What Habits Will Stick in a Post-Pandemic World
Like everyone else locked in their house for the better part of the past year, I rewatched The Office. In its entirety. More than once.
And while Andy Bernard may not have been the smartest man in Scranton, he did leave us with one particularly relevant pearl of wisdom for living through a pandemic:
“ “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.” ”
We didn’t realize then that February of 2020 was going to be the good old days, and since then, we have been desperate for a return to those simpler times. Now, a year into the pandemic, with vaccines being rolled out and more restrictions lifted, it looks like a return to something ever so slightly resembling the ‘good old days’ may be on the horizon.
But what, if anything, will we miss about these times? Most of COVID life can go straight to the horrifying history books it will belong in, but there are some aspects of this new existence that I hope roll their way into the ‘new normal’... whenever that gets here.
Curbside EVERYTHING
Yes, there have been times when I have missed browsing aimlessly through shops, trying on the dress I know won’t look good (but damn that mannequin pulled it off); and I am excited to return to those misadventures. What I don’t miss? Unloading both kids from the car to sprint through a puddle-laden parking lot in the pouring rain to pick up the diaper genie refills at Target. With stores doing everything in their power to limit in-person shopping and still bring in revenue came the “Curbside Pickup” boom. Particularly in a state known for its outrageous laws restricting the acquisition and consumption of alcohol, (1) the idea of being able to have a bottle of wine brought out to my car was something I dreamt of in January of 2020. In March 2021, we are living that dream. And I never want to wake up from it.
The Focus On Home
If Saturday morning Lowe’s parking lots showed us anything last spring it was that HGTV binge-watching was having quite an impact. (2) But people did a lot more than cosmetic updates to their homes in 2020. With work-from-home policies being prolonged and some companies deciding to allow employees to transition entirely to virtual, people started focusing more on where they wanted to live over where they had to work. With this newfound geographical freedom, cities saw a mass exodus. Suddenly the suburbs, with their lawns and nature trails and homes with enough space for an office, became the place to be. People wanted to be comfortable in their homes (3) instead of in an area where the main lure was spending time outside of it.
Mindfully Supporting Small Business
All too often we don’t realize how much we enjoyed a small business until it’s shuttered. One of my favorite things to witness over the past year has been how communities have rallied around their small businesses. (4) Restaurants flooded with take-out orders. Local hardware stores with (socially distanced) lines out the door on Saturday mornings. Mom and pop bike shops selling out inventory. (5) It didn’t take long to see those small businesses were (and still are) in danger. When things feel “normal”, don’t forget the restaurant that sold you flour when Whole Foods was all out.
Attention Being Paid to Issues Mothers Face in The Workplace
American society has long failed working families, especially mothers. Never has that failure hit so hard as it has over the past year. (6) Mothers have left the workforce in droves not out of a lack of professional ambition, but by the sheer impossibility of the expectations thrust upon them. Our children’s schools need us to be teachers. Our children need us to be parents. Our employers need us to be employees. When those three weights are placed in front of so many mothers, it is clear which one has to be lifted. In many cases this isn’t an instance of a family losing extra income - these are families losing necessary income.
Throughout the pandemic, several national news outlets have done in-depth pieces covering the struggle of mothers trying to balance working from home, parenting, and homeschooling their children. Candidates clinched their 2020 elections based on promises to working mothers to do right by them in Congress or the White House. The focus on those promises remains strong; but even after COVID relief bills come through, we as a society need to examine why we let our failure get this far in the first place. The struggle of most working mothers isn’t going away when their children return to school. Paid maternity leave, universal pre-K and access to healthcare are all issues that matter outside of the pandemic. Let’s not stop working for these families once the kids are back in the classroom.
Prioritizing Relationships
We’ve all done it. We run into an old friend and say “Let’s get together soon!” only to never follow up. Our intentions were good but life got busy, those plans fell through and rescheduling was somewhere down our to-do lists. Then, COVID took all of our well-meaning plans and ripped them out from under us. And, like anything, once we couldn’t have nights out with old friends; they were all we ever wanted. So people started to Zoom. To send that overdue text. To… <gasp>... CALL people! For everything we lost to COVID, the important relationships in our lives were strengthened for many people.
So while I dream of a 2022 where I drop my kids off at school without wondering if their hand sanitizer is adequately full or if they remembered their back up mask; in these fantasies let’s remember to drive up to the curb outside of our favorite local bakery and call an old friend while we wait for our order to be brought out to our car.
Brittany Kooienga is an Operational Management Consultant and owner of Kooienga Consulting. A former marathon runner, in 2020 she was fueled by caffeine and dry shampoo in equal parts while attempting to work, parent and homeschool through the pandemic.
EXPERTS REFERENCED
Boston.com, Allison Pohle, (2015). Drinking Laws in Massachusetts Aren’t Puritanical — They’re Worse
BusinessWire.com, (2020). Improvement Activity Increases During COVID-19
CNBC.com, Melissa Repko, (2020). RETAIL, Urban flight means home improvement and DIY trends are more than a pandemic bounce. They’re a new habit
MichiganBusiness.org, Kristine Richmond, (2020). Rally Together to Support Small Businesses
NYTimes, Christina Goldbaum, (2020). Thinking of Buying a Bike? Get Ready for a Very Long Wait
NPR, Andrea Hsu, (2020). 'This Is Too Much': Working Moms Are Reaching The Breaking Point During The Pandemic