“What’s Your Panda?” Tile Employees

Inspired by a real-life Tile story about a little girl who lost her favorite stuffed animal in Times Square, our latest short film “Lost Panda” aims to show that there are somethings in our lives that are truly irreplaceable. Of course, the reason why the video is so powerful is that we can all relate to the little girl, Lucy, who lost her (adorable) stuffed panda — everyone has a panda.

With this idea in mind, we asked Tile employees to tell us about their own “pandas:” the things they’ve collected that they could never lose. Their responses were heartwarming, inspiring, funny, and, completely, relatable.

Watch the videos bellow.

Madison
Tile Designer
Panda: Champagne Box

Last Christmas, Madison’s dad gave her a unique present — an antique champagne box. There was nothing in the box, yet the box holds a tremendous amount of significance for Madison. Originally used to hold a bottle of champagne that christened the bow of a boat, Madison’s great grandmother held onto it to store all of her keepsakes. When Madison’s father came of age, he was gifted the box and all throughout her childhood Madison understood the box to be one of the most important things her father owned. It was where he stored his baseball card collection and graduation tassel. Now that Madison owns the box, she stores her most-sentimental keepsakes in it, including handwritten letters and old ID cards.

Mike
Tile CEO and Co-Founder
Panda: Selmer Mark VI Tenor Saxophone

On top of being the CEO of Tile, Mike has been a lifelong lover of music, specifically, jazz, and has been playing saxophone since the end of 4th grade. Though he has several saxophones (six to be exact) his Selmer Mark VI Tenor is by far his favorite. Mike cares for this sax so much that when he travels with it, he buys it a seat on the plane next to him.

Aneri
Tile Web QA Engineer
Panda: Photo Album

When Aneri was leaving India to move to the United States her best friend wanted to give her something special to remember their friendship by. Bracelets or lockets wouldn’t suffice, Aneri’s friend wanted to give her something truly unique and memorable. She decided to take all of the photos that they had accumulated over 22 years of friendship and bind them into a photobook. Aneri still looks at this book at least once a week, and, to her the memories bound within it are absolutely priceless.

Simon
Tile CMO
Panda: Stuffed Panda

Simon’s stuffed panda (called “Panda”) was hand-crafted by his aunt and gifted to him at birth. Simon has held onto Panda his whole life, he even brought it with him to high school, where his friends stole it from him at the beginning of his freshman year. They went through great lengths to affix Panda to the rafters of their dining hall, and it stayed there until the last day of his senior year when his friends returned Panda to Simon just before he gave his valedictory speech. Now Simon keeps a Tile attached to Panda so he’ll never lose him again.

You can watch the video that inspired these stories here