Jeanus Ko, 45, Tech Product Management,
Illinois
With ONE word, how do you hope to come out of this quarantine?
"Adaptable"
What was the effect of COVID-19 on your routine?
"From my personal perspective, my routine isn't affected all that much. I work from home regularly before COVID as I work with people globally and we communicate via email, video conferencing, online chat, etc. However, there's an impact on my financial situation. Our company focuses on location technology development, and the majority of our revenue comes from car manufacturers, such as BMW, Audi, Daimler. Because of COVID, car manufacturing plants closed and the production of cars drastically reduced. This has a direct impact on our company's revenue and cash flow. As a result, all employees had a salary reduction of 10% across the board, which is impacting my personal finances."
What is one realization you’ve had about yourself or the world?
"The importance of adaptability is highlighted more than ever during the pandemic. People need to be creative, adaptive, change fast. Our world will never be the same. There is no 'going back to normal', this is the new normal in terms of things will change in a day and everybody needs to embrace this new mindset and be prepared for change. Continuous learning is important, adopting technology in daily life is important but at the same time, understand the difference between adopting technology to improve efficiency vs letting technology control you. Especially around the use of social media. Social media is a two-edged sword, understand how to leverage it without being controlled by it."
What works and doesn’t work while in quarantine? (open-ended)
"I'm blessed to have my parents living with us. They take care of the kids during the day so that my husband and I can focus on working. However, my kids' schools were canceled and some learnings were switched online. We found out that kids do not learn online. It is difficult for them to focus and without physical interaction with the teacher and peers, they lost interest quickly. Also, I rediscovered the importance of a hair salon; especially for kids. I was very happy when hair salons reopened again."
In what ways have you shown self-improvement?
"Nothing in particular. I continue to learn new things as usual, listen to audiobooks, go biking, exercise regularly, and eat healthily. These are part of my normal routine. I do appreciate the additional family time we have with my parents and kids. My husband and I are renovating the basement and I enjoyed working on the project with him."
If you had to give your “pre-quarantine” self a piece of advice, what would that be?
"Learn how to cut hair for boys."