Nature: Four years on: the career costs for scientists battling long COVID

[SNT Gatchaman]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00819-w

Researchers with long COVID often face extra administrative burdens: dealing with the mountains of paperwork for disability claims and workplace-accommodation requests. These tasks can feel like a part-time job in their own right. “Not only are we trying to get all the same work done with many fewer functional hours, but we also have more work to do,” one US-based biology researcher says. “That doesn’t even count all of the extra hours that we have to spend dealing with getting health care.”

Academics with long COVID also face societal ignorance about the condition, with several of those Nature spoke to reporting that they were mainly left to fend for themselves or to navigate workplace accommodation policies that aren’t tailored for long COVID. Many researchers conceal their illness for fear of stigma. Even with understanding colleagues, people with long COVID say they’re exhausted from constantly advocating for their needs and educating others about the condition.

Because some symptoms can be invisible, colleagues might negatively judge a co-worker’s performance or ability to participate. When Sarah (not her real name) started her assistant professorship at a US university, colleagues who were aware of her condition would occasionally tell her that she “looked good” during a meeting. “But it’s because I had very carefully managed my day,” she says. To be able to attend an hour-long meeting at the height of her symptoms, Sarah says she would sleep for two hours beforehand, then for another two afterwards to recuperate. “They don’t realize that there are four hours on either side that were devoted to making it possible.”

 

[bobbler]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00819-w

Yep all the things that claim to be there to help are just extra energy and being played. Having a condition where people can pretend or choose not to understand because of the fantasy manifestos about ‘curing yourself with different thinking’ means bullying and ignoring is effectively allowed ‘cos it might be a treatment’

well done to them for going this route , in a job with flexibility over ways if working the truth is just not saying anything and being Kate, absent and setting meetings when you need sbd saying no is something people put up with -ironically the grumpier people are too the more people do - but as soon as there is reason it becomes a fake with processes that don’t work in our favour and seem to be written to manage out by adding work on top of work whilst claiming your hours are reduced so when you look tired there is a reason to fire you etc


I’ve never understood why people wouldn’t rather just help someone do well at less cost or issue, but wonder if it’s down to things like ‘having ill people on the books’ being seen as costs or risk eg due to early retirement later on or plain bigotry etc

certainly someone needs to start flagging processes need to be designed to be appropriate fir those with energy-limiting conditions because inside work or eg dealing with noise complaints or access to care everything works by attrition (sometimes it’s deliberate often it’s just not being blueprinted fir customer so it’s about hoops from supply sude) which really disadvantage those particular types of problem