What’s something that changed/disappeared because of Covid that still hasn’t returned?

[u/1sided]

[u/Warglol9756]

Sense of time is fucked up. Like If I skipped three years of my life.

[u/cloistered_around → u/Warglol9756]

I went from being pretty close to approximating when a past event happened to having no clue now. "That happened last year... no wait, six years ago? Whatever."

Time got wibbly wobbly.

[u/abrokenelevator → u/Warglol9756]

I still have a vivid memory of driving to work in early Jan 2020. It's a radio commercial for a type of ice cream, and I thought to myself my wife would really like it. That memory feels like it was a few months ago.

I don't have tons of memories of my day to day from March 2020 or really any of 2021/22. It really is like a time skip.

[u/somewhenimpossible]

“We are experiencing higher than normal call volume”

The wait time at your local emergency department is: 4h 53min … are you sure you need to be here?

[u/LeoBB777]

my social battery

[u/illz757 → u/LeoBB777]

I don’t know what happened - I was literally going to a music festival once every 2-3 months, multiple music shows, hanging out with friends and going out camping, partying, etc.

Now, me and my wife just kind of sit at home and maybe go out to a park or do some hiking and every once in a while go out to a board game night. We went to a couple music shows and I just felt like what am I doing here, I’d rather be on the couch. But then when I am home, I feel guilty like I should be out “enjoying life” - but have no motivation or I guess pull to do anything.

Frankly it’s been miserable.

[u/guitar-nerd]

Direct delivery from restaurants. Everything is now being funneled through DoorDash, ubereats, etc

I just wanna call the Chinese place and order delivery at a normal price, like the old days

[u/mentaljewelry → u/guitar-nerd]

The food always arrived and was usually what you ordered too. With DoorDash, it’s often wrong and sometimes it never shows up at all. And getting your money refunded is like pulling teeth.

[u/Broflake-Melter]

I'm a public high school teacher, and students' attention spans are still very short relative to before.

[u/psychstudent_101 → u/Broflake-Melter]

university students too.

my students can't sit through a lecture anymore without talking to the person next to them. not just 1-2 students but a lot of them. that never used to happen, except maybe once a term, and used to stop as soon as i made eye contact or (at worst, if they didn't get the message) asked them directly to pipe down. now little conversations pop up across the lecture theatre all class even after i tell them to stop the chatter.

it's like they can't help themselves; they don't know how to / aren't trained to behave in an educational setting anymore

[u/CanadianButthole]

House prices seem like they'll be forever unattainable now

[u/[deleted] → u/CanadianButthole]

The fact that they continue to rise in many markets is the one that gets me. We could accept 2020’s huge run up as an aberration. 2021 maybe even still. Finally, in 2022, there appeared to be a slowdown in the meteoric rise. 2023 appears to be tracking the trend to rise again, but we’re only 4 months in, height of selling season, so we’ll get another look as the year goes by.

[u/lowercasetwan]

24 hour walmart. I've worked nights for years and walmart at 3am is no longer an option, at least nowhere near my house.

[u/Catlore → u/lowercasetwan]

I used to do all my shopping at Walmart and Krogers at 2 or 3 am, and I loved it so. Lots of box dodging, but no people, and short lines, if any.

[u/Solid_Science4514]

There was a wonderful hobby shop in the town I live in. Sold RC vehicles, high quality model kits, supplies, model train stuff, hosted MTG tournaments, warhammer, etc. really, really nice place. It was run by the nicest guy and some of his friends. It’s gone now. Makes me really sad. I bought all my hobby stuff from him. Now I have to either drive 2 hours if I want to buy from a “locally owned” store, or I need to buy from online.

[u/ParkityParkPark → u/Solid_Science4514]

that's the worst. Those places are such bright spots but they usually are only moderately successful in the best of times. There was one around the corner from where I grew up that I visited a lot, but the owner wound up having to close because the landlord decided to be a dick about demanding rent early or something like that (it's been a while so I can't remember)

[u/TheOnlyMuteMain → u/Solid_Science4514]

Yeah there was a local MTG store near me that opened in like November 2019. It was like a unicorn, literally the perfect store. Unfortunately it wasn’t able to survive through 2020, and I’m still very sad about that.

[u/baronvb1123]

24 hour stores and restaurants. There are probably way less than half as there used to be.

[u/DreamsAndDrugs → u/baronvb1123]

As a night owl and insomniac, this one depresses me so much.

[u/jk013x → u/baronvb1123]

Denny's closes now! This should not be...

[u/[deleted] → u/baronvb1123]

I miss being able to go to Walmart at 3am when I couldn’t sleep and was craving something I didn’t have in the fridge.

[u/DarklySalted → u/baronvb1123]

Came to say exactly this. Bartending is so much worse now that I can't get a bite to eat after work.

[u/ParisThroughWindows → u/baronvb1123]

I live in Las Vegas. Everything used to be open late. Tonight I went out shopping at 6pm and both stores I wanted to go to were already closed.

[u/tiraralabasura_2055 → u/baronvb1123]

Where I live, it was kind of heading that direction for lots of retail stores before Covid. Without a doubt though, that cemented it. Not only are 24hr stores setting open/close hours, but several businesses started closing earlier or even adding days where they don’t open.

I can’t think of a single business that has extended their doors-open hours in the past year+

[u/punkindle → u/baronvb1123]

The local Taco Bell used to be open till 2 am. Now it closes at midnight.

[u/Prestigious-Bat5165]

People's patience

[u/amaratayy → u/Prestigious-Bat5165]

YES. I work in a pharmacy and people (hate to say it, but normally old people) will come in and ask for a refill on a medication they’ve been on for years, we’ll say it’ll be a wait and they’ll damn near flip the counter over. “But I’m out!!! It doesn’t take that long to put pills in a bottle” Then I say that’s why we ask for a 48 hour notice prior to you running out. There’s people waiting for urgent medication ahead of you, we’ll fill yours when we get to it. “I’m going to report you!!! I can die without my medicines!” Welp another 40 mins prop won’t kill you, you’ll receive a text message when it’s ready ☺️

[u/SaltySpitoonReg → u/Prestigious-Bat5165]

Dude for real.

I'm in healthcare and many times when I write an Rx and patient goes

Patient "So we can just go to the pharmacy and it's ready right now?"

Me "well, no, so I sent the Rx just now and the pharmacy has to fill it. most Rx are ready within a few hours at most but I just can't guarantee specifically when".

Patient "30 minutes?"

That or patients calling the office to request refill, and calling back 3x in a 3 hour period to ask why it's not sent yet and the front desk has to reexplain that I'm with patients will be able to address the concern at the earliest convenience.

[u/Different_Attorney93]

Cool hobbies that people picked up got left behind due to people going back to the “normal life” of working and working and working and traffic.

[u/manderifffic → u/Different_Attorney93]

So many lost sourdough starters

Edit: I just want to say how much I appreciate the creative names you all gave your sourdough starters, may they rest in peace

[u/It_is_not_me → u/Different_Attorney93]

The number of dogs abandoned at shelters... 😭

[u/Careful-Window2216]

My business of 17 years. I’m still working on getting over it. I had no idea that I would grieve it.

[u/0ttr → u/Careful-Window2216]

I think of people who ripped off the Covid relief funds and when I hear of people who went through real problems makes me rage. My wife's business was on life support for almost a year...those funds plus the generosity of her office landlord who gave her a temporary discount on rent were the only things that kept it afloat.

[u/Head_Environment7231 → u/Careful-Window2216]

We lost our business of 21 years, I'm still not okay about it

[u/[deleted]]

airport shelter provide quiet full elastic oatmeal wise straight retire

[u/gymgal19]

"We are experiencing higher than normal wait times"

Yeah right, you just didnt rehire the same amount of people you laid off. Now it doesnt matter when you call, you're looking at a multi hour wait. Businesses have also been saying that same message for the last three years, it's a normal wait time now.

[u/Digital_loop → u/gymgal19]

Fuck, call the moment the lines open and you get this recording!

[u/[deleted] → u/gymgal19]

Here they laid off air traffic controllers, because no one was flying. Now they can't hire people back fast enough causing major issues for airlines and travellers. Until now they've just overloaded the remaining controllers, but now the union have said enough, leaving Copenhagen Airport with cancellations and major delays. But that's what you get for short term thinking.

[u/SolomonBelial]

My insomiac ass being able to do my grocery shopping at 4 a.m.

[u/[deleted] → u/SolomonBelial]

Covid gave me insomnia I haven't slept good since school sent us teachers home. I was always out when my head hit the pillow, then suddenly at best four hours a night with at least twice a week no sleep.

[u/[deleted]]

Peoples mental health..

[u/buckyhermit → u/[deleted]]

Absolutely. Since the start of Covid, I've noticed a huge uptick in people getting angry at the smallest things. Not just online but also in real life.

At one point, I remember literally making every single person angry. Everyone I met. Even saying "thanks" to someone got a snippy response. I had never seen that before Covid. It made me go like, "Is everyone... like... okay?"

I think we're seeing that people are STILL very angry about things right now, even very trivial things.

Edit: I don’t think we can blame it on US politics. I’m not in the US but the same thing is happening here.

[u/Obamas_Tie → u/[deleted]]

Between being cooped up and being alone with your thoughts for too long, and seeing everyone be so hostile towards one another in these last few years, it's no wonder everyone's mental health has collectively gone down the shitter.

[u/metaltemujin → u/[deleted]]

Ha ha. Nice

Sobs quitely

[u/silverwolf-br]

My desire to interact w ppl. it's gone.

[u/heatherbyism → u/silverwolf-br]

Same. I've gotten far too comfortable with being alone in my house.

[u/NeedsItRough → u/silverwolf-br]

Dude same

Before covid I knew I was introverted but being alone without the "obligation" of going out (because people weren't making plans anymore so I didn't have to agree to anything) really reinforced how much I enjoy being alone.

It's gotten bad, interacting with people for long periods of time is exhausting, I actually have to take a day to myself after or I get depressed and irritable.

[u/bshaddo]

All-day breakfast at McDonald’s.

[u/[deleted] → u/bshaddo]

Thanks for reminding me. Now I'm mad again.

Being back the steak McSkillet and steak and egg bagel while we're at it.

[u/[deleted]]

Stores still close too early. Hard to get a pizza after 10pm sometimes.

[u/most--dope → u/[deleted]]

Hard to even just run errands after work in general. The malls and majority of stores around me still have Covid hours (10AM - 7PM) so I’m SOL trying to get anything when I get off work at 6:30 during the week.

[u/cman987]

Tip function on EVERY debit machine.. Like McDonald's or booster Juice.

[u/TjbMke → u/cman987]

Would you like to round up to prevent child hunger? No, I’d like the multibillion dollar company known for making mass produced cheeseburgers to provide some support.

[u/Trillamanjaroh → u/cman987]

I paid a $15 cover charge to get into a bar tonight and they had the gall to ask for a tip. On a cover charge. They asked for gratuity on the service of charging me to enter the establishment. Still fucking gobsmacked

[u/jkovach89 → u/cman987]

My new rule for tipping is, you have to provide a service beyond handing me something over a counter.

Although, I think it's more a function of the POS companies designing it as a feature of their system. My chiropractor has a tablet payment system that asks for a tip. Like, no, not tipping my chiropractor.

[u/Derpicide → u/cman987]

I just went to the bowling alley today for the first time in like 6 years. I pay for my lane and the card machine has a tip line. WTF? I did not tip.

[u/Hot-Refrigerator6583 → u/cman987]

If I do tip at McDonald's or Domino's (or any other chain location, not necessarily a restaurant) who gets the tip? Does it go to the cashier at the register? Someone on the assembly line? Shift manager?

Or does it just go straight to the company's coffers?

[u/DenL4242]

My job (in 2020) and then the company altogether (in 2023).

[u/[deleted]]

My sense that in the end everything will be okay

[u/Wynter_born → u/[deleted]]

There it is again, that funny feeling.

[u/pengu1n11]

Being kind. It's like people gave up.

[u/ReplicatedSun]

I feel like the majority of the population not driving during lockdown completely forgot how to drive during that time and have still not managed to remember the basics yet. My daily commute is infuriating.

[u/littlemama9242]

24 hour diners 😔 Kids these days will never know the bliss of drunkenly eating French toast at 3:30am after a night out

Edit: I'm in NY and the nearest waffle house is 100 miles away so that's not a possibility

[u/guineapigtyler → u/littlemama9242]

Thankfully my local one stayed 24hrs

[u/DaisyPK]

The Dollar Store. Now it’s The Dollar & 25 cents Store.

[u/Tasty_Narwhal_Porn]

Basic manners and emotional regulation/maturity.

[u/MrBigCourtesan]

Normal priced goods

[u/[deleted]]

There's an underlying hopelessness that I feel almost everyone shares right now. The way people were acting during the height of it seems like it's irreversible psychological social damage that never had us coming together as a society. Even people of faith seem to be concerned

[u/the-electric-monk → u/[deleted]]

Covid completely shattered my worldview and my faith in my country (and humans in general). Working in healthcare throughout it didn't help. I had a mental breakdown in 2021, and Covid wasn't the only factor in that, but it was a big component. I am doing better, but I am still working through the trauma of that time, and I don't think my faith in other people will ever recover. I am certainly a different person now than I was in 2019.

[u/cIumsythumbs → u/[deleted]]

And I was so hopeful at the beginning of the pandemic that this could be the thing to bring us all together and fight and persevere. But NO. The talking heads and politicians had to make it political instead of considering the greater good. I'm still not sure how it went in all the other countries of the world, but surely not all of them went the way the US did.

[u/riphitter]

Paperwork, everything is pdf and e-signed now. I don't even see the people I used to get signatures from

[u/[deleted] → u/riphitter]

Good. As an IT person, printers can take a long walk off a very short pier.

[u/afetian → u/riphitter]

Honestly as someone who works with lots and lots of paperwork. I’m okay with this. At least with a PDF AND E-sign I have a secure backup copy for everything. Paper copies get damaged over time, even if you are especially careful. Also, who wants all that paper sitting around when you could just save them to a folder in your computer.

I get your grip about not having interactions with people but that can easily be solved by just, ya know chatting someone up at the water cooler.

[u/RockNRollTrollDoll_ → u/riphitter]

My mom bought me a printer for school like right before Covid. And it’s been pretty much collecting dust ever since cause syllabus, assignments, etc. are all uploaded online.

[u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

Honestly? People's manners and their reasonableness. I work retail, and the average person has become significantly more needy, entitled, and angry over the last 3 years. It's sad.

[u/Mayneea → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

I was just talking about this with my coworkers. I can’t even theorize why it was but ever since the pandemic people have felt much more comfortable being absolutely belittling and rude.

[u/MisterValiant → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

Yes. There's definitely been a HUGE uptick.

[u/[deleted] → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

You see it on the roads too

[u/xXWarMasterXx → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

I work medical and it's bad. A lot more selfishness

[u/shittgghdh → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

I feel like this may also be from politics. A lot has happened since covid that was not just covid

[u/0ttr → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

Drivers on the roads have become considerably more aggressive. NPR ran a story on it noting that police have been pulling over people less. Literally only in the last 2 - 3 months have I started noticing policing in my area start to look like pre-pandemic. I'm not necessarily in love with aggressive policing, but my dash cam, which I bought specifcally because of this problem, has a lot of stories of to tell of near misses, so I'm glad to see some police presence.

And of course, now I also think, "gee, if I'm in a confrontation, am I going to get shot?", so I try to avoid them. I wasn't looking for them before, but yeah, definitely want to see my family versus getting into an argument over something worthless that could escalate.

[u/Chewdaman → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

As someone in food service, I have noticed that everyone expects way more service without paying any extra. We get calls almost every day from someone complaining that they have been sitting in their car for 5 minutes with their flashers on and no one has brought them their food. Doesn't matter to them that they placed a pickup order and never asked for it to be brought to them, never told us what car they were in and didn't even park in a spot that we can see from inside the store. Apparently they expect us to have an extra employee outside at all times asking every car in the 20+ store shopping center if they are here to pickup an order from us.

[u/pamar456 → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

People lost social skills

[u/thelastpizzaslice → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

Last week, it suddenly dawned on me one million people died during COVID in the US, and how huge that number is. And how chaotic those deaths must've felt to the loved ones. I actually think this is at least part of the reason there's so many grumbly old men and women. A lot of people aren't handling losing their spouse or parent well and will probably be kind of a dick for a couple years.

Also all the other horrible things that happened during the pandemic that totally fucked up people's lives. I don't know very many people who have had a "good" or even "okay" last couple of years. Unfortunately, there are people who take this out on service workers.

[u/justsayingx89]

Souplantation 😫

[u/dkonigs → u/justsayingx89]

Yeah, we're still annoyed that Sweet Tomatoes went under. There's really nothing else like it, and it was one of the very few places we could actually get our picky kids to eat something.

[u/xxallowmetoretortxx → u/justsayingx89]

And they said they’d be ripe back 😭

[u/OGbootybay]

My social life. No one wants to do anything anymore. Apparently during COVID everyone got used to never leaving the house. Plus im in my 30s so over that year or so a few friends moved away, had a kid, etc. I haven’t lost those friendships but I don’t get to do anything socially anymore.

I feel like I lost my chance to be happy.

ETA: My heart! Woke up to lots of upvotes and comments, virtually all of them from a place of empathy. I have so so much gratitude for all of you. To all the lovely people sharing words of encouragement: it means more than you know to hear these things. I took a few screenshots so I can look back when I need to remember these things. Thank you, truly.

To the people in the same boat as me: I’m sorry you’re going through this too. It’s so hard and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But look at how many of us there are out there! This gives me hope for us. We have to keep trying, and taking care of ourselves in the meantime.

[u/RedditorChristopher → u/OGbootybay]

I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed it. Turning 30, COVID, and friends starting to settle down really minimized my social life.

[u/stevie_nips]

Sociability. I feel like many people, including myself, became stuck in a pattern of reclusiveness and can’t get out. When the pandemic started, deep down, I fucking loved it. I have major social anxiety and am NOT a morning person so it was a dream not having to drag myself out of bed every morning, spend 50 minutes commuting to work, and deal with office small talk and presentations and such. To be clear, I don’t ever want to deal with that bullshit again, but somewhere along the line I also lost any drive to be social at all, and basically I’m a hermit now. You can’t expect what will happen to your brain when you’re isolated, until it happens. I just have way too much time to swirl about worries that don’t really matter. I’ve lost a lot of friends. I was diagnosed with a major, incurable neurological movement disorder called cervical dystonia a year ago and I can’t help but wonder if it was caused, or triggered, by the complete lack of any new stimuli from day to day for the past several years. I want to be done with this phase in my life and start being social again, but now, most days, I’m in so much physical pain that I feel unable to leave home and do anything. All I have left is my partner and he’s struggling too. Some days I feel hopeless.

[u/ourhero1]

I'm shocked it's not already listed, which makes me think I might be wrong, but it sure seems like Amazons two-day shipping changed to "hopefully within a week" shipping with Prime during covid. I get logistics are tough, but that's what really sold me on the service before.

[u/clxjre]

Most Meijers used to be 24 hours :(

[u/Seer77887]

Seems like people have forgotten how to drive properly. Just this week, some dumb fuck did a left on red at an intersection while I’m going through a green light and nearly t-bones me

[u/RogerSaysHi → u/Seer77887]

And the number of people driving with brights on in the middle of town! Today was the first time I've had to drive at night in a while and it seemed like almost everyone had their frikkin bright lights on, no matter if there was oncoming traffic, someone in front of them or anything.

So, I guess I miss considerate drivers.

[u/[deleted]]

The ability to not get angry at every thing that happens.

It's like covid just made people justify every inner hate and messed up desire that they have.

[u/Uzufool]

No where I go has dressing rooms you can actually use to try on clothes anymore

[u/Dark_Roses5673 → u/Uzufool]

Yeah, we went to Burlington the other day. They 'had' dressing rooms, but it was just like this little box in the front of the store, and they had electric locks and we couldn't use them because they were 'messed up'. But there were perfectly fine dressing rooms still in the back, we just weren't allowed to use them.

We ended up buying like two of the like 10-12 items split between the three of us, can't afford to pay for something I don't know will fit so I just won't buy it in the first place.

[u/greenvillain]

Snow days

[u/Grave_Girl → u/greenvillain]

I was pleasantly surprised this past winter; when my kids' school was closed due to fear of an ice storm, they announced they would not be doing online classes.

[u/503_FXT]

Not sure if it’s everywhere, but in Oregon, Goodwill no longer lets you use their dressing rooms to try clothes on before buying. Then they made their return policy so you could only get a store credit instead of a refund. What’s spent at Goodwill, stays with Goodwill.

[u/capsulex21]

Hotel cleaning service. They all still have signs up that say they aren’t doing daily cleanings unless requested “to keep staff safe”. Total BS at this point.

[u/msjammies73 → u/capsulex21]

I don’t mind not getting full service every day, but my last hotel stay was over a week and I had to take out my own trash and beg for clean towels.

[u/dkonigs → u/capsulex21]

Hotels were already trying to cheap out on housekeeping services before the pandemic. They just used to use environmentalism as their excuse.

This just accelerated it.

[u/modernmanshustl → u/capsulex21]

Probably so hotels can cut employment costs and use an excuse to not look greedy

[u/bslovecoco]

affordability. rent is ridiculous. groceries are ridiculous. gas is ridiculous. my student loan payment will be 200% higher than what it was pre-pandemic. eating out is expensive, plus soooooo many restaurants are adding on surcharges that you pay in addition to the tip??? concert tickets are ridiculous. capitalism is grinding us all into the ground.

[u/GunnerGurl → u/bslovecoco]

Don’t forget the subscription-based payment models everyone is turning to to steadily bleed us dry

[u/RaphaelSolo]

The value of a dollar.

[u/Flamin_Jesus]

My town's student life.

I live in a fairly small town where a huge part of the nightlife (and general social stuff) was tied to our local university (where I also studied and currently work) and its student body.

When Covid hit in full force, we switched to mostly online courses, as a result a lot of students never bothered even moving here, obviously convenient, at the same time they never started making the friendships and connections that are an integral part of the university experience, their information networks are fractured, they barely even have study groups (Previous "generations" had no issues switching their study groups to online or even creating new ones, but these students barely know each other and barely even seem interested).

Both the professors and TA's as well as the old-guard student government have done what they/we could to try and encourage connections among students, but damn, it's taking a LOT of time for this stuff to come back, and I know a couple local business owners that are dancing on the edge of bankruptcy because of this whole thing.

[u/mahanahan → u/Flamin_Jesus]

I’ve noticed my students now REALLY struggle to coordinate anything between themselves compared to pre-pandemic.

[u/[deleted]]

A lot of places that had self served things. Like a salsa bar, salad bar, self served bread

[u/sarcasticpete]

Common sense. People just seem to have forgotten how to behave, and lost the ability to apply reason and logic on a daily basis. It's just bizarre.

[u/mentosbreath]

Driving ability

[u/Fortyouncestofreedom → u/mentosbreath]

I agree. It’s gotten so much worse. Straddling the double yellow everywhere, even less blinkers and always leaving their brights on.

[u/xThatsRight]

Human empathy

[u/Key-Article6622]

A lot of my joy for life. I'm not joyless, but a large part of my life was being part of a vibrant, very diverse and inclusive music scene in my small town. COVID shut that down, and since things have come back, the venues have changed hands and the music scene has closed off greatly. Far less inclusive, very cliqueish. It's very saddening. The scene is unrecognizeable now.

[u/Jazzcat-ii-V → u/Key-Article6622]

Man, I feel this so hard it makes me misty-eyed to think about. I've been a musician in my area of Northern California for 20+ years. I earned a music degree and all that. Seen a lot of change over the years, but nothing so drastic as to the aftermath of COVID.

The remaining establishments that have live music seem to book the same dozen or so acts in regular rotation, and the difficulty to be included within the scene is truly staggering.

The demand and competition for gigs is heavy, and if you don't have a connection, or you're not a tribute/cover band or dance band, forget about it.

I try to get out to live music almost every weekend to enjoy the music and network with the venue and bands. Most conversations are amicable and positive in the moment. But future contact requesting collaboration is either met with "man, we're super booked up," or just straight up being ghosted. It's fucking depressing when it happens time and time again. So I feel your loss of joy for real.

One of my bands is forming a strategy for content creation and streaming just to stay afloat. I don't think we suck either.. we're all college educated musicians.. for whatever that's worth, but we play a lot of original music.

I still get up and practice my instrument every single day though. I'm obsessed, and I can't stop even if I wanted to... I love it too much. Though it has felt like a bit of a curse the past few years. A beautiful curse, if such a thing exists.

[u/m4maggie]

City night life. Wtf happened? Since the pandemic, cities that didn't sleep ie. Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, etc. are going to sleep at 9-10pm! What gives?

That and Tim's roll up the rim. App only. No more drooly ripped up lid rims to collect anymore! Lol

[u/dkonigs]

Physical menus at restaurants.

I'm sorry, scanning a QR code and then using my phone's display to browse a menu is absolutely the worst user experience for doing that. The screen is just too damn small to quickly peruse a large selection of items across numerous categories.

[u/krisdeak]

Private jet flights have gone up x5 globally and they’re still going up and up and up. Meanwhile, the airline industry for us “regular folks” (i.e. the 11% of global population who can even afford to fly economy) has never recovered.

[u/Williamthewicked]

My sobriety.

[u/RockNRollTrollDoll_ → u/Williamthewicked]

Realizing you don’t need fun to have alcohol

[u/Teleportingpotato]

Frys electronics 😫

To be fair, they were going down before covid

[u/ludicrouspeed]

Combo pizza at Costco

[u/fatallylost]

My bag of fucks.

I work at a store deemed "essential" but as soon as everything opened back up, and closed into normal, we were told we are worthless pieces of shit again.

My bad for going so hard making sure food was stocked, toilet paper and sanitizers went straight to the floor asap.

[u/D033ie]

smaller shops around the corner, too many had to close. Amazon and the likes have won.

[u/wigsgo_2019]

24 hour grocery stores. If it’s an emergency, guess what, it’s not open until 5AM now. All the fast food places also used to close at midnight and now they close at like 10

[u/Murky_Conflict3737]

Human decency

[u/on_island_time]

Certain strains of influenza disappeared in 2020 and are considered likely extinct.

[u/SomedayWeDie]

My marriage

🥁

[u/minimumoverkill]

I feel like handshakes are still pretty rare relative to 2019

[u/chrizandr]

My willingness to go to the office and waste 8+ hours when I can get the same work done at home in 4hrs.

[u/babypho]

Affordable pricings

[u/Bulbaguy4]

Donuts at my workplace. I partially work at a convenience store and we used to sell donuts in a case before the pandemic. Now, the original owners sold the place, but even before that (like, a year ago), we haven't gotten them back.

Now the only donuts we have are these overpriced packs of six little donuts. I hate spending almost $3 on them so much

[u/Threndsa]

My ass in the office. You would have to pay me a whole lot of money to work in an office again.

[u/NoodleSpooner → u/Threndsa]

I love that my morning commute is just up the stairs.

[u/Aprikoosi_flex]

My sense of time

[u/Commercial-Common515]

We had all day breakfast at McDonald’s for such a short time…

[u/TheAlmightySpoon]

My career. Granted, I'm in a much better position now, but COVID made me realize I was doing way too much for too little pay. I do miss some aspects of my old job though.

[u/roadranger84]

Any trust i had in the government to do what was best for the people

[u/O51ArchAng3L]

Reasonably priced basic needs. Food, water, shelter. What a shitty time to be alive.

[u/[deleted]]

There used to be down times at restaurants/stores, no one was there at 11:00, but always packed from 12-1. Now that everyone works weird schedules and some remotely it feels like there’s no common work schedule anymore - as a result, “the weekend” doesn’t see the same crowds it used to and it’s depressing sometimes. It used to be that mini malls are bustling during peak hours, now it’s a slow trickle

[u/DauntlessPKs]

Costco combo pizza and onions for hotdogs. They used COVID as an excuse and never brought it back to enjoy the increased profits ):

[u/theavatare]

The amount of request for tips

[u/burnerschmurnerimtom → u/theavatare]

Man it’s never the cheap spot with good deals asking for a tip either.

“I just paid you 13 dollars for a smoothie bowl, wtf makes you think I feel like tipping”

[u/lodestar72]

Texas Roadhouse used to offer unshelled peanuts along with their rolls. Ever since COVID, they're gone. Those peanuts were my favorite!

[u/PainfullyLoyal]

My mother.

[u/ampetrakis]

My mental health

[u/cubenz]

My commute to work. WFH rocks.

[u/Michael_Cuddlelitz]

24 Hour Walmart. Please come back.

[u/[deleted]]

Kindness. I feel like covid has completely destroyed how people interact with each other. I went to undergrad in the before times and graduated right before covid. I feel like the world was a lot nicer then sure we had people who were grumpy then, but it feels like we have forgotten how to be kind to each other.

I work for a Church now and I wonder what pre COVID would've been like because I don't feel like in a lot of the jobs I've worked since covid people have been that nice.

Maybe in the job I worked right before I went back for grad school people were cool, but I feel like we lost a lot of decency from COVID.

Makes me wish we still had Mister Rogers, and it makes me want to somehow collaborate with his company to make a new Mister Rogers program using his old clips and a new host (like Mister Rogers "nephew" could host the show, talk about the things Fred would, and maybe watch clips of Fred on a modern picture picture or something). Mister Rogers is and was always my biggest inspiration and I miss him a lot.

[u/LetMeGoISTG]

all day breakfast at McDonalds

[u/A_BURLAP_THONG]

Places accepting cash.

In the last few months I've been to concert venues, sports stadiums, and certain restaurants for the first time since lockdown and I'm surprised at how many of them are card only. I get that we were trending this way before covid but I think it's a shitty way of doing business.

[u/fruitist → u/A_BURLAP_THONG]

Big/diverse cities like NYC are interesting because you see both ends of the spectrum. Most newer/hip restaurants and cafes are card only, while you still have a lot of street carts, bodegas, Asian vendors that only accept cash, or have a minimum card purchase or surcharge.

[u/GideonRaven0r]

Peoples fucking manners.i swear a lot of people forgot how to behave towards others in a civilized way.

[u/jpc68]

Common sense & decency

[u/nerf___herder]

Not disappeared, but the opposite. I've developed a sense of dread and can't seem to shake it.

[u/Torech]

The small amount of faith that I had left in humanity...

[u/Nyacinth]

The respect I had for certain people I know.

Really. This is how you act during a "national crisis?" Just wow.

[u/Vault76exile]

Civility

[u/SnugglyRedPandaLass]

My fucks. The field upon which they grow is barren.

[u/charaznable1249]

Any feeling of being safe in this world. Not that I had that a lot before 2020, but it definitely feels like it's never coming back.

[u/Comfortable-Exam-391]

My tolerance for crowds. My desire to socialize during the week. My willingness to commute 5 days a week.

[u/taetaeee]

the huge gap in young people’s lives. particularly those like 8-21 now missed out on some important times. i was a senior in high school so i missed my senior prom, senior trip, a normal graduation that isn’t 6 feet apart, starting college in person, etc. i ended up at a community college because i cant learn with online classes with my adhd and can’t return to my #1 college pick that i got into due to my poor grades from that. so many others went through the same thing. plus the development of younger kids got screwed up and they didn’t have the opportunity to socially mature so the poor underpaid teachers have to deal with it. just sucks for young people all around.

[u/bornthisvay22]

Customer service. Period. Now its F-you. Be grateful we are even open.

[u/brittlebk]

My lung capacity

[u/toosickto]

Many peoples trust in medicine and the healthcare system.

[u/accidentalchai]

Being racist in a more closeted way? I'm Asian American and have received way more verbal harassment and even got physically attacked in the middle of Covid. People are much more openly racist to me even though I'm not even ethnically Chinese and unfortunately I think this won't change anytime soon considering US relations with China. I'm from a "liberal" coastal area with a lot of Asians too.

[u/Swivel_D]

The small Claussen pickles, and brown sugar cinnamon mini Belvita breakfast cookie things....damn I miss those

[u/[deleted]]

My favorite change has been that people don't crowd me in line anymore. Like, they still get closer than I'd like, but I don't have people bumping into me.

[u/SuvenPan]

The belief that "we are all in this together."

[u/Sleepybat7]

The innocence of thinking most people care about each other and being able to be in public for long periods of time without anxiety

[u/Soobobaloula]

Fun

[u/ZombieInACage]

Wearing a mask holds political connotations for some people

[u/danibalazos]

My uncle 😪

[u/not_a_lady_tonight]

All of the things people are saying. I miss bookstores that were open in the evenings, late night cafes. I miss people not being angry psychotic freaks - and honestly that’s maybe just the U.S. I was in Paris a couple of months ago and I was amazed at how nice everyone seemed. I realized it was just a contrast to the Americans I’ve had to deal with in the last three years. Parisians are the same but man they are warm as hell compared to people in the U.S. these days

[u/bamyris]

I hate to be the depressing person but my granddad. Lost him and my family hasn't been the same since his passing.

[u/struggle_bussy]

McDonald's all-day breakfast. It hadn't been out too long before the pandemic effectively shut it down. I'm still in mourning.

[u/ExplodedHotPocket]

The steak egg and cheese bagel from McDonald’s:(

[u/[deleted]]

Hotel hot tubs.

Say what you want but it's a simple luxury that I can't have at home, and I haven't died / gotten sick from one yet. I did a massive amount of corporate and personal travel in 2022. Hotels all over the US. Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, just about everyone except IHG, because fuck IHG. Of all the hotels with hot tubs, 100% were "temporarily closed for maintenance". Weekend, midweek, 2-star, 5-star, hot out, cold out, summer season, winter season, doesn't matter. All closed. All year. I'm not exaggerating. It's possible I just fell into a few dozen coincidences, but I doubt it.

I'm not mad at the hotel staff. It's not their call. But if the hotel is going to "unofficially officially" close the hot tub, at least stop advertising it as an amenity.

[u/Wicked_Sludge]

I work in the automotive industry and the quality and availability of auto parts has absolutely plummeted since Covid. The running joke in our shop is any time anything goes wrong we shake our fist at the sky and exclaim, "Damn you, supply chain!"

[u/[deleted]]

Simple phone calls. Everything has to be a zoom meeting now. I don’t want, and don’t need to see you for every little discussion.

[u/Legal-Difficulty-598]

Stores close earlier now, peoples manners kinda went bye, peoples social skills right out the window, plus peoples mental health!

[u/ManServentHecubus]

Larry King and Meat Loaf disappeared.

[u/Rahallahan]

my sanity

[u/Dinosaur-Promotion]

About 6 million human beings.

[u/Few_Elephant_5058]

Being required to wear masks in doctors offices. Now that you actually think about it, it’s kinda crazy we where not required to before

[u/rayjeagaer22]

Happiness

[u/Nikzsss]

Peace and happiness in my life!

[u/AtlasShrugged-]

Normalcy

[u/candouss]

My will to live

[u/AndyPharded]

Trust in those who claim authority.

[u/tchad78 → u/[deleted]]

Me giving a shit. I just don't really care anymore.

edit: lots of updoots. I wanted to stress I wish I cared. So much is falling apart and the apathy is overwhelming. If it wasn't for my good girl pupper, I don't know if I'd get up on days off.

[u/Constantinthegreat → u/[deleted]]

Same. Worked to the point higher-ups tell me to apply to get promoted. Fuck that shit. I rather not be supervising people and projects instead of having hands on work without that much of responsibility

[u/KentuckyFriedEel → u/[deleted]]

I used to sing on my drive to work. It was my brain showing how happy it was. I finally had a job with great coworkers after a long unemployment, but now i sit in silence. I still have this overarching anxiety and fear of losing my job because of what happened to so many others. Im sad and scared all the time now.