People
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At Mention Me, we have Celebration Days: two days a year for each Mentioneer (that’s what we like to call ourselves) to use… that’s right, to celebrate! What you celebrate is up to you.
It might be a religious event that’s not recognised in the national calendar, or perhaps a cultural event that you celebrate but many others don’t. It might be a special birthday (yours or somebody else’s), or an anniversary. You get the idea — it’s about personally celebrating what is important to you.
On the surface, this might just appear to be two additional days of annual leave, but here’s why it’s much more. Annual leave implies inclusivity because, as we all know, you’re free to use your annual leave as you please.
Celebration Days, on the other hand, are explicitly inclusive by acknowledging that people celebrate different things in different ways, and we have time dedicated to it. By separating them from annual leave, Celebration Days are appreciated and used differently. They’re used to mark those special days and moments that we cherish, but might not typically use annual leave for.
Personally, I’ll be using mine to extend the celebrations for my daughter’s first birthday, as well as for celebrating Diwali. Before having Celebration Days to use, I probably wouldn’t have booked an annual leave day for my daughter’s birthday because it happens to be landing on a weekend, but having Celebration Days encouraged me to make a long weekend of it.
As for Diwali, in the past, I haven’t typically booked annual leave to celebrate it as my family gets together on the weekend closest to when it falls. But now I feel compelled to use my celebration day to mark the day (my Mum’s going to be thrilled!).
Since launching in July, we’ve seen Celebration Days booked for anniversaries, graduation days, friends’ weddings, house moves, birthdays and religious festivals. Events that might have otherwise been missed, or not quite celebrated in the same way.
Here’s how a few of our Mentioneers have used theirs.
Christin, Sales Development Representative:
“I used my Celebration Day for my graduation, and it was great to get a day off specifically to commemorate an important day! It was lovely to spend the day with my family and friends to celebrate my degree and the end of university.”
Anca, Head of Product:
"I used the day to celebrate my son's 8th birthday. We took the kids to Hobbledown Farm Park in Surrey, which I would definitely recommend for any family with kids — it was a great day out.
It was really nice to be able to take the full day off with my husband. We also threw a birthday party for him during the weekend, but he loved having the day out on his actual birthday."
Mariusz, Software Developer:
"I used a Celebration Day on a Friday to have an extended weekend. I was able to celebrate my wife's name day and birthday, and paid Santa a visit on Friday — we had a brilliant time together, so I'm very thankful for the extra Celebration Day!"
Dom, Talent Partner:
"I used my Celebration Day to celebrate my 30th birthday — I had an awesome day that consisted of great food, an afternoon killing zombies at a virtual reality event, and an evening at the theatre. It was great to have the additional day to celebrate, without having to use a day's holiday."
I’m looking forward to seeing what else our Mentioneers use their Celebration Days for!
If you'd like to become a Mentioneer, check out our current open roles below to see where you might fit.
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