Sometime last month, architects and interior designers everywhere traded in their old job titles for a shiny new one: Social distancing consultant.

After a binge-read of the CDC’s reopening guidelines, they’ve started shopping out their skills to restaurants, airlines, and malls — businesses that need to reinvent themselves for a 6-feet-apart world. 

Pandemic planners are in high demand: Companies only have so much space to play around with.

Without statistical models to guide them, you can imagine restaurant employees crawling across the floor with rulers in hand on their first day back to work.

Your consultant friend can finally explain what they do 

Countless firms have leaned into the rebrand, and their clients can’t get enough: 

• The design giant Gensler launched a $600+/month service called ReRun, which helps companies sort through the employees that most need to return to work and rejiggers office space to fit them. 
• When WeWork needed to redo its office, it rang Arup, an architecture and engineering firm, to produce a 16-page reopening booklet.
• The MASS Design Group is deploying its Covid-19 Response Team to help hospitals clean their workspaces. One idea: Kill germs with an army of ultraviolet lights.
• Even SimpliFlying, a company that once specialized in offering social media strategy to airlines, now gets much of its income from shelling out social distancing tips.

The consultants recommend buying a raft of social distancing tools — like giant stickers that remind people to stay apart, and a whole lot of thermal scanners. Other jobs could soon take off — like in-flight janitors.

But the new consulting frontier is still a mixed bag  

Other players are pivoting in the opposite direction: B2B companies are leapfrogging CEOs and pitching straight to employees who work from home. They’re offering virtual fitness classes, mental health services, and — of course — refillable snack supplies.

If you’re thinking of hiring a consultant, keep in mind: Hardware like buzzing wristbands may be nice, but you can still find low-tech social distancing solutions on the cheap.

To keep its customers apart, a German cafe is handing out hats equipped with foam pool noodles. 

No slight to the Bon Appétit test kitchen, but there’s a new sheriff for home cooks: ShopHQ.

In March, the TV network debuted “Learning to Cook with Shaq” to some of its highest ratings in 10 months — and the show has quickly become a centerpiece of a home-shopping golden age.

Qurate Retail, which owns both QVC and HSN, has seen viewership jump 10% since late March. ShopHQ reported similar increases, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Retail is hurting, TV is hurting, but — oddly — the peak-‘90s hybrid of the 2 is doing… surprisingly well. 

Everyone wants that sweet, sweet money-back guarantee

The magic of QVC, HSN, and ShopHQ right now is that they sell products, not ads. QVC’s US culinary sales are up 40%, and its US yard and outdoor space listings are bringing in 65% more than last year.

Compared to other TV channels, their viewer gains are small. The Food Network, HGTV, and TLC are seeing bigger ratings jumps, but the flagging ad market is setting them back.

The parent company of those cable stalwarts, Discovery, Inc., lost 20% in ad revenue over the same period.

Meanwhile, live sales shows are kickstarting economies across the world. Chinese companies, for instance, are recruiting farmers to live-stream their produce sales like — who else — a QVC host.

Here’s a nickel’s worth of good news for state-budget bean counters: We’re buying piles and piles of scratch-off tickets, according to Stateline.

For the week ending May 2, lottery sales in Texas hit $146m — one of the highest totals since January 2016. They were driven by an all-time increase in scratch-offs (up 24% from last year).

The itch for instant gratification is powerful

The gambling industry folded like a house of cards after the pandemic drove everyone into isolation, and it’s just now inching back to the blackjack table.

Wagering on sports is basically off the table, unless you fancy Korean baseball (running a solid 2nd in popularity to Russian ping-pong, says the sportsbook director at William Hill). 

Big multi-state games like Mega Millions and Powerball have reduced the size of jackpots with fewer players buying tickets.

There’s little left to do but grab your lucky penny and your Magic 8 Ball Bingo — and hope your lucky numbers match.

But does scratching relieve the itch?

Lottery critics and medical experts agree: Scratching won’t help, especially for people who are in rough financial shape. The critics say it’s no streak of dumb luck that the spike coincided with the arrival of people’s stimulus checks.

That said, the scratching frenzy does provide some relief for state budgets. In most cases, lottery revenues make up less than 2% of the pie — but these days, every dollar counts.

What’s your most mundane encounter with a celebrity? Inspired by the hilarious replies to a viral tweet this week, we decided to put the question to the Hustle crew on our Slack:

Pro wrestler Booker T lined up behind a young Bobby in a grocery checkout line, “palming a whole gallon of milk like an apple.” Bobby recalls the exchange: 

• Me: Are you Booker T?
• Him: Yes.
• Me: OK.

A thief stole Steph’s stuff in an airport. While deciding what to do next, she asked a woman sitting next to her: “Oh hey, are you Ginny Weasley?” (Her real name is Bonnie Wright, and she was NOT amused.)

Trung was tongue-tied after tapping Kurt Russell on the shoulder: “He turned to me and I said: ‘Tombstone was tight!’” (Trung’s friends now use that legendary line whenever a convo turns awkward).

Zack dropped a 9-word bomb: “Saw Kanye West buying sandals at a mall once.”

Ben: “I saw Ben Stein in Palm Springs as I was running across the street to a gas station. He almost hit us with his car and he yelled out ‘Hola Caballeros!’ with a huge smile on his face.”

Cayla: “I ran into Mischa Barton in LA when I was 11 during her prime The OC days.”

Alexe got laid off from a past job and was driving home when she saw Matthew McConaughey “just walking in the middle of the street by himself.”

Becca (third from the right in the picture above) asked us to fill in the blank space and name the celeb in the photo (answer below). Becca met her the week before her first album dropped.

Scott: Scene: A Mexican restaurant, Newport Film Festival week. “Spotted Fabio at the table next to us, munching on a taco. Hair flowing in the wind.”

Kolby, super casually: “Had a drink with Hannibal Buress at SXSW last year. He said he had heard of The Hustle and was a subscriber.”

Hannibal, if you’re out there — hit reply and tell us a joke. As for the rest of you — if you wanna play along, tweet your boring encounters of the Hollywood kind to @TheHustle. Don’t be dissuaded by Becca’s brush with T-Swift.

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