Am just touching base here on my absolutely unread Threadless blog. Where am I?

I was in Chicago forever, and worked at Threadless for about 2.5 years. And loved it way way more than I ever expected to love anything other than stand-up comedy (which is what I also do).

I moved to Los Angeles and now live in the beautiful Hollywood part of town. Been here about 2 months now. Since I've been out here I've had 4 jobs, each one like "eh, this kind of sucks." I moved out here to do stand-up and writing jobs and acting and all the things I did on the road touring and in Chicago for 11 years. I've no doubts about my abilities and chances of making more of a living at it than I did as a road comic while not at Threadless. However, I've been in perpetual new job hell, always training at night, since I've been out here.

I really certainly do seriously miss Threadless, and I also miss the hours of stage-time I was getting per week in the midwest. Just gotta get over this stable-income hump before I can keep rocking it.

What's happening Threadless?! I work here at Threadless, and this story is part of my blog KarmaLampoon.com. This satire takes place at thinly veiled Threadless facade, withoutthreads.com. These are all Threadless people, my friends. My blog is full of them.



CHICAGO, IL - In a world of imbalance and unfairness we are lucky to find a company that gives us breaks from the chaos. Smoke breaks, and Wellness breaks.

WithoutThreads.com, a Chicago-based online company, has implemented a progressive new employee policy that is changing the way the world looks at smoke breaks.

Guilty of Not Smoking?

“I don’t smoke cigarettes, so I’ve never been given a smoke break,” said purist Shawn Monroe, “For awhile I pretended to smoke just to get some fresh air, but I felt so bad about lying I almost started inhaling just to alleviate the guilt.”

Smokers worldwide get paid breaks in which to increase alertness and calm their nerves. Meanwhile, non-smokers put in extra work without the option to naturally accomplish the same thing. “But now I get to stand right next to my cigarette friends for a few minutes and practice some deep breathing techniques,” said Shawn, “I don’t mind the second-hand smoke, as long as they don’t mind my second-hand chi as it emanates throughout the smoking area.”

Not only is WithoutThreads.com allowing the choice between, say, Tai Chi versus Marlboro Reds, they are also fostering a sense of community. They do this by restricting the Wellness area to the same entranceway containing the smoking area. “I think the camaraderie is more of a bi-product,” said manager Ryan Schiffler, smoker, “I just want to have a cigarette, and I don’t want anyone else to wander off and overmeditate. I can't deal with New Age shit, not when I got shipping stats to keep up.”

Like an Idiot?

When asked about the location of the wellness and smoking area, Shawn said, “I also don’t mind that my new Tai Chi spot is right in front of the building’s main door. It helps me develop my concentration when pedestrians brush past and hurry inside swearing about the smoke,” said Shawn. He was more optimistic than his co-worker, Armuelo Mendez who offered, “Shawn looks like an idiot.”



It has been estimated that most companies give smokers two five-minute smoke breaks per day, which is almost an hour per week of paid time off. Finally, people like Shawn Monroe can use this time to channel vital energy through their chakras. And if Shawn’s workplace ever gets an indoor break-room, he will also feel more of the 2nd hand energy from his friend’s addictions.

The World Follows

Currently, Armuelo Mendez and manager Ryan Schiffler are rarities. They are among the few smoking enthusiasts to tolerate people like Sean and his “Health thing.” Eventually, however, it is predicted that every major company in the world will allow Wellness Breaks. “But it isn’t so bad right now,” said Armuelo, “Because Shawn is the only one doing it.”

Concluded Shawn, “What presently feels like a Wellness-Inclusive Smoke Break, will someday become a Smoke-Inclusive Wellness Break. And if I can do it ‘on the clock’ like the other guys, I sure will!”

I work at Threadless, and have my own side comedy blog: Karmalampoon.com. Some of the satire is inspired by threadless and includes some of the team. We had an ant farm and this is what it inspired:

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Disassociated Press. It took over the vibe of the whole desk area. A little ant farm with a lot of impact. One of the company employees had won a gift card and on a whim purchased an ant farm. It was placed in a central location at the Withoutthreads.com warehouse where everyone could take a peek.

“In no time at all, it went from an idle amusement, to an uplifting metaphor for life,” said Jef Kaplan, a quality Manual Headquarters Head Quality Manager. “And it also pretty quickly turned into a death heap, a slowly twitching pile of lost dreams.”



The Beginning
There is such joy in potential energy. Three and a half months prior to the sad demise of this ill-fated whim, the colony was a budding new venture filled with hope and symbolism.

“It’s like they were setting out to engineer an empire. Just like we do in our lives,” said Mitch Borkowski, freshly back from winning a debate against a Buddhist Monk, “Only, in our lives we would have brought a queen. You know, keep the party going.”

The farm had been delivered in two parts. The Habitat: a small Plexiglass box containing neon green gel, the consistency of which only Jef knows (because only Jef has poked it with a pen. But it looks pretty hard). The gel was a completely inorganic replacement for both soil and food.

Part two of the delivery: The Inhabitants. The ants were kept in a test tube and put in the fridge to slow them down during transport. Throughout the rest of the metaphor, this point will be ignored, as it bears no metaphoric value.

By the second day of having the ant farm at Withoutthreads.com, the active minds of the employees began to draw parallels. “We also live in square little man-made structures, and our food is also often neon and fake,” thought almost every warehouse laborer, verbatim. But they kept it silent because they were about to have Slush Puppies and Volcano Tacos.

Bad diet or not, both the ants and the workers were determined to work hard and really make a difference in their worlds!



The Middle
During the first few weeks the ants made very slow progress. They had a very hard time digging into their new shiny green homeland. Not even one anthill was built.

Despite these odds, the ants kept working to improve their lot in life. They tunneled slowly into the depths of their captivity, creating one solitary chamber. And just like these ants, the warehouse workers kept on pushing hard with full-blown optimism for job security.

At about this time Jef speculated that he had been sent a factory second ant-farm, or at least a very old one. “The green stuff was completely compacted, there was nothing farmable about it.” Jef got pensive for a moment, and looked up, “But it was free, so I’m not complaining.”

Warehouse workers, who resembled ants with their daily movements, weren’t discouraged by the green stuff.

“I’m sure the ants were totally loving not being in the mail anymore, and we were totally loving being able to dote over the ants every now and then throughout the day,” said Jeb Cadwell who wrote this story so was easy to quote.

Temp notable Billy Besley added, “And whenever the bosses see anyone just looking at the ants and wasting time, we come across as nature-lovers instead of lazy-people. So it all works out”.

To please the ants, Jef taped up a picture of relaxing co-worker, Ashley Hypes. He also put a playmobil astronaut in the farm. “That way they’d keep on working whether or not the humans were looking,” said Jef. “Just like the staff here keeps up the good work whether or not the management is looking. Heh.”

The End
But the glory days of healthy, happy ants were limited.

At about this time, most warehouse workers were unable to comprehend the further implications of their metaphors.

“I was right in the middle of appreciating my metaphor when I noticed there was a dead ant up at the top of the green stuff,” thought everyone.

Within a week there were two more dead ants, and then a few days later, three more. The focus of the colony shifted drastically. They went from “domestic” to “desperate” in no time at all. The inner-existentialist within each warehouse worker could relate.



“It was like, a minute ago they were all happily tunneling," reflected everyone separately, "but then they saw some buddies croak and they were like, ‘I don’t have time to be digging deeper into that green stuff!'"

During the weeks that followed their realization of mortality, the ants no longer tunneled and they no longer ate. They only tried to escape their fate. They did this until they all were dead. At about this time, most warehouse workers were unable to comprehend the further implications of their metaphors.

Billy Besley touched the interviewer's shoulder, “Before the genocide, they were happy as long as they stayed focused.” He stopped to ask for a smoke break and then continued, “Just don’t obsess about your daily struggle in relative terms of your mortality. But seriously, I need a smoke break.”

Jef braved onward for a dramatic conclusion, “In the end the only remnant of order they possessed, was their habit of dying in the same place. These ants really only made one tunnel, and they died in it.”

I finally poured my heart out into a blog the other night, and then I went to look at my blog and see it is gone. I might've never even posted it to completion. So am keeping this one brief just in case I do it again!

Greetings! I am proud to work at Threadless, and am a super-incredibly active dude with a zillion writing and performance projects. And for the longest time I've wanted to start sharing my voice more here on the threadless blog. Much of my voice sharing has been through my live stand-up comedy shows and my comedy blog, KarmaLampoon.com ("Satire For Soul Searchers")

Threadless has become a huge part of my life. As I work diligently on all of my other projects, Threadless supports me both by being a flexible job, and also by being such an awesome business model. True to form, Threadless has totally inspired some awesomeness in this guy.