Jack Lau is the Facilities Manager at Perfect World Entertainment, a leading publisher of online games most known for creating titles based on Star Trek, Dungeons & Dragons, and Magic: The Gathering. He has been in managing and coordinating roles, bringing knowledge to connect people through content creation, and fostering an environment that empowers everyone.
Before joining Perfect World Entertainment, Jack worked at Tubular Labs as a Workplace Experience Manager and at Compass Group USA as a Director of Catering and Events for Microsoft and LinkedIn. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in English.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Jack Lau discusses how his company has handled the pandemic’s challenges
- Jack explains the importance of knowing your employee’s needs
- Some of the repercussions of working remotely
- What is exciting to Jack in the facilities management industry?
- How to use developing technology to engage with employees
- Jack’s robust outlook: the people are the heart of a business
- How Jack pivoted Perfect World Entertainment during the pandemic
- Jack talks about reconfiguring the workplace during the pandemic
- The value in giving back and connecting with your community
- Jack details how you can start a career in facilities management and focusing on connecting with people
In this episode…
How can you create a space that brings out the best in people? The world turned upside down during the pandemic, so how do you do what is right for your employees?
If you’re looking for a better way to connect with your employees, Jack Lau has helped businesses forge and connect their teams during fluid times. Since the pandemic hit, Jack’s top priority has been transitioning the workplace into an inclusive and healthy environment to further employee production and engagement. He believes a building is more than four walls — it is the people inside that make it valuable.
In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens is joined by Jack Lau, Facilities Manager at Perfect World Entertainment, to discuss overcoming the challenges of the pandemic in an office space. Jack talks about remaining connected with employees in a hybrid environment, leveraging technology in your favor, and cultivating an environment centered around employee engagement.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- Katrina Stephenson on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- Jack Lau on LinkedIn
- Jack Lau’s email: Jack.Lau@perfectworld.com
- Perfect World Entertainment
- Edward Johnson on Watching Paint Dry
- Perfect World Level Up program
- International Facility Management Association
- Jack Lau on TikTok
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:02
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top leaders, industry experts and more to discuss issues affecting facility managers and property owners. Now let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:22
Hello, everyone, this is a nother podcast of Watching Paint Dry, where we are continuing this series of talking to building owners, property managers, facilities managers, and all the support services and for that entire industry. And we’ve even added some other people like entrepreneurs, and I think we might even get somebody from the works in the city city of San Francisco in here too. So that would be interesting also, so stay tuned for that. This podcast, like all of our podcast is sponsored by McCarthy Painting, which is my company. We’re located here in the San Francisco Bay Area. And we do both residential painting and commercial painting. And some of the commercial projects we’ve been doing lately. We’ve been doing some more work for Chase Bank with Zooks. We’ve been around the autonomous car companies Zooks, Spin, and what else have we been doing? Oh AstraZeneca, which is also a pharmaceutical company, which was that was super interesting to see their business, their building, and where they’re making vaccines that hopefully keep us all healthy. And I’m excited to have Jack Lau on our podcast here this morning. He’s the facility manager at Perfect World Entertainment right over here in Berkeley. And I was in Berkeley on Monday, and it was a disaster. Because Monday it was raining just tremendous amount here in the first week of December. And there were so many roads closed and flooding over there. Hopefully you’re doing well and stayed dry that day.
Jack Lau 1:59
Yeah, Greg, actually, I went to Berkeley, but our company’s based in Redwood Shores here in Redwood City.
Greg Owens 2:07
So you guys are probably high and dry during the flooding there?
Jack Lau 2:10
Yes, totally. But it is something that I worry about in the future of the Bay Area of you know, climate change. And all that is what the shoreline will look like, in the next couple of decades. Right? Yes. It’s definitely part of kind of facilities management and things that we worry about.
Greg Owens 2:30
Oh, man, so yeah, it’s so true. There’s so many buildings are built at sea level here in the Bay Area. I know we’re all my office building in the center fell in the canal of center fell is at sea level, basically, you know, and it’s it’s a crazy thing to see when when we have those king tides. And then it rains a lot. The two things meet together and what water starts coming out of the drainage rather than going into the drain and right. Yeah, it starts it’s it’s scary to see how fast it can like build up for sure.
Jack Lau 3:03
Oh, those are, those are just like typical problems that we face. Sometimes I think even recently, we had a one of our water lines, had a leak and start flooding our parking lot. And you think it’s as easy as just turning off the water. But then you realize you turn off water to the building, and then you’re building, you can’t have the restrooms open. And you’re basically telling people, Hey, the buildings close and all these other issues that we just have to deal with. But you know, that’s the exciting life of being in facilities management and kind of taking care of things and environment that we work in. But again, thank you for for having me on here. And I have to give you a shout out for just reaching out on LinkedIn, and just making these connections and also hosting this entire podcast. You have a lot of great episodes. I can’t I can’t catch up to all all the episodes yet, but I’m slowly kind of tuning in to a lot of the facility managers that come on your show. It’s very insightful. So just really, thank you for doing this.
Greg Owens 3:58
Oh, yeah. Thank you. It’s been it’s been really interesting journey here, right? Because we actually had like, like a company that does leak detection on and, and it was really interesting to learn how because like you just said, it’s super challenging to find a leak, you know, you have to find the shut offs, and you have to find it. And then it’s like, well, you know, worst case scenario, we have to show up the whole building. But then like you said, then everybody’s covered that day, because it’s not safe to be there anymore. Yeah. It’s been an adventure. We’ve had a few people from, from Europe to which has been really interesting to get their perspective on how things are going. So you’re Yeah, so your company is located in Redwood City.
Jack Lau 4:39
Yep. Yep, we’re right here on right off the freeway, one on one Redwood Shores. We’re on the edge of Redwood City, San Carlos. Very convenient on the bay and Perfect World Entertainment. We publish video games. So the last one that we were our last big hit was Remnant for any of the games. I know I know. Some people play games, especially during is endemic Remnant From the Ashes. And then we recently announced that the Game Awards, upcoming title release next year, have a nice death. So we’re very excited. I mean, gaming really blew up during this like past almost two years, which is like one of those industries that just was able to weather the whole pandemic very well.
Greg Owens 5:21
Yeah, I would think gaming, alcohol sales, probably bicycles and sneakers, probably all those things like did well, right.
Jack Lau 5:30
Oh my gosh, yeah, I as you know, it’s one of those weird things that you just don’t know what to expect you don’t you never live to a pandemic, right? Is it my first pandemic, I’m now expect to live there multiple pandemics? I hope not. And, you know, the economy and all that is it was just like really unpredictable. You didn’t expect like all the news that were like cryptocurrency, the stock market and all that it was just in a flux. But, you know, it seems like things are finally settling back down. And I expect kind of at least another year of like, just recovery of getting back to kind of sort of not a normal, but like a new normal of understanding of what the new kind of workplace will look like, what our new lives will kind of look like and what, you know, COVID will look like, in all of this. Especially I think I you’re here in the Bay Area, too. So you know, the new mass, California, statewide mass kind of mandate started up again, but then other jurisdictions like San Francisco, you can you can actually not have to wear a mask. So it’s kind of confusing.
Greg Owens 6:31
So man, this has been so confusing. We went through this this morning, because Marin County, where our offices is located the same? Yeah, it’s like San Francisco. They’re like, No, it actually doesn’t. It applies to all of California. But you guys have an exemption?
Jack Lau 6:45
Yeah. So it’s, it’s one of those like, you know, this is I’m not saying I’m the expert in all this. But I think eventually, even myself, just gets tired of trying to navigate all this. And eventually, it might lean towards the direction of say, Hey, if you if you don’t want to get vaccinated, or you don’t get a booster that’s on you, like, we’re like the government or whoever is out there, it’s kind of done enforcing all these things. But I don’t know if you’ll get there. Yeah, if that’s what the future look like, because it’s like kind of the flu shot. If you want to get a flu shot, you get it, and you don’t, you don’t and then you risk getting the flu, and you deal with it. It’s just covered a little bit more deadly. So I you know, I hope people do what’s right from stay safe and healthy. Because, you know, it’s life is so exciting to live at this time. It is, you know, day and age me technology, all that and like, I wouldn’t want to miss out on this. Honestly, I want to live every day to the fullest.
Greg Owens 7:34
Right, right. Yeah, no, no, that’s so true. And that’s a very good outlook. And yeah, I think you’re right, I think we’ll navigate these waters, you know, we’re just become sort of normal, we might have some ups and downs and some mask requirements again, or they might have a little more restrictions, and we just kind of go with the flow of that. And I think a lot of what you’re saying is true. Like I see a lot of my friends and family and stuff where they’re, you know, they’re like, you know, not not as worried about it anymore.
Jack Lau 8:04
Yeah, I mean, before I totally get it, like there weren’t vaccinations around. So there was no solution, you know, no prevention. Now, there’s a pill coming out, there’s these treatments. So it’s, you know, we’re getting better. I mean, that’s, that’s human progress at the end of the day. And eventually, you know, I’m hoping next year, something like this time next year, or holidays really kind of back to normal, in a sense, or at least give people option. If they want to be normal. They want to protect themselves and go out and do things they have the option to, either it’s getting tested or getting vaccinated, whatever it is, it’s because I admit, like, I spent four months working at home and it wasn’t like it was you know, it’s kind of like locked down couldn’t go anywhere. It really was just not fun.
Greg Owens 8:45
Right? Right. Yeah, it was interesting time. It’s hard to remember all those things that happened down that was like, you know, 2020 20 was sort of a crazy year we had blocked down then we had fires. Yeah, Mo from the fires and we had riots, you know, it’s
Jack Lau 9:00
okay, that that year is like, so much happened. So much happened, but it’s almost like a blur, unless you really dig back into your memory and just try to bring up each moment. Because it was like, we had the the whole riots, the the BLM, and, you know, people know, hey, there’s gonna be a, it’s pandemic, why are you doing all this, but then a lot of people didn’t really they were outdoors, and they were being safe. And you know, it wasn’t like a huge spread. So, you know, we got a handle on COVID at the same time where we understood Hey, if you’re outdoors, well ventilated, you know, you might not be able to might not catch COVID as likely as if you’re indoors and your air is kind of stuffy so you know we’re learning and figuring out but yeah, 2020 was definitely like one of those years that just happened kind of like cruise by but it just did and now you know, I’m thinking you know 2021 When I thought you know, okay, it’s a year all right, but you know, the workplaces are starting to open back up the sense of kind of, like return to you know, pre pandemic was happening. But then, you know, we got this new variant coming out again. So it’s like, okay, do does that mean another nother year of being safe. And it’s, it’s like, it’s very interesting to watch this all happen. But, you know, my guiding light is just to keep my people safe as much as I can because, you know, as facilities we have, we have OSHA, you know, the big OSHA that’s, that regulates what you do and and all those emergencies standards that we have to implement take care, at the end of day, you know what the same grace was, hey, if you want to work at home, and I don’t have to worry about it, you know, you guys can work at home, I don’t have to worry about you know, your vaccination status, you wearing masks and walk around, checking floors and things like that. So that made, you know, lives for facilities manager a lot easier. But you know, I’m happy to welcome people back and just take care of them. Because I understand, you know, not everybody has a home where they have a working space, you know, a lot of our folks are in a one bedroom apartment or a studio. And it’s like, ah, it really is, like, depressing to work in the same space, like 500 square feet for months on end, just need a break from it all. So we try to accommodate as much as we can as many people as we can. What we do here,
Greg Owens 11:10
yeah, so and so what is your what are you guys doing at this point now? So a lot of companies that we’re doing work for, we’re noticing, like, you know, there’s been a lot of false starts, let’s say like, yeah, because, you know, it’s, it’s interesting. People say, why can’t they make decisions, but there’s, there’s like, 160 reports about COVID coming out per day? Oh, yeah, that’s way too much information for us to like, consume, and then make decisions on like, what’s the best best route forward. And so I know that like some of the big companies we’re doing work for they’ve, they’ve said, like, you know, October, then they’re like, let’s try for December. And now they’re saying, like, possibly next summer, and but let’s not wait and see if I eat. And that’s something the same that you guys are seeing where you’re at in Redwood City.
Jack Lau 12:01
So yeah, that’s, I advise our leadership on kind of what we can’t do. And I also try to help forecast what it looks like in the region, I can’t speak for other parts of the country, but in the Bay Area, right? We’re so heavily driven by the big tech companies, Google, Facebook, they’re their future Apple, they have, and they drive a lot of the conversation in this region, you know, what they do sometimes does cascade down to smaller firms. You know, they’re doing a huge, like, they have at least 10,000 Plus even up to maybe even like, 100,000, I don’t know, their headcount. But, you know, what they decide affects the region, you know, let’s, for example, their food program, right, Google started, you know, free food to everybody, and all sudden, like, oh, man, your your mid tier firms that have maybe a few 100 started having to offer some sort of lunch option. So with regards to like COVID, and all that, what we can do is our companies about less than 100, so we’re able to safely allow people to come back that want to come back, you know, we do require vaccination. And because the number is so small, we don’t have the troubles that Google has, or my apple, whatever, have when, you know, the math works against them, because their population group is so big, you know, it’s easy to get one case and all sudden, you got to start isolating quarantine people, for our group, you know, I get about 20 to 30 people in there every so often. And because we know those people, we know their statuses, and we have enough space in our office for people to effectively stay apart. And, you know, we revamp our lunch program to make it as safe as possible, that we can still welcome those to come in. And then for everybody else, they can still remote work, you know, we we pretty much announces that they have until next summer, until we decide what the weather will look like going forward so they can take knowing that until next summer, they can work at home remotely. Until then we’ll see what the situation looks like. And, you know, I I’m glad that I’m not one of those bigger companies that have to continually pivot every two months, three months and decide what what’s best for them. And, you know, I I can’t advise and say there’s a one size kind of or one solution that applies I you know, to anybody listening out there facilities managers, or anybody on the leadership team that decide these policy, HR whatnot, is you know, make the policy that fits for your population know your people honestly know what works for Don’t be so easily swayed by what Twitter’s doing, they went 100% remote right off the bat. And you know what Google says, Hey, we’re going to ask people to come back three days a week, you know, find what works best for you your business because one of the things I usually tell people like let’s say and these might not be the best examples, but one that I found like you know, let’s say for a call center, for example, you could probably go remote, no, honestly reduce your office size, right? Because the type of work you do can be done at home, right? You take it to another industry, what if you’re a creative agency that you need to be at collaborate on projects, and you can’t always be remote, maybe still need that collaborative space every so often. So kind of figure out what works for you, there’s, there’s no one size fits all. And then also be careful of those relationships you have with your people, and also understand the relationship they want to have with you. Because I find, you know, one of the most vocal groups right down with 100%. Like, they won’t be remote forever, because that’s disruptive, right? They never, we never have really done that. So they’re super vocal, but then I found, you know, my minority group, a third of our companies, like, we want to be back in office, because we need the space to work outside of my children, I don’t have the space or what not. So, you know, listen, though your population. And you know, sometimes I think one of the most extreme examples I heard is one company, 100%, remote, you know, their employees loved it. But then the the caveat they had for the remote employees was giving them that option, they also turn them into contractors. So it’s one of those things where it’s like you, you have to be careful, if you ask for 100 Say remote, because if you become that kind of company, where you’re, you know, this is kind of touching upon what your previous guests, Edward Johnson came in and said, where things were transactional, then your company will just say, hey, you know, why would I want to keep you full time give you all those benefits, when all I need is someone to produce my results, I can now hire competitively around the globe and get contract work agencies or wherever, I don’t need to keep the FTE on payroll, and I save money that way. So you got to be careful what you ask for. And think of the contract says, Yeah, because, you know, as much as employees, you know, break resonation or whatnot have, you know, slight edge right now, but down the line, you know, it’s usually back to the businesses that that whole kind of the power once again, and you have to be careful what you ask for, because they business will then later ask for something in return, they wouldn’t just give you all this, you know, flexibility, freedom, whatever you want, without kind of just like cutting. And this is where it ties into, you know, the leaks from Google and these other companies that say, Hey, we’re gonna cut back your salary, if you move out of state, or you go somewhere where cost of living is much lower. So you got to really, like understand that the bigger picture, and I’m, I’m grateful that I just have to take care of about 100 people, and we’re not that complicated, you know, we kept it pretty streamlined. Where, hey, we can’t support people working from all over the country, honestly, like, it doesn’t make sense for us, you know, if you ended up moving, I think most likely, you know, you might end up finding a job. So if you work with big companies that have the, you have the ability to move somewhere else, and you could take advantage of that great, but again, that’s not something that works for every company, like small mom pops business can’t, can’t have people working, like in different time zones and have the technology because it’s not cheap, to support remote working as much as it sounds like, you know, it costs money to get all the tools, you got to pay all the taxes, you got to have deal with all that. And it’s, it’s overhead, you know, it’s cost.
Greg Owens 18:01
It gets complicated, for sure. And you touched on a few really great points that haven’t really explored much, but I think I think you’re right, in a lot of ways, like, you know, the devils in the details of these things, right, and you have to get down to the, what the company culture is like, and, and then like you said, there’s gonna be consequences. And I always I keep thinking that, you know, business is about results, right, they have to, there’s that there’s a higher power that they all have to lean into, right? And that’s their shareholders, right? And they have to keep, you know, excelling and, and staying ahead of the competition and, and all of that. So if one company goes fully remote, and is able to work out like a gig economy is like what you were saying, and that becomes way more competitive and way more advantageous than yes, then a lot of other companies are going to follow that path in a way.
Jack Lau 18:52
Yeah, I really don’t hope that to happen. Because I’ve been a contractor before and, you know, various works. And for those that don’t, I mean, you know, you got to hit the taxes just hit you, like, you could try to negotiate for higher, you know, pay or however you want. And I understand, you know, this is a whole debate over you know, that Uber and Lyft, right, get the freedom to set your own hours or whatever, you just have to meet deadlines. But there’s a, you know, there’s the other side of that is I had to pay, like what 35% into taxes, because you’re now covering both sides of the bill. And then you know, you don’t get the health insurance, so then you got to figure that out on your own. So there’s a lot of cost to that. So it’s something that, you know, people just got to think about, you know, long run and I didn’t even think about the long term scaling that you know, if one company really scales a whole department, they realize they can just go contractor status and let people work at home. They’re like, fine, I don’t care, your contract, you work wherever you want, right? Then other companies might start doing that and then then it’s no fun. Then we’re all just contractors and that contractor life is it’s not for me, I tried it. It is tough that you’re not doing when your next paycheck is coming in, you’re competing, like nowadays like one of the special things about being facility managers in the region is I’m here I’m not like in a different state trying to manage the building, and that’s my competitive edge. But if it came a job that didn’t have a physicality to it, then I’m competing on a global scale of man, I can tell I met someone overseas can probably do my job for half my pay and the company’s like, Yeah, we’re gonna we’re gonna go with that option instead. And I guess, you know, that taking all things are equal, like same skill set, things like that, which is very easy finding different countries nowadays. I mean, it’s a global economy.
Greg Owens 20:34
Totally. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, and I think for some of us, you might fall into this category, too. But for me, I don’t like being sedentary in one spot too long, right. Like, I found the perfect sort of career in a lot of ways. And then I’m moving around all the time. All day, I sit down for a podcast, I’m going to go from here, we’re gonna go to center Feld and go to San Francisco walk through like three different buildings, right? Yes. It’s gonna be my day, right?
Jack Lau 21:02
Yeah, that’s so much fun to me. Like, that’s my car. Right? That’s right. Yeah, you’re,
Greg Owens 21:07
you’re gonna be doing the same thing you got to walk through, you got to get eyes on something, you got to problem solve. And that’s what’s so amazing about being a facilities manager is that it’s, you know, every day is so different.
Jack Lau 21:19
That’s it’s one of like, I remember watching on Disney Plus the inside of the Pixar Studios and the facility manager, there’s a lady there. I don’t know if you ever had guests. But if you can reach out to her, she’s great. They had. And, you know, they did a whole episode on what she does. And she just walks like 10,000 steps just around that that studio in Emeryville. And it’s like, wow, that’s, I mean, that’s like the dream. That’s the dream because I love Disney a big Disney fan at bam, big gamer too. So I’ve been so grateful to work is kind of like my dream job. And my dream industries. It’s like, I’m not even working anymore. Honestly, I’m just like, just doing my thing, living out my dream on an everyday I’m excited to come into the office take care of our people.
Greg Owens 22:02
Tell me Did you ever try to be like a programmer or designer for games, and
Jack Lau 22:07
Oh, so I, and this is where I’m 37 Turning 38 next year. And so when I went from high school, I went to art school, and did did study like a year of graphic design, game design and things like that. But I found that more to be a hobby. And then I ended up going to UC Berkeley, for English. Oh, in a different. But at the core of what I like to do is just it always involves people and people are first. I mean, that’s what makes living exciting for me is I get to meet people like you people that I don’t know, yet, you know, down the line. And that’s what life is all about just beating people. And for me, I get to support them, and empower them, watch them grow, build their potential, you know, I play my support role. But I know my support role is vital to the functions of business and outside of business and life. I’d like to support you know, people that I know, you make those connections, you know, maybe I don’t have some right now, but down the line because I’m at work and I know other people, maybe I can make that connection with some other person. And it’s you know, that’s what makes life so exciting. And fun to be alive in this day and age where we have like internet computers. Jeez, it’s it’s crazy.
Greg Owens 23:20
Right? Right. Yeah, you download any game anytime you want.
Jack Lau 23:25
Exactly. I mean, I know
Greg Owens 23:28
You’re old, you’re old enough to know, like, we had to order it. Or you had to go to us. Yeah, I won. Right? I you just like get the latest release on day one. That I grew up in an era where my cousins for some reason, though, because games were not cheap. Yeah, cousins in New York always had the latest games like on a floppy, right? And they could, they could sell it to me.
Jack Lau 23:51
That’s, that’s, those are the days I remember, Hey, yo, my first computer and the floppy disk and things like that. Oh, my gosh,
Greg Owens 23:59
you’re pulling out one disk to put in another.
Jack Lau 24:03
Yeah. So that’s actually one of the most interesting when we talk about the divided technology generation, like, during this pandemic Greeno offices were closed. And I had to kind of pivot my role because honestly, I’ll tell you, I’ll be the first facility manager, whatever to say, hey, this first like four months or six months was kind of boring. Like you had so much time on your hands because people were not saying it’s too cold, it’s too hot, or, you know, I need this done or something’s wrong with the building because no one was in the building. So I took the time and this is where it’s like you got to have them tell you to always learn and acquire new skills. And I took the time to pick up skills kind of virtually to connect our people kind of like a virtual like on Slack. I now post like a tick tock every day to kind of like remind people off still exists, things are still happening.
Greg Owens 24:56
And you’re doing a TikTok and then like posting that to your Slack. Channel.
Jack Lau 25:00
Yeah, so I love I love TikTok because it’s easy to make videos. But it’s easy, so easy. Yeah, like, it makes something entirely stupid. And it’s so easy. But it’s like these little clips of what’s happening in office. Like, for example, this morning, I’m trying to do a toy drive. And I’m just posting a quick 1015 second video to promote, hey, we got a toy drive going on. And this is how we’re still able to bring people together, either they’re in office, or they’re at home. So this way, we have this kind of virtual, it’s like a virtual workplace. So people are still connected. And that’s what I think you got to do it in a pandemic, so that when you come out of the pandemic, you know, we’ll all have new skill sets in this environment. Because I tell you, I think what it this is why I go back to Edward Johnson. Yeah, because he touched on technology. If you remember, he said, he was able to control the HVAC through Slack. I’m like, Yes, that’s it. You got to develop those skills for the new kind of era of facility management. And I’ll tell you, I have the whole like HVAC system. It’s only a computer. It’s like the server room all by itself. But when you connect that with Slack, and integrative technology, that’s where it’s exciting.
Greg Owens 26:11
Did you do that at your company? Are you looking at doing that?
Jack Lau 26:15
Well, I want to look at what he did. Because I
Greg Owens 26:18
it’s using AI right. And and so then like when an employee has like, because hot cold, right? That’s yeah, that was the challenge that they were trying to solve. And, and you just punch in you as the employee just punch in, hey, I feel cold. Yeah. Right. And then, and then like two seconds later, you hear the fan go on. Ah, that is so exciting. And so you go, Wow, that’s great. I just got what I wanted, right? Rather than send you like right now there’s probably a ticket that has to come up, we’ve got to be sitting down at a desk, get that ticket, then you’ve got to like schedule time to look at the HVAC and make an adjustment. By that time, there’s been a lot of time went by right?
Jack Lau 26:57
Oh, so that’s why I was like, so excited to have you bring guests like that to talk about things they’re doing. So that inspires me to do even like better stuff down the road. Of course, I don’t know the technology behind that. Because I know there’s like, those systems seem to talk to each other. And there’s like a lot of clarity behind that. But, you know, you don’t want an employee abusing and say I’m too cool out too hot. And then it just like, you know, things like that I’m sure they have like fail safes in place. But that that’s what is so exciting. And I took the time during this pandemic to you know, brush up, I joined the local chapter here, the facilities. So, you know, I, I brushed up on my skill set, I’m trying to take the CFM and get certified down the road. And you just have to take these opportunities, and it doesn’t even have to be facility, man, it could be anything, you know, take the time to develop your skill set so that you’re able to launch yourself even further when things start getting opening back up in a way, which they totally have. And I have to agree like, as much as people say remote work is here to say yeah, but when I follow the money, honestly, like, you follow money, the real estate deals are still happening. And they need somebody like