For this week’s Zapponian Spotlight, we're getting to know Alec from Zappos IP. Alec is from jolly old England, London to be exact. As you might have guessed, he is a big fan of tea and football, and by “football”, we mean soccer. He has served as the captain of the Zappos Family Corporate Challenge soccer team for the last two years since he moved here.
Read on to learn more interesting and fun tidbits about this London bloke:
Pick 3 words to describe your personal style.
Urban, understated, restrained.
Who is your favorite musician or band?
There are several musicians that I absolutely adore and could not exist without, but I’ll pick two – the first is an Icelandic band called Sigur Rós who make this sweeping, sometimes symphonic, sometimes fragile, but always beautiful songs that have informed a big part of my life. A second massive influence is a dubstep artist from London called Burial. He writes the most modern, engaging and awesome music I’ve heard in the last 10 years. Discovering his work recently just blew my mind. This music is wholly from the city; it expresses so many things that resonate with me about London.
Name 3 things you never leave home without?
My GPS – I still need it to stop driving on the wrong side of the road, even if I’m going around the corner from my house! A football – you never know when you might have a game. And a stack of business cards for the same reason. J/K!
If you could have dinner with one famous person, who would it be?
Taylor Swift, my guilty karaoke pleasure and dodgy crush, or Jessica, the vampire from True Blood. She could take me out for a bite any night of the week!
What’s the weirdest thing to ever happen to you?
My worst date of all time – set up by a friend. We went to a concert in this old converted church. Conversation was civil but a bit of hard work. Anyway, we were sitting on these pews which were the seats. As the singer was about to take the stage, all of a sudden, she just got up and sat herself down about 5 meters away from me, even though our view was fine. I was like, OK, that’s weird... So I moved over to sit next to her and we watched the gig, pretty much in silence. I didn’t mind that much cause I loved the music. Later, as we were leaving, I could sense that awkward moment coming of goodbye, this was nice, I had a nice time, maybe try and work a peck on the cheek in there, but as soon as we got outside, she looked down at her feet, muttered “Bye” and then straight off bolted down the road (like Usain Bolt...or Lot’s wife) to the bus stop without looking back. I wasn’t even upset, I just laughed!
What’s your favorite part about working at Zappos HQ?
The friends that I’ve made here and meeting so many wonderful people. It’s funny though, the best days I’ve had at Zappos have not been at the office. One was when some of us spent an afternoon at a children’s oncology ward, bringing pizza and playing games with the kids there. It was humbling at first but a lot of fun and a great day by the end. Playing football with our team in Corporate Challenge is up there, too - I just love it.
