All sorts of businesses with walk-in traffic, not limited to bars and restaurants, retail stores, other services such as laundries, salons, various specialty shops, and more, face significant hurdles when it comes to restarting or reopening. Not all can reopen where they once were, as back rent debt preventing them from returning. A new location means new rent plus deposits, new insurance, new utilities plus security deposits, furniture and fixtures, equipment, and possibly an architect and designer to plot out the space to keep it within local municipality regulations. Add to this legal costs and city, state and federal filing fees for the business. The upfront costs are daunting.
The new administration’s stimulus packages have been of greater help, for businesses and individuals, alike. But that does not cover the past. Rent due, lost goods, overdue bills with interest, all the tragic suffering and life changes brought about in consequence of the pandemic and how it was handled – these events have lingering effects.
Hovering over the recovery are the fears of more new strains of the virus emerging, the pandemic rearing its ugly, deathly head, all over again. The Delta strain has experts considering the possibility of a spike the levels of 2020, and possible new mutations causing the pandemic level to surge, grow greater than in the recent past. These worries cause workers, employed or looking for work, to rethink their priorities.
Different perceptions and realities have already emerged due to the pandemic. Parents learned how to take part in home schooling their children. Teleconferencing morphed into a new norm. Kids showed their parents how to use technology in ways their parents never fathomed, but now make use of every day. Philosophical types took note, even pleasure, in the fact that they were living through an historic moment. Those with a darker outlook cursed the moment. Lockdown propelled to action many projects long thought to never see the light. From stimulating new ideas to shedding a sharper view and new insights on problem areas. To some it represented opportunity.
Cottage industries arose during the pandemic. Seamstresses, local tailors at laundromats, hobbyist knitters (or those who sew, etc.), stuck at home, became little mask businesses. The business arose of custom t-shirts, writing and printing or making PDFs of special learning books for parents suddenly in-home teachers. Cookbook authors (the one they always threatened to write, and now they self-published it – and there’s demand!) learning to use Shopify or some other WordPress eCommerce plug-in. Making some cheese.
It’s the Pandemic, the lockdown, and one of your appliances goes kaput. Your dishwasher, washer or dryer, the stove. You can get by without the dishwasher. But the washer or dryer? The stove? A household with kids, infants or toddlers, is an emergency zone without a washer or dryer at the ready. No stove? Even if the repair person pronounces it dead, a new one need be delivered, then installed. And then there’s the hot water heater. What if it goes? It’s the pandemic! People are washing their hands all the more often (aren’t they?). All you ask is they wear a mask when they come over to install the replacement. Funny, they ask that of you, too.
For decades it’s been promised, predicted, foretold. It was feared or sparked immediate objections. “I need to see my doctor, look him/her in the eye!” or “How am I gonna open wide and say ‘ahh’ to a computer?” Then came the pandemic. Need to see the doctor? No appointments at the office and the hospitals are overwhelmed with Coronavirus patients. The person from your doctor’s office –who was probably working from home, looking at a computer screen to coordinate schedules—said to you, “How about a video session next Tuesday? Do you know how to use Zoom? Can we schedule you at 3:30?” If a more serious or in-person visit was necessary, or a procedure, be it a CT Scan or an x-ray, that could then be arranged if and when a facility to accomplish this was available.