You’re seeing and feeling it. There are more cars on the road. The stores are starting to get crowded. The moods of your family, friends and co-workers are improving. The once-palpable fear that permeated your daily life is subsiding. Life appears to be getting back to some sort of normalcy.
After over a year of hunkering down inside the safety of your home, avoiding people and being careful of everything you’re doing, so as not to get or pass along the virus, you’re finally feeling a measure of safety. Millions of Americans have been vaccinated. Covid-19 cases and fatalities have plummeted.
A switch hasn’t been turned nor flag waved, but there is a sense that we’re at the beginning of the end of the pandemic. There’s an exhilaration in the air and the feel of entering a brave new era.
We are both highly anticipating, but also cautious of what our work and lives will be like three or six months from now. If history is a guide, we’ll likely see a swift backlash against our previous behavior. From 1914 to 1918, America was embroiled in World War I. Toward the end of the Great War, a vicious virus ravaged humanity. The Spanish Flu outbreak caused more deaths than combat.
After the war ended and the virus subsided, it brought in a new era—the Roaring ‘20s. This time period was marked by a new sense of optimism. There was an overall feeling of a new dawn. Prior traditions seemed antiquated and everything looked possible. There were new technological inventions, the Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance started, arts and culture flourished, people were dancing, drinking and enjoying life to the fullest.
In modern times, the conservative rigidity of the 1950s led to the counterculture hippie movement of the 1960s, which turned into a decadent, hedonistic decade in the 1970s. The ‘80s became a money-obsessed era, characterized by popular television shows and movies, such as Dallas, Wall Street and the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The ‘90s ushered in a less flamboyant, more gritty period, with the rise of grunge music and hip hop.
We will see rapid changes in the post-pandemic world. It’s already starting. After spending over a year at home, wearing stained sweatpants and ripped graphic T-shirts, people can’t wait to get outside. There will be a lot of folks who want to return to the office—for about two or three days a week to start with. Tired of looking and feeling like a slob, they’ll put on suits and corporate attire to make themselves feel good.
The folks who are still on the Zoom calls wearing a nice shirt and hidden shorts and flip flops will take notice of their colleague wearing a sharp suit and tie. They’ll feel that they’ve become slackers and will plan to buy a new wardrobe.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took many businesses by surprise when it said last Thursday that people who are vaccinated could go maskless in most places. Target, Costco, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and Disney Parks have lifted restrictions.
To break with former monotony, you’re going to ask your spouse and kids if they want to take a ride to the shopping mall. What used to be a commonplace occurrence will now feel like a treat. Instead of fearing a visit to your favorite restaurant, your family will sit down for a nice meal. Your fellow diners may not be wearing masks.
When you return home, a client sends an email asking for a Zoom meeting. You’re all ready to say “yes,” but at the last moment, you fire back a note saying, “How about I fly out to meet you in Los Angeles?” You try to think of the last trip you went on and can’t remember, as it’s been so long. You tell your client, “I haven’t been 10 miles from my neighborhood in months and would love to see some new sites!” Starved for human contact, the customer jumps at the offer and tells you to book a flight. They share the names of some trendy bars and nightclubs they’ll take you to. You ask them if they’d also like to take in a basketball game or see a band that you both like that’s in town for the week.
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, has been an open critic of remote work, stating it’s no substitute for being together and collaborating at the office. Dimon said, “I’m about to cancel all my Zoom meetings.” He admitted, “I’m done with it.”
He shared his lament over losing business to rivals who went the extra yard by flying out and meeting potential clients, while his team stayed at home. “There are a bunch of clients who gave business to somebody else because the bankers from the other guys visited and ours didn’t. OK, well, that’s a lesson,” Dimon said. “It’s got to work for the clients—it’s not about whether it works for me. And I have to compete.”
Bloomberg reported, “[JPMorgan] has about 30 to 40 investment bankers traveling daily, according to Jim Casey, the firm’s co-head of global investment banking.” Executives are tired of trying to conduct business over Zoom calls. They want face-to-face interactions. You get to know people better by sitting down with them for dinner, as opposed to a glitchy video call. “Business travel has picked up as people become more comfortable,” Casey said. “You’re not winning new business without in-person connectivity.”
Airbnb, the short-term home and apartment rental-sharing company, said it expects “a travel rebound unlike anything we have seen before.” According to the company, “The world is never going back to the way it was, and that means that travel is never quite going back to the way it was. But travel is starting to return. While conditions aren’t yet normal, they are improving, and we expect a travel rebound unlike anything we have seen before.” Airbnb said in a letter sent to shareholders that its home-sharing business model is en vogue, as “guests aren’t just traveling on Airbnb, they are living on Airbnb” for longer periods of time compared to the past.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Passenger volumes at U.S. airports hit pandemic records over the weekend, with more than 1.7 million people passing through airport security.” United Airlines is adding more than 400 daily flights to its July schedule and increasing service to reopened European destinations. The move marks United’s largest monthly schedule since before the pandemic. Summer travel is up 214% compared to 2020 levels.
This type of trend will play out across the board. When there is a chance to go to a meeting, which you used to dread and hate with a passion, you’ll jump at the opportunity. “That guy” in the office who used to make you so angry because he hogged the spotlight and wouldn’t stop talking during meetings will seem kind of nice and mellowed out. You can’t wait to tell your partner or spouse about the wonderful day you had at the office.
Your boss doesn’t act as mean and condescending as you remembered him to be. As you walk out of the conference room, it will feel nice to have some camaraderie. While walking down the hall, a co-worker you haven’t seen in forever pulls you aside and asks if you’d like to grab a beer because he has some juicy gossip to share with you.
Humans are social creatures. Although feeling strange at first, many people—but not everyone—will nervously look forward to going back to the way things were. Donning nice, new clothes, heading out to the airport to meet customers face-to-face, schlepping into the office a couple of days a week, going out for lunch with the boss and co-workers and scoring tickets to a hot broadway show and fancy dinner to seal a deal will start to feel good and natural again.
Source: Forbes
