and Rosalind S. from HR
• 1 Margarita Madness Machine (Valued at $80) = Eric V. from HR
• 1 Shell Gift Card (Valued at $50) = Heaven T. from HR

Wow, it looks like HR really swept the grand prizes. Luck of the draw I guess.

---

“Phones started to ring, inboxes started to blow up. It was great! Just some of the comments: Cheaters!...Jamie, that's statistically a little suspicious…this is gonna really upset people that everyone in HR won and no one else, wow…rofl!...You should send a follow-up picture of HR loading everything into someone's trunk.

“We let the team off the hook and sent the list of the real winners out. This caused another flood of emails: THAT WAS GREAT!!!... You guys are too much!... Here we all were with out mouths agape, when we got your second email…You punks!... You should have heard the grumbling goin on over here!!... Nice trick. LOL”

PS: For those of you questioning whether Dave H. actually won the typing contest last week, he's happy to go mano a mano with anyone doubting his skills. You name the time and place.

Meanwhile, the trail-blazing Training team was having an out of this world Las Vegas Encounter! Super Trainer,
Adrienne “Abductee” C. probes into greater detail for us: “Remember the exchange student program in high school? Zappos does! Every 3 weeks or so, we fly 5-10 employees from the fulfillment center (our warehouse) in Shepherdsville, Kentucky out to Vegas, put them up at the local Station Casinos hotel, and give them rental cars to run wild around town!

“They spend a week with us in our corporate office learning how the ‘other side’ lives and works. They visit
different departments and get to do some hands on stuff. Before this group left to go home, they wanted to do a parade around the office. You know how much we love parades!http://blogs.zappos.com/!!

“Sharing their Kentucky-ness by bringing the Derby to us Vegans!"

“A Vegas trip isn’t complete without visiting the sign!”

Some parting notes: Jobs@zappos! For all my friends!

Have any ideas on how this crazy, kooky thing we call a blog could evolve? They don’t even need to be good ones! Have a burning question, or a need to wax philosophical? Need some sage advice? I’m here for you, citizens of the interweb!

Coming Soon:

• How HR’s Monthly Outing Literally Rocked!
• Random Rozzy Thoughts (yer gonna love this)
• The Benches Are Here!!!!! (or, “Why We Love Rozzy and Rebecca L.”)

Catch y’all on the flip side, and remember: “We gotta find that troll!”
~Ddroo!

I hadn’t been to a New Hire class graduation in a while and I was pleasantly surprised to see that community participation has really grown since my graduation about a year ago. Back then we called it CLT training but we’ll be transitioning to the new name of New Hire training because the scope will be encompassing a wider range of topics. The new graduates do a parade (we didn’t do that a year ago) through both buildings and also have a formal (for Zappos) graduation ceremony. Between you and me, I got a little misty.

Here’s a clip of one segment of the graduation parade. They are turning the corner by the RDesk on the second floor. All the graduates stream by and then we get a closing cameo from Tammy. She’s holding a Galen face stick - Galen was the first person to be face stuck at Zappos. Anyone else know of an institutional(ized) face stick tradition outside of Zappos?


And here’s a clip of part of the graduation ceremony. Adrienne, our MC asks the new graduates to pin on their personalized Z badges. You can also see the gift bags they’ll be receiving. I do a pan of the graduates and then the well wishers. I also practice my 720 degree “hurl not” spin. Olympics here I come!

March Madness that is! Like always Finance went all out, this time around Finance
threw a March Madness parade. Helping spread the madness, leading the Allstar Varsity Team was Nothing but Net Jimmy and White Chocolate Johnny dribbling the team through the halls! Frank and Devlyn lead the cheerleaders and the Finance Mascots pumped up the crazy Zappos fans! The Referees and Coaches were on hand to closely watch for any foul plays!! Of course like any sporting event there were plenty of peanuts and cotton candy flying through the air to feed the crowd. Big thanks to Audrea for organizing the Madness!

ZAPPOS FINANCE WILL ALWAYS ROCK YOU!!!

We had 2 parades this week. On Wednesday we had 2 Customer Loyalty Team groups combine forces - our Resource Desk (aka Rdesk) got together with our Incubation class for a joint parade. The people in RDesk are some of our most versatile, capable and experienced CLT Reps. The RDesk decorates their area with a pirate theme - "Arrrr Desk" - so that's the reason for the inflatable pirate and other swashbuckling items.

Everyone in our Incubation class just finished 4 weeks of New Hire training and now they are going through the 3 week Incubation program. Upon successful completion they'll join one of the CLT groups "on the floor" and be full fledged Reps. Many of Incubation paraders wore mock white plastic diapers to symbolize their relative newness.

Our second parade was put on by our Facilities Group on Thursday. It was an Easter parade with bright Spring colors and yes, bunny ears! Here they are in a group picture. The group has recently expanded and I think some of the new people were a bit incredulous that they'd be bunny hopping their way up and down both of our buildings. Our Facilities group handles all of our food & beverage needs, interior building maintenance and many special projects and services that makes Zappos such a fun place.

Okay so I’ve mentioned before that we have these impromptu “parades” here at Zappos right? Well we had a funny one recently by the Running Group. Tara is holding the “World’s Fastest Parade” sign and the group is getting ready to run through our CLT area on the 2^nd^ floor. Mike’s on the megaphone and he announced what was going on as the group ran down the halls. (no scissors were involved) They spread cheer to both our buildings and this was one of the few pictures that wasn’t blurry – yes they were that fast!

Chinese New Year has come and gone and so we've welcomed in the Year of the Rat. Anyone else reminded about the song "The Year of the Cat" by Al Stewart in 1976? Anyway our Marketing Department put on a parade. They dressed in red, put on some rat noses, borrowed some lion heads from our Private Label group, filled some baskets with fortune cookies, fired up the boom box and off they went. I tried to keep up with them as they paraded through the building and tossing the fortune cookies. Well done and “Kung Hee Fa Choy!” or “Gung Hey Fat Choy!”

Hey remember that infamous “more cow bell” Saturday Night Live Skit with Will Ferrell? Well that doesn’t have a lot to do with these two pictures of Creative Services people running in our Pamplona Parody Parade on Mardi Gras Tuesday.



We’re having a caption contest with this one because the guy running for his life is the guy who made the bull. The thing on the left that looks like a ladder is actually our yet-to-be-assembled rock climbing wall.

Here’s another picture showing how dashing the outfits are.

Check it out! Our Mighty Hunter - “Linebacker” notches one of Cupid's arrow and stalks the "Great Piggy Bank of Happiness." Yes, I am foisting another picture of our Mardi Gras Parade floats on you. Come on, aren't you glad I did? This one was done by the Finance Department. Good thing she didn’t have the bow and arrow when our bull came running through yesterday.

It’s really dangerous for me to pick favorites but I really want to share pics of these two floats with you.

The first float was built by the CLT team lead by Hard Hat Guy. They built the float around an office chair with wheels and let me tell you, they were booking down the hallways. Princess "R" was quite the trooper and hung on for dear life while also tossing treats to those lining the parade thoroughfare. More on the guy in the gray t-shirt soon!



The second float was lovingly crafted by our Sunset Galleria Outlet Store Team. I really loved that the bus had pictures of everyone at the windows, working headlights and a stop sign that swung out.

You know, we have an awesome lady at Zappos – her title is “Cruise Ship Coordinator” – I am not
kidding. And she organized a Mardi Gras float day. Every group that wanted to participate received a spiffy clean & new cardboard box to decorate. I thought there were many superb floats – I don’t envy the judges. In this post I’ll show the first and second place floats and I’ll post pics of other floats as often as I can sneak em in.

Our first place winner was “Deer Gone Wild” put together by the staff at our Safari Outlet store.
Besides the mask, check out the fishnet stockings. You can’t really see it in this picture but
there were nice little accessories too on the legs and neck. Great Job Safari!



Second place went to our Training Team and our current training class put together a Fortune Telling Booth with Zaptar the Magnificient. I think Zaptar is taking a bathroom break so Mr J. fills in on the hot seat. The Training classes are always full of fresh blood, enthusiasm and energy. Way to WOW!

My department, Creative Services, got third place in the Mardi Gras float contest. One of our production assistants, “WolfMan”, suggested we do the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. Then, one of our Lead Graphic Designers seized this project by the horns and made the cardboard bull and bull masks. The bull also has one very special feature. The runners bought white outfits and red scarves and "Walked the Talk" along with those wearing bull masks.

Here’s a front view of the Bull. All our runners are way down the hall – those horns are sharp baby!



And here’s the rear view of our "very special" feature. Our User Experience Manager is operating the backside and “dropping” chocolate kisses to the delighted spectators.