This week’s Zapponian Spotlight is on Jo from the content team of Zappos Development, Inc. The story of how this fun-loving  Zapponian ended up working for Zappos is pretty interesting. She worked as a waitress at Claim Jumper, which is right across the street from Zappos HQ. The restaurant is a frequent hangout of many Zapponians, particularly Tony Hsieh and Fred Mossler. Jo waited on them, along with other employees, for a couple of years before she decided to move over to Zappos…and the rest, as they say, was history!

Read the Q&A below to get to know a little bit about Jo!

Pick 3 words to describe your personal style:

 J: Surf, rock, diva. 

Who is your favorite musician or band?:

J: My favorite musician is Trent Reznor, I can relate to his music so much and it really did change my life.

Name 3 things you never leave home without:

J: Phone, smokes, MP3 Player.

If you could have dinner with one famous person, who would it be?

J: Joan Jett because I respect and admire her so much. She epitomizes everything that rock and roll is. She couldn’t get signed anywhere, so she started her own record label, which was completely unheard of at the time. She paved the way for women in rock and she did it with killer style.

What’s the weirdest thing to ever happen to you?:

J: When I was 19, I was totally obsessed with Leonardo di Caprio. When I found out he was going to be at the Rolling Stones concert at the Hard Rock, my friends and I got all dolled up and went to the Hard Rock to see if we could spot him. When we saw him, I took off running like a track star! I was wearing a short black dress, a floor length velvet cape (it was the ‘90s!) and four-inch stilettos. I was not alone, there was a mob of screaming girls running after him. We all ended up in a pile on the floor because we all tripped over one another!

What’s your favorite part about working at Zappos HQ?:

J: The family atmosphere that I feel every time I walk in the door. I’ve made some lifelong friends here and am basically living my dream.

Our Zappos HR advisors held a very unique canned food drive recently to benefit the Three Square food bank. They rallied everyone at Zappos HQ to donate at least three non-perishable food iteams, which is enough to feed one person for a day. But here’s the twist; they also challenged teams of five or more to construct a structure made entirely of canned goods! The bigger the structure, the better because each can goes back to the canned food drive.

In the end, the structures were judged by the advisors team and the top 3 were (drumroll please!):

3^rd place: Zappos Development Direct Marketing team with “Can Desk” (top left)

2^nd place: Zappos Merchandising Clothing Team with “Can Castle” (bottom right)

1^st place: Zappos Merchandising Casual Lifestyle Team with “Can Ugg Boots” (top right)

The top three entries received special hand-made trophies...made of cans of course!

Thanks to everyone that participated in this great event to help support the Three Square food bank. Great job guys!

This past Tuesday was quite an eventful one for us here at the Zappos HQ. To raise money for NCCF (Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation), the Zappos Merchandising, Inc. Culture Club decided to celebrate the lesser known “holiday”: Cinco + Cinco + Siete=17 De Mayo (the 17^th of May).  The team served up some non-alcoholic margaritas and a full nacho bar. For a donation, people were able to try their luck cracking one of the ten piñatas they had on hand.

On top of that, Project Culture also had a Flower-gram Sale to benefit NCCF. People were able to purchase beautiful hand-made flowers to give to their friends in the office while helping raise money for a great cause.  

Putting the “fun” back in fundraiser is what it’s all about!

A few Zapponians partaking in a unique and stress-busting laughter yoga class.

As part of Health Awareness Month here at the Zappos HQ, our amazing Benefits Team has put together tons of classes and screenings that pertain to our physical, mental and even financial health. From vision screenings, credit score seminars to cholesterol testing, we’re really lucky to have such an array of services made available to us as part of an ongoing preventative program.

This Tuesday, they hosted a “laughter yoga” class. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, laughter yoga is meant to release “feel-good” hormones called endorphins, which in turn boost positive state of mind, optimism and helps strengthen the immune system. With all those awesome benefits, laughter yoga is definitely nothing to laugh at!

Our Zapponian Spotlight for the week is the Grillmeister AKA Nick P. from Zappos IP. He's a fan of all things barbeque and bacon related and has been to probably more Phish concerts than he can even remember.

Read on to his Q&A to learn a little bit more about Nick:

Pick 3 words to describe your personal style:

N: Sexy Lumberjack Chic

Who is your favorite musician or band?:

N: Phish. I love the music, but not a fan of the smelly hippies. HAHA.

Name 3 things you never leave home without:

N: Cell phone, wallet, sunglasses.

If you could have dinner with one famous person, who would it be?

N: Tom Robbins – I would love to find out how someone can be that creative in their writing.

What’s the weirdest thing to ever happen to you?:

N: Hmmm well tons of weird things happen to me as I’ve been to over 60 Phish concerts. Let’s go with the most recent. I had an elderly man flag me down on a street corner last week. He just wanted a ride to CVS to meet his friend and get some medicine but his wife was sleeping and wouldn’t take him so he attempted to walk. He said he got tired and started trying to flag people down for a ride; he told me I was the only one who stopped. I dropped the old man off at CVS and wished him the best. George, if you’re reading this, hope your wife woke up and you got a ride home!

What’s your favorite part about working at Zappos HQ?:

N: Coming in everyday and having different things happen. There is never a dull day here at Zappos, the work is always interesting and so are the people. I’ve made some lifelong friends here; I can’t say that about any other job I’ve had.

We are always looking for a good excuse to prank each other, so when Johnny's birthday rolled around, his team went to work. Notice the extension cord - his desk had power and he was able to work outside! You may remember some of our classic pranks like the Ping Pong Ball Dump. Check out the throwback video below:

If you’ve ever ordered anything from Zappos.com, you know that we have one of the fastest, most hassle-free shipping around. None of this magic would be possible without our amazing team out in the Zappos Fulfillment Center (ZFC for short) in Shepherdsville, KY.

Our incredible Zappos KY family works day in and day out, 24/7, to deliver WOW to thousands of customers daily, and what they do is definitely no small feat. Many customers ask us if we do it all through magic. Some even ask if we use Santa’s magical elves to make all this possible. Well, who needs magic when we have such amazing people working tirelessly in our warehouse?

One step into the Zappos Fulfillment Center, and you’re instantly in awe of the well-oiled machine that is our over 1 million-square-foot warehouse. The Zappos Family here in Las Vegas would like to give a huge, well-deserved THANK YOU to ZFC for all the hard work that they do to keep the entire business running smoothly and for keeping our customers happy every day. High fives all around guys!

We have a lot of music fans here at Zappos HQ, and we thought it would be interesting to find out what people's first concerts were. We were definitely right; it was interesting to say the least. We even got some Zapponians to serenade us with sweet melodies from their first concert. It's like a musical walk down memory lane. Enjoy!