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.

As we enjoy a nice holiday weekend, we would like to take a moment to give a huge "thank you" to the men and women who sacrifice so much in service of our nation and to protect our freedom. We hope everyone has a safe and fun Memorial Day!

Today marks the 10^th anniversary of International Towel Day in tribute of late author Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. On Towel Day, fans of Adams carry a towel with them all day in reference to the aforementioned book. A few Zapponians paid homage by rocking their towels around the office today.

In addition to carrying their towels today, Zapponians were also encouraged to donate their old towels to Shade Tree.

Happy “Towel Day” Wednesday everyone!

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.

Remember the “Jaywalking” segments on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno? We thought it would be funny to have our very own CEO Tony Hsieh do a similar Q&A segment and call it “Hsiehwalking”. Unfortunately, Tony was out of town, so we decided to bring in the next best thing, his unofficial stunt double, Phil.

Check out the first installment of Hsiehwalking as “Tony” walks around the Zappos HQ asking Zapponians a couple of trivia questions.

Check back next month for another installment of Hsiehwalking!

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!

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.