See the pictures

You know how you get all witty with alcohol, and everyone is smart and beautiful, and your ideas are great, and everyone around you sparkles with their wisdom, and they all think that you sparkle, and the whole damn thing is soaked in the sepia tones of memory while it is happening, and then you find yourself in an alley peeing against a wall?

Which is a lot better than finding yourself in an alley, soaked in vomit, puking against a wall. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Friday June 1st, 1999, marked the birth of Zappos.com ("we sell shoes the old fashioned way, online." Lisa Vagge, Senior Marketing Manager)). I work for Zappos.com. Zappos.com has entered my blood stream the way a strangely compelling song will lodge in your rythm box, making you groove to your own beat for hours at a time (the last song that did that to me was 'Lucy, Lucy, Lucy Lum, Blow that Bubble Gum...).

I normally don't write about Zappos.com because of a distant sense of propriety. Nice boys don't kiss and tell, and nice boys don't work somewhere that they love and then reveal assorted narcicistic details of their working lives.

So fuck that reticience. Here is what happened.

Nick decided that we needed to do a company event! We needed to bond together, team building, and so on. So what better way than a company sponsored tour of debauchery?

The company slogan is 'Fire it Up,' so rather than engage in some faux team building (like going on some absurd 'Outward Bound' sort of thing where we have to bind together to survive the dangerous of the wilderness, Nick proposed to have us do what comes naturally to the company.

Here is what Nick told us:

"Allright, here's the plan so far for Friday's two year anniversary: Pier 23 (bar/restaurant on Embarcadero) at 2-2:30 on Friday afternoon (cabs or drive). Food and drinks will be on Zappos until about 5pm. Would like everyone to attend, will be a fun time to celebrate and hopefully relax in the sun, or relax in the fog. I know this cuts into the workday but you guys all deserve a break so try and plan your Friday workload accordingly :)"

"Stuff and junk cool. Ask Matt, sometimes junk can develop into stuff, and then morph into tight stuff before becoming girlfriend and love stuff."

We left the office at 2:30 or so, cabbing over to pier 23, on the Embarcedero. We knew that the day would be great when we survived the cab ride. The guy was a master of assertive driving, bumping right up against people, then taking a call.

"Yeah, 25 on Blue and 35 on Red. Just dropping off at pier 23. Yeah...yeah, right."

Nick tried to joke with the guy, something about setting up a clandestine sort of deal. The cabbie did not want to be engaged in conversation. I am pretty sure that he was an opererative for a Secret Governmental Agency, and not necesarily one of ours..

Pier 23 was a strange scene, a budding madhouse on a Friday afternoon. Things were quiet when we arrived, but a huge group arrived when we did, followed by the boiling tides of a Summer Friday afternoon.

I don't think that it was our fault (but I would be proud if it was!), but Pier 23 truly brings out the vaguely distressing aspects of people. Nick ordered a starter five buckets of beer, really just a tease, enough so that everyone could have the eperience of being at a table that had a beer on it, or perhaps a bucket of beer, you know, sort of a decadent display. Well some guy comes up to Erin's table and grabs a beer. "You don't mind, do you?" He asked, after goobering up the beer so that no one else would want a damn thing to do with it.

"Uh, actually, what are you doing?" Erin can be capital A Assertive.

"Oh man, you do mind?" and the bozo left. A bit later he came back and gave Erin another beer, in some soft of pay off ritual. I did not actually hear Erin say 'Suck it!' But I am sure that she must have.

After we had been sitting for a bit, a waitress slapped 'reserved at 4:20" signs on our tables. What the fuck? This engendered some unhappy discussions, so Nick took proactive steps to ensure us our space. We ordered a bunch of food, and then Nick ordered 15 buckets of beer.

After taking our order, the waitress called for reenforcements, in case our 15 buckets didn't sit well. Even bringing us the beers was an adventure. The waitress and a couple of helpers dropped bucket after bucket onto our table, then asked if we wanted the rest of them 'on your other table?

"What other table?" Nick asked.

"The one right over there. They said they were with you guys."

"I don't know any of those people!" Nick was insistent! Meanwhile, one person at the other table saw Nick and the waitress looking at them, and started whispering around. Right in front of our eyes the whole group just sort of drifted away.

The waitress said "Oh shit, not again!" and started to chase one of them, but they must have done this before, so she didn't have a chance.

I thought it was cool the way Nick was able to sneak in the whole fulfillment group, and have them eat and drink for damn near to an hour and then get their food and beer for free!

Fuck it! I am having trouble with my medication levels. The previous paragraph was not true. What did happen was that an even larger group had been split, with half of them coming in before us, and half after, so the waitress _thought_ that the table was with us.

But my version is a lot more entertaining. Never! let truth get in the way of a good story.

Things proceeded with 'boat races' and other entertainments. At one point it became a good idea to have an impromptu 'strong man' competition using these big ass chunks of concrete as our tools. I started it, since I have a social disinhibition disorder (they do to exist, Lisa!), but even Nick participated. Someone tried to lift it and failed miserably, but for the sake of work place harmony their secret is safe with me.

Once a bunch of people had lifted the damn block I felt sort of deflated, like 'hell, how special am I if every Fred, John and Nick can lift this up?' So I asked Katie Farhner over.

Talk about your basic trusting individual! She didn't even ask what for! She came over, and sat on the block right where I asked her to sit, and kept her poise, and even her dignity, while I utterly failed to lift the block.

"Yes Richard, I could tell it just wasn't going to happen for you." was Lisa's comment. And yet, there was a time, back in my day, when I would have waited until John Farhner (Katie's brother) had the block up high, then I would have grabbed him around the legs and lifted both he and the concrete block. Growing old and decrepit is truly a bitch!

(there is more...I may even write it up)

"That's right, I forgot, because we were trying to get a cab, and I was standing in the street flashing my boobs at passing cars."

"You did?"

"Yes."

(oh yeah, that little bit about puking against a wall soaked in vomit? That didn't happen, just literary license).