“To this day, I still can’t understand how they can get away with it,” Jean said. “You work for a company for 10 years and you give 150 percent. I used to go above and beyond. And then I get sick, something totally out of my control. And then to get fired.”

Her voice dropped off, then tears streamed down her cheeks.

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Just inside the door of the men’s room was a rack that held sweaty biking shirts, damp bathing suits and clammy running shoes. The aroma seemed to belong more to a high school locker room than to a corporate headquarters. But this was the house of Patagonia, the apparel company that prides itself on letting its employees take their play every bit as seriously as they take their work.

At lunchtime many days, Patagonia employees go surfing for two hours, while a half-dozen others take a 100-minute, 27-mile bike loop in the hills overlooking the Pacific.

One of the sweaty biking shirts belonged to Andy Welling, a sales manager at Patagonia’s headquarters in Ventura, Calif. At 41, Welling is a fiend about staying in shape  he bikes several days a week at lunchtime, and joins Patagonia’s weekly pick-up soccer game. He often makes up for his lunchtime cycling by working a few hours at home in the evening.

Patagonia is so mellow about flextime that the receptionist at headquarters, an 11-time world Frisbee champion, is allowed to take three months off each summer to run a surfing school. “I could make quite a bit more money working somewhere else,” Welling said. “But to have the quality of life and to remain physically fit, by cycling or going surfing, you can’t put a dollar amount on it.”

Welling has taken advantage of another Patagonia offering: the child care center at headquarters. He drops off his two boys, 5 and 3, at 9 and often has lunch with them. “Being able to have my kids a few feet away from me all the time is fantastic,” Welling said. “It is a bonding relationship I never would have had if I were working somewhere else.”

Patagonia is not like anywhere else. With 1,300 workers and $275 million a year in sales, it donates 1 percent of its annual sales to environmental groups. Four days a week at lunchtime, the company offers yoga and Pilates sessions; there are also occasional classes on fly fishing. Each year Patagonia lets 40 employees take paid two-month internships with an environmental group. The best spots in the parking lot are reserved for the most fuel-efficient cars, and above dozens of parking spots are solar panels that supply all the power for one of Patagonia’s administration buildings.