The reality of COVID-19, beyond the masks. Stories of our people.

This series explores what happened to our people from different backgrounds in our company, what they felt and how they coped. The human side of working during a pandemic.

The last year and a half of restrictions and lockdowns brought by the pandemic have changed everybody’s routines, not to mention the future expectations of millions of people around the world. This issue is addressed by Ternium in an article where our employees share how they experienced the challenges thrown up by the pandemic at a personal level.

Eivy Jerez: "I didn't know I could be so patience"

For Eivy, the biggest change during lockdown came with online classes at home for her children. Both Eivy and her husband work at Ternium: she is Head of Verifications and Laboratory at the Manizales Plant, and José Gustavo works in the operations area. They have two children, 8-year-old Tomás and 5-year-old Mariana.

"I didn't know I could be so patient," she says. "It was a process of adaptation, we turned our house around, we put in desks where we could be close to our kids because I had to work while they were studying. I felt a bit like an octopus, having to be here and there at the same time, paying attention to work and making sure the children were getting on with their lessons."

Carlos Andrés Gutiérrez: "My daughter Elena was born in the middle of the pandemic"

Carlos Andrés Gutiérrez has been working in the company for sixteen years in the Commercial area, and also as an external salesperson at the Itagüí Plant. He is married to Yulieth Carolina, and they are the parents of 9-year-old Sebastián and 8-month-old Elena.

“My wife had COVID-19 when she was two months pregnant, it was a really scary situation. Elena was born in the middle of the pandemic, and she caught the virus in May this year when she was just six months old. When this happened, we all took the swab test, we tested negative and she was the only one with a positive result.”

Mónica Suárez: "We weren’t ready for this new reality"

Mónica is an Operations and Services Analyst at the Cali Plant, where she has been working for eight years, and with her husband Hugo Fernando, they have two children: Miguel, 9 years old, and María José, 6 years old.

At first, she felt huge uncertainty and fear because of all the information she saw on social networks and heard on the news. Trying to understand what the dynamics were likely to be, even for something as simple as going out to sit in the sun seemed very complicated. “Learning to live together, to work from home, with the children also at home, online lessons for such young children on the computer was extremely difficult. At first, María José had to have her lessons on the cell phone, because we didn't have another computer, and we weren't ready for this new reality.”

Paula Andrea Galvis: "My son was terrified"

Paula Andrea Galvis has been working as an Accounts Payable Analyst for ten years at the Manizales Plant. During the pandemic, she took over as the head of her family, as her husband Oscar is diabetic, and her mother has very high blood pressure. Since it all started, she has been in charge of medical procedures, in addition to managing supplies for the whole family.

"My son was terrified, he didn't want to go out at all, but over time he got used to it, and adapted to the situation," she says. Paula's mother, Gladis, caught COVID-19 last year and made a complete recovery, although the situation was extremely stressful for the whole family. The anguish of being locked up or of developing some health complication was ever-present. But the situation changed for the better when Paula was able to adapt her home so she could work properly: "I stopped working in the dining room and that made me feel more comfortable."

Paula’s story is the last in the stories of our people, a news format that conveyed the reality of what we lived through during the eighteen months.