VIP Class Notes (Tibo)

we were the first batch to be locked down.
At that time I felt happy, I didn’t need to go to work.

For the first week he lived at my parent’s in law.

I heard we were locked down for 2 weeks. -> I heard we would be locked down for 2 weeks
We didn’t want our son to stay there so we asked them to send him back after a week.
Then he came back and he was sick.

then he returned home and we took care of him

then we were unlocked / let free for half a day. I was fortunate, I went to the hospital.

We thought it may be only for 2-3 days then we were unlocked / were let free again and locked again. / then we alternated between lockdown and 1 day of freedom.

In March I was ok, the delivery system was very normal and I could buy food from the internet.

At that time they cooked dinner and they would deliver to us.
When the rumor began it was/it became very difficult to buy food.

there is no proper translation for the scenery -> scenario

we had to fight for food
I had to fight for food on various apps and we had group buying.
You needed to calculate the food we needed / we had to estimate we food we needed because if you buy too much it will go bad / rot.

also you don’t have the room to store them.

I think there were some problems with the supply chain and there is no man can deliver the food to you. -> no one could deliver / there were not enough people to ensure delivery

Every day I was very worried.

In late May they realized it was not the right way to lock all the people at home. / In late May they started to change the policy

Some people made dirty money.
We just think it was politics.

At that time I considered to change the city  / I considered moving to another city.
but now except you go to another country. It is similar to SH here. -> but it is all the same except if you go abroad.

A lot of small cities are locked down now but they cannot voice out on the internet. / a lot of cities are locked down but you don’t hear about them because they are too small.

we really don’t know. If I know in advance I will go to Zhejiang first.
-> If I had known I would have gone to Zhejiang first (3rd conditional)
If I know in advance I can accept to live in a hotel in another city.
-> if I had known I would have chosen to live in a hotel

We heard that we government would go to your home to sanitize your apartment

I heard we began to fire people.
We fired a lot of store staff and they said we would begin to fire the people in the office.
They would choose those whose contract has expired first

you need to pay severance pay to them

Sephora is a retailer so we don’t have much room for discount.

almost 75% (percent)

I don’t think Loreal was impacted a lot

they only buy, following the guidance of those live streaming.  / of the live streamer 

Covid only fastened the pace of the decrease.
The management team doesn’t really care about the future of the company.
At first I complained about our high target then I realized HQ didn’t give us such a high target, their only expectation is you can keep flat. -> was for us to break even
/ they only wanted us to have stable sales  / for our annual sales to be similar to last year

they said it would go bankrupt

once you lift/raise the price consumers will give up on you -> consumers abandoned the company.

-> consumers were very price sensitive and as they raised the price they moved to competitors.

People knew they sell cosmetics but they already bought a lot of field to plant lemon.
Their lemonade is very delicious.
They say the lemonade is made with their own lemons. / with the lemons they grow in-house
They have also invested in museums and display old furniture.

Why they do so much that is not related to cosmetics. / the reason they enter so many different fields
If one day they find cosmetics don’t make money they can change direction quickly.

In the future national owned companies will become the leading

Like Adidas when they had a problem with the cotton their business was affected a lot.

A lot of people now want to lay down, they don’t want to do things. -> A lot of people are quiet quitting, they don’t want to work too hard.

Vocabulary

quiet quitting (n) do the least amount of work possible just not to get laid off
A lot of people are quiet quitting

to break even (v) not lose money / not make money
We broke even after 3 months

severance pay (n) what you pay employees when you have to let them go
The severance pay for a employee that has been with you for 10 years is very high

to sanitize (v) disinfect
They will sanitize the room

to go bad (v) become uneatable for food
The pizza went bad because we left it outside for 2 days

to go bankrupt (v) to be out of money / cashflow and close the business
The company went bankrupt due to Covid

Pronunciation

bankrupt