Your job stinks. Every day brings new indignities and frustrations. But as bad as your job may be, and as hopeless as you may feel about it, there is one undeniable benefit you have for which you can feel ever thankful.

You don't work for Zappos.

Unless you've been living in a cave for the last decade you know that Zappos is a web-based, mail-order shoe company. You may also know that the nonstop fun and games that represent the workplace culture of Zappos is so well- respected in the business community that supposedly serious executives of supposedly normal companies spend $5,000 for two-day "culture emersions" in the Zappos way of doing business. Called "Zappos Insights Live," the execs drown themselves in the general tomfoolery that makes Zappos -- inexplicably -- a "fun place" to work.

Or, as the company writes on their website, next to a clip of an ABC-TV visit to the land of the Zapponians, "You've got to see us to believe us! ABC Nightline featured Zappos.com and our hiring process during one of their segments! Take a look and see if this is the right kind of environment for you! We may be a little fun and weird, but that's OK; it's a core value!"

Most of what I learned about this torture chamber masquerading as a workplace comes from a recent article in The New Yorker by Alexandra Jacobs. The reporter visited Zaptopia, which is located in Henderson, Nev., a suburb of Las Vegas. I hope she received combat pay.

Right from the front door, Jacobson catches Zappos fever.

"Entering the front door, which was decorated with Christmas lights at the height of a desert summer, a stranger gets the feeling that amphetamines might be pumped through the central air conditioning. Visitors come to marvel at the spectacle of peppy, dedicated workers: a utopia of communal cheer and solicitude: trilled 'Good morning's' and 'Hi Pumpkin's; free vats of popcorn, nuts and trail mix and politely held doors."

Jacobs was lead through the wonderful, wacky world of Zappos by the company's CEO, Tony Hsieh. Hsieh is not satisfied with making a fortune mailing Mary Janes to Mary Jones. As the reporter writes, "He talks about being the architect of a movement to spread happiness, or Zappiness." From my reading, he spreads it on pretty thick. Continued...