What do you Miss that DISAPPEARED during the Pandemic? - Reddit Podcast

what do you missed that disappeared during the pandemic being able to afford things same salary and crazy inflation what a great combo I feel this but I'm also jealous I went from working minimum wage during college to making really good money but having to move to an area with astronomical prices of living plus inflation so I still can't afford anything when do I get to the part where I'm not living paycheck to paycheck I thought at this level of income it meant that I would be rich I miss when I enjoyed my job I'm sure I'm not the only one but covid really changed the way my Hospital runs and not for the better all the good stuff that could jump ship did jump and if they replaced them at all it was with Travelers or warm bodies and our quality of care has certainly suffered not to mention the organization I work for is buying up all sorts of crap but when we need vital equipment we are told that there is no money for it even more insulting is this stupid freaking robot they bought that sole purpose is to deliver things between departments I'm pretty close to quitting Healthcare Forever at this point normally I don't entertain when people crap on America but for real as someone on the inside our Health Care system is freaking appalling respirator therapists here pre-pandemic I was super bubbly and chipper it was easy for me to relate to patients and families I used to wear bows in my hair patients loved it and said it brightened up their day a year into kovid and the Bose stopped I stopped being able to connect with people because as everyone was dying I became closer to my co-workers but basically was a robot to patient care I still do all the things that were required of me and try to do extra when I can but my heart or what used to be my heart isn't in it right now I smile and say all the right things but I don't feel like I used to I'm trying to get back to my chipper bubbly unjaid itself but I worry that that part of me died with the hundreds of patients during the pandemic I miss feeling like I was making a difference a slight more reasonable cost of living everything has gotten so expensive across the board and every industry is posting record profits even the egg shortage led to the highest quality profits in the industry that had ever been seen in America capitalism gonna capitalism restaurants having late hours and more importantly correctly posted hours of operation I swear it's been like a crap shoot knowing when even large franchises will close when their actual hours don't match Google Apple Maps or their own damn website half the time picking up lunch on the way to my overnight shift has become such a gamble like is that place going to be open or will the other place be open I'll admit I saved some money by packing a lunch but I miss picking up food twice a week on my way to work 24-hour Walmarts and all-day breakfast at McDonald's stuff being open after nine working second shift got harder when everything closed after right sucks when your break is at 8 pm so when you get hungry oh everything's closed need to go grocery shopping after work nope stuff is closing before the sun even goes down and it's killing me at my core went to Starbucks last night Saturday by second shift count and they must have been closed at eight rush to get something for dinner place closed at 10 pm and I got there at 9 30. pretty sure there are sanitation standards dropped by seven or eight because there was a freaking piece of wood in my steak and cheese not to mention the crap explosion I suffered soon after so it's not even that everything's closed early the standards have absolutely dropped as well not sure if this person lives in a town or a city but I don't think before or after the pandemic had places closing that early Starbucks has always closed at 10 pm where I live except maybe on Sundays also our major grocery stores don't close till 1am my social skills seriously I found myself extremely awkward as things started opening up oh and social stamina went to a baby shower for about 2.5 hours and to the department store for like an hour yesterday came home so exhausted and I took a nap for an hour then a few hours later I went to bed and slept for a 13 hours straight like what the freak my job company went under it was a love-hate relationship but I suffered for it civility I mean it wasn't great to begin with but post pandemic no one seems to know how to act in public anymore I remember a viral video from the start of the lockdowns of a dad with the British accent telling a bedtime story to his kids about how the world was going to pull together and be even better after the pandemic was over narrator here we didn't and it isn't no traffic and no one everything wasn't crowded and it didn't make me hate how people are literally everywhere dude I relate I remember driving on the highways and driving downtown at night and there was absolutely not a soul in sight it was pretty amazing and a little frightening closest thing to a post-apocalyptic world we might ever experience my belief that most people are reasonable and compassionate me too I used to be so optimistic and believed the good in people I have completely lost all hope and I just don't care about people anymore maybe I'm part of the problem but damn it I've lost any and all patience with anyone 24-hour stores and food that had better quality it seems like all food went downhill in quality fast food sit down restaurants takeout and grocery stores honestly I've noticed that all the layoffs during covid cut the hours and the business quality corporations don't want to return to normal they make enough money now and pay less people to do the same job General friendliness people care less about each other than they used to I'm a firm believer that people never cared about each other they were just too scared of the social consequences of showing it so everyone just got good at pretending driving skills people have been driving like freaking idiots the average normal driver everyone on the road seems to be too aggressive and entitled all while using their phone my grandpa I'm sorry for your loss for everyone's loss father-in-law for us friends so no one told you that life was going to be this way clap clap clap clap paper menus I'm tired of scanning QR codes and dealing with terrible interfaces and slow Wi-Fi just to order a meal so true a lot of restaurants I go to are in this weird internet dead zone so loading a menu up on my phone is always such a massive pain honestly I can't say I've ever had to do this is this like an LA New York or Chicago type thing empty areas I very much dislike crowds traffic and lines I remember my first proper Drive during the strictest lockdown here it was glorious people we were deemed essential services and we're forced to work we didn't want to be called Heroes the people did dead to make themselves feel better now that covet is over the people are back there treating us like pure garbage again screw people I quit my grocery job two years into the pandemic after being there since 2017. I would have people pass me and be like thank you for your service and then by halfway through the first year of it I had people treating me like crap again the level of Stress and Anxiety we endear was astronomical compared to years past I drank the Kool-Aid and really believed that we were making a difference but sadly most could care less as long as they got what they wanted as a team we really had to lean on each other to get through it and you really find out about one's character I remember the great toilet paper pandemic you'd wheel out a cage and it was picked clean before you even got to the TP aisle you could take out a pallet of TP unwrap it and just stand at the end of the aisle with your manager just watching the absolute lunatics we kept a stash of TP out in the back if we saw a distressed looking old person slash working person we'd go up to them and be like and tell them to meet us by the staff door and we'd bring them TP it was like being a substance dealer good fun I started at a grocery store a little more than a month before the pandemic lockdown started I never thought much of the pandemic but early on there would be people coming in and Thanking us for working for being open treating us like First Responders combating the pandemic on the front lines it's not that that's gone now it didn't even last the pandemic lockdowns kept getting pushed further and further until it became the new normal people became more and more frustrated and anxious in their daily lives holding up till mid-march when it still felt like winter hadn't quite ended yet and it was going to be another two weeks only go out for essential reasons people could do that but then it stretched the weather got nicer and people got Cabin Fever people gradually learned and were told outright that your summer was going to be gone any plans you made gone the world is different and scary every day fear for your lives soon us Heroes on the front lines were now the only people that were allowed to interact with and vent with those frustrations people just wanted somebody to yell at and we were the only ones available man I worked retail for five years during the height of Black Friday when people were being killed for items but after hearing so many pandemic stories I can say that it probably wasn't as bad as I thought it was I'll never go back to retail because people are the worst my control over my phone and social media it got so much worse my confidence after years and years of working on it I'm back to square one and older keep working on it I never thought in a million years that I would be as outgoing as I am now still not as much as other people but a huge jump from where I was getting yourself out there and putting yourself in those uncomfortable situations little by little of course makes a huge difference it eventually just becomes normal and fake it I always fake being calm and confident and slowly it started to become a reality communication especially in business it seems like people never want to get back to you there was this all you could eat place you could sit there at the table and order off the menu everything was made fresh and brought to your table they closed during the pandemic I relate to this one in two different cities actually in San Diego there was this pizza place that was a few blocks from the convention center that I always ate at every single day of the convention doesn't look like they made it out of the pandemic and in Austin Texas there was this burger joint that had a burger called The Ron Burgundy and it was served with an egg inside of it on donut bread it was one of the most delicious things ever they had to resort to being a food truck and they only do donuts now it's sad to see how many pandemic casualties there were now that I think about it I lost me I'm not the same person I'm trying hard to find myself still and it's been hard I could certainly relate to that it's interesting how fragile your self-identity is and how quickly it can slip through your hands thanks for sharing this I've been struggling with the same but couldn't articulate it I've never really loved myself but I find I'm missing my pre-pandemic self more and more I feel like I'm sharing mental space with a stranger idiot customers they came back after the pandemic ended and now there are arguably even more idiotic customers there is this strange correlation I've noticed the most obnoxious and most self-entitled ones were usually the unvaccinated ones I work at a sports store and during the pandemic we had a few months long period where we had to check covid passes to allow entry into the store as we were non-essential this was around the time of the second lockdown don't remember if it was before or after it was like hell because I was usually the one standing out in front checking the covet passes with a scanner on the phone even though we had taped off the entrance so that everyone would have to pass around me there were still people who tried to get in unvaccinated people were either trying to get in by lifting the tape or ignoring me somewhere spewing some conspiracy theory bullcrap about microchips or whatever some use their chance to get in when I walked away from the entrance for a few seconds some people were showing me covid passes that were clearly not theirs some tried to beg their way in and had some people that wouldn't let me scan their passes because they didn't want me to take photos of their phone spontaneity a lot of the first come first serve things are now booked months in advance one small example is the park near my house has a free concert series during the summer you used to be able to just show up the day of you had to get there early for good seats but generally no pre-planning now you have to get a ticket a month in advance and they sell out within minutes then you still need to show up hella early to get good seats the belief that I had to be in the office to do my job I am fully aware that I can do my job completely from home I don't have to do that horrible commute every day I'm sure I'll be back to that commute any month now affordable food 100 used to give me meat fresh vegetables fresh fruit milk eggs cheese yogurt drinks snacks Etc that would last almost two weeks now one hundred dollars will get me food to last maybe a week if I ration and only eat once per day a few times meat is now a treat if I happen to have a bit of extra money only one month fruit and vegetables are out of the cans no Dairy at all anymore unless it's one or two of those 1.99 yogurt drinks which were 75 cents in 2019 most stuff I eat now is out of the package or cans you know I used to be a fast food fiend and I wasn't really cooking anything but after the whole anxiety and panic attack stuff that I've done with I've tried to eat a little bit better and so I don't really know how crazy things were but I will say buying fish is pretty expensive the optimism that a global lethal pandemic would lead to our government trying to save lives and change our health care structure in the U.S of course I owe all the zombie movie directors an apology I always said that if that happened everyone would band together and Unite with a common front to solve the problem and nobody would possibly be so stupid or selfish instead we had a people hoarding toilet paper man did I call this one wrong during lockdown I actually felt like my mental well-being improved and this was for several reasons but one was that I felt there was less bragging on social media at least in my family and there was no family drama with the extended relatives be because we weren't visiting each other everybody was scared and locked down so nobody felt jealous of each other there was bigger fish to fry then we got vaccinated and then came the Revenge traveling in Revenge dining and so-called war on labor and my aunts and cousins wanted to hang out again and that opened the floodgates of family drama and constant sense of competition and no feeling good because that one cousin lost this much weight one cousin has this much salary one on got this much money from selling her house I had to be the emotional support for my parents who were falling into these dumb status games I missed those days in lockdown when my family stayed away and kept their status games to themselves the 24-hour economy everything that was open 24 hours now closes at 9pm midnight at the latest restaurants grocery stores gas stations fast food Etc as a person who worked third shift I felt pretty normal pre-pandemic but now I struggle to get my crap done as especially on my days off my faith in humanity seeing how unwilling people are to suffer mild inconveniences to try to reduce the chance of others getting seriously ill or dying or make immunocompromised people able to feel safer in public has destroyed my faith in others the illusion that half my family and friends weren't selfish jerks we had a newborn several months into 2020 and the people who refused to accept that were isolated add doctor's orders they fought against every boundary precaution we had for my son including ones they had no problem with for his older brother a couple years before these same people tried every loophole possible and put themselves at risk for the whole year and don't get me started on their sudden anti-vac stance not only did they put my newborn at risk but other valuable family members too honestly most of them are one step away from Q most people Miss late night shopping late night restaurants I've been thinking about opening a food truck only after 11 pm because there isn't any competition I could probably make Bank just selling grilled cheese sandwiches my local value theater for like a four dollar ticket you could catch movies that had left theaters months ago would always do special Sunday screenings of classic films too I miss being able to walk down and catch a movie or two on a whim opened my eyes to older Cinema as well first saw Casablanca and Rebel Without a Cause there fell through about a year after lockdown since it was a mom-and-pop place that wasn't backed by a major distributor I used to be really outgoing love to go to libraries and coffee shops just to read and people watch and loved random social interactions after all the temper tantrums about wearing masks and people acting generally horribly people just exhaust me I don't want to go anywhere anymore flying being relatively painless yes it was tedious but you usually got on your flight mostly on time and nobody hit flight attendants had a toddler meltdown or tried to open the door made a flight now you need to Pat in at least an extra day and it's scary Choco Tacos a good reason not to have people over it came and went during the pandemic so I still consider that to be disappearing during the pandemic it was nice to say nah we're isolating I figured why not end this video with the personal story one thing I missed was having a plan and a goal for context at the end of 2020 I quit my job in glorious fashion check out the Blaze of Glory video for that story I decided to become a full-time content creator I had saved up enough money to cover all my bills food gas and anything else I needed for six months I told myself that I would do everything I could in those six months to become a successful content creator things were going great for the first two months I made about a thousand dollars each month from streaming and I was putting out 10 videos a week across two YouTube channels then in February I had a panic attack for the first time ever literally thought I was going to die I was basically bedridden for two weeks out of fear I couldn't even go into my stream room because that was where my panic attack started I finally started getting better after a few weeks and Bam another panic attack while I was washing clothes after that my brain was shot I lived in constant fear of having another panic attack when I thought I was finally getting better another panic attack would happen resetting my brain so this life plan that I had for the next six months was ruined by panic attacks I got lucky with those government stimulus checks that allowed me to pay for my bills when my savings ran out I lost all of 2021 to just trying to get back to a normal mental state that was livable I didn't really understand anxiety or panic attacks before I thought it was just people that couldn't handle pressure but now that I live with it man I feel for people that have had to deal with this their whole lives or just got them during the pandemic like I did I'm a lot better nowadays 2022 was also a struggle but not as bad as 2021 my best advice is to become more active if you aren't start working out every day drop the junk food and learn to live with anxiety it sounds stupid but it has helped me the most you gotta fight that urge to get comfortable and just live in the anxiety over time you'll get used to it that's it for this video when you subscribe make sure to hit the Bell to turn on notifications put the playlist on in the background to finish listening to all the stories Link at the top of the description and if you like am I the genius give am I the jerk a shot it's linked in the description too either way thanks a lot for watching and we'll see you guys next time

Channel: Am I the Genius?

Views: 20,561

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Id: F_vV1wjT_kc

Length: 20min 2sec (1202 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 09 2023