Juno News - How will businesses deal with COVID going forward？

00:00:00.000 I had a rather interesting retail shopping experience the other day and it got me thinking

00:00:08.460 about what are our communities going to be like and our relationships with our small businesses

00:00:12.900 going to be like in the months ahead, the months and years ahead. So the story is I was doing a

00:00:18.660 bunch of errands to buy stuff for dinner. I went to this one location where I had to pick some

00:00:22.860 particular goods for the meal and I go to walk into the store and I haven't been to this location

00:00:27.500 in like two years not for any particular reason just you know haven't been there in two years but

00:00:31.540 I know about it I'd been there before so I haven't been there pre-pandemic and I go to go in and I can

00:00:36.700 see sort of my peripheral vision that there's people in there employees in there so the store's

00:00:40.260 open and I go to walk in and suddenly I can't like I just press on the door and it's locked and then

00:00:46.440 the door's kind of like weird I go what's what's going on with this door and I realize there's a

00:00:50.180 cutout in it and wait a second this is a pickup only window the sort of stuff that we saw back in the

00:00:57.080 winter back in like February when a lot of retail outlets were closed other than you know pharmacies

00:01:02.120 and grocery stores and so forth in Ontario they were closed and these other types of places like

00:01:06.560 I was shopping at only open for curbside pickup but then most other businesses are in fact open for you

00:01:12.400 to walk around into right now in Ontario I mean we're we're not in lockdown there's restrictions and

00:01:17.380 rules some people don't like many of them and well some people want tighter ones but we're not in

00:01:21.180 lockdown in Ontario right now and I'm like what what on earth is going on here and I was kind of

00:01:25.460 like a little caught off guard and then a person an employee right away comes up to the window and

00:01:29.940 they're like what do you want and I was like oh okay I'll you know I'll have this or that and

00:01:34.740 you know I pay and so forth and after I'm done paying I actually see there's a sign that's right

00:01:39.280 up there uh at the at the sort of door slash window uh the service window that says you still must

00:01:46.500 wear a mask right now meaning I was supposed to have worn a mask outdoors while interacting between a

00:01:53.300 glass door with this person I was like what so I I guess broken their rule I didn't realize I didn't

00:01:59.240 read the sign before I went up and and spoke to the person and they never actually asked me to put on

00:02:03.500 the mask but I was like that is so weird all of this is very weird there's a few establishments like

00:02:08.720 that in this particular neighborhood that are actually doing this not open for in-store shopping

00:02:13.820 and I texted one of my friends who lives in that area I wasn't that close to the area but I knew he lived

00:02:18.160 closer so he knew the streets more and I was like what what's the deal with this have they always been

00:02:22.920 like this and he was like yep that's that's these couple businesses in that area and I'm like I don't

00:02:28.180 feel good about this because the whole fact that the sign that comes from them being closed like that

00:02:35.140 in-person shopping is they are saying it's not safe it's not it's not good you're gonna get COVID here

00:02:40.800 and the the proper thing is to close up the shop I'm not sure their exact reasons for doing that I

00:02:45.440 didn't ask them and there's no sign spelling out why they're doing it that way but I mean that

00:02:49.280 probably is the reason I mean it's got to be uh to do with COVID and I don't like that because it

00:02:56.060 spreads concerns fear it foments a bit of hysteria to suggest that in general it is not safe to go into

00:03:04.140 these stores and that could have a ripple effect and a damaging effect and a psychological impact on

00:03:10.020 people who are like oh maybe this shops onto something that the others aren't maybe they should all be

00:03:13.860 closed and so forth so I don't really want to go to this store anymore I don't feel good about this

00:03:18.880 in case they do sort of precipitate more going in this direction like by all means I guess if that's

00:03:24.360 the way you want to conduct your business that's you're right but I you know we've we fought so

00:03:28.600 much we've gone we've come so far to get things reopened and this place won't reopen for whatever

00:03:34.200 reason and I'm like I just don't want anything to do with this but then I imagine there are a few

00:03:39.460 people who are like this store is the true hero you know they they should be doing all of this and

00:03:44.040 they are putting health first and those people will frequent that place more and I'm going to

00:03:48.260 frequent that place less I'm not going to go there because I just feel really odd about the fact that

00:03:53.060 that happened and this stuff's going to linger for a while people are going to remember their

00:03:57.240 experiences I mean you know years before pre-pandemic you remember when you got poor customer service at

00:04:01.520 this one store and you're not going back and I think we're going to have similar uh views in the years

00:04:08.020 ahead about these different establishments in our neighborhoods whether we felt they went the right

00:04:12.120 way or the wrong way when it came to their perspectives and advocacy for covid rules how does

00:04:16.340 how is that going to play out you know in the future I I think it's going to be very interesting

00:04:20.460 to see because I did not feel good about what that store did sending a signal that it was unsafe for

00:04:25.300 me to go in there for 90 seconds or what have you so I'm not going there again

Juno News - September 20, 2021

How will businesses deal with COVID going forward？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript