As some parts of the country open for post-COVID business and others are more than ready to live with fewer restrictions; we may all be feeling a bit rusty on ‘how to human.’ To help Canadians reboot their lives, Modern Concierge, Canada’s elite concierge service for people with priorities, commissioned a survey of 1000 Canadians to capture their biggest concerns and challenges. Modern concierge has also created a series of three helpfully illustrated ‘Post Pandemic Primer’ instruction cards to help Canadians get back to the basics.
How to put on ‘hard pants,’ how to eat in public and how to drive your car are carefully covered in the cards step-by-step to ensure success.
The cards, featuring timely venturing back out in public advice such as ‘Hard pants have interlocking teeth in a delicate area: USE CAUTION,’ or ‘while eating – wear a dark shirt to hide spillage,’ lovingly remind us of a more civilized time before 15 months of COVID kept us cooped up and we lost our social soft skills.
“We’re in the business of seamlessly making things easier for our varied clients, but we all know that our return to normal is going to be a little messy after months of restrictions and lockdowns,” said Tina Iaquinta, Founder of Modern Concierge. “It seemed like a great time to humorously remind Canadians of important social graces like people can actually see you when you are eating at a restaurant.”
Download all three Post Pandemic Primer Cards in high-resolution HERE
As part of the post-pandemic project, Modern Concierge also commissioned a survey of 1000 Canadians to ask what their most significant concerns for getting back to normal are.
Key Findings of the Survey (National):
Canadians are sweating bricks over ‘small talk.’
Asked what their biggest concern is about returning to humanity after COVID, over a quarter (27.2%) of Canadians said ‘making small talk.’ This was closely followed by ‘pretending to be interested’ at 21.9%, what to do with our hands (12.6%), wearing ‘hard pants’ (10.8%), how to eat in front of people (10.3%), and how to hold utensils (5.1%.)
Almost a quarter of Canadians aren’t going to fight for their right to party
Asked what social interaction scares them the most post-COVID, 22.6% of Canadians said ‘going to a party.’ 19.0% said standing in an elevator, and 14.7% said ‘eating at a restaurant.’
Back to (small talk) school:
Asked what they could most use a post-pandemic primer in, 26.5% said they would like to be schooled on small talk. 20.1% of Canadians would like to learn some positive body language, surprisingly, 15.3% would like to learn ‘how to smile convincingly,’ and 11.4% would like to relearn ‘how to dress’ (though it is not clear if they had skills in this regard pre-pandemic.)