Post Pandemic Era – Let’s Build It With #PPESpend

What the post-pandemic era looks like is, for better or worse, in the hands of consumers.

The painful reality is that not all existing shops, restaurants, wineries, theaters, and other businesses are going to make it to the post-pandemic era. The U.S. government has decided to leave the financials of survival to individual businesses, and the protective measures for populations to individual state and local governments. Every existing business must decide what actions they’ll take to thread the needle of making money while following (or not) local requirements. And it’s especially difficult because safety costs money and time.

Businesses that decide to prioritize safety are disadvantaged against competitors who decide to only put up the façade of safety. Or any competitors who outright decide not to give a fuck.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is a necessary requirement for surviving the pandemic. Necessary, but not sufficient. Getting to the post-pandemic era (also PPE) requires physical PPE, but also effort, intention, and money. Let’s share with each other the best places to spend our pandemic-era money, shall we? The places that are making the hard choices. The choices best for all people, not just the bottom line.

 

Enter #PPESpend and its “child” tags.

 

What places are making sure customers safe, WHILE ALSO doing the best they can by their staff? Who’s making sure staff has adequate personal protective equipment? Is the management at your favorite shop backing up their clerks when a clerk insists “the mask needs to cover your nose too”?

Who deserves to make it to the post-pandemic era?

Tell the world. Share your receipts, figuratively (and literally, if you’d like), far and wide on social media. Tell us where to #PPESpend, and if you can, help us search for what type of establishment.

Retail establishments? #PPERetail

Restaurants? #PPEResto

Wineries? #PPEWine

Breweries? #PPEBeer

Bars? #PPEBar

Coffee? #PPECoffee

Does a place ship? #PPEShip

You get the idea. We want to see who you want to make it to the post-pandemic era, and we want to know why. As someone working in beer retail during this pandemic, I’ve experienced firsthand what it means for a workplace to care about its employees’ and customers’ health as much as they care about economic survival.

It’s true. At this point, we’re all bloody tired of hearing “COVID” and thinking about this whole pandemic shit that is fucking up our world. We miss our people. We miss traveling. We want our holidays, our restaurants, our shopping, our “social gatherings,” and everything else. It’d be kind of nice if we were able to spend more than a short, stressful while outside of our own homes. This pandemic is truly ruining everything.

We’d really like to just ignore it and have the virus disappear.

Unfortunately, that will not work. Ignoring COVID will disappear things, but not the pandemic itself. It’ll kill people and places, both directly and indirectly. Ignoring the pandemic, pretending it doesn’t exist, or just assuming “the only way out is through” will only destroy.

Let’s build.