“Their Pain Is Much Stronger than My Fatigue”: The Emotional Labor of Volgograd Nurses during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Russian nurses had access to resources and symbolic and  organizational support, the lack of which was noticeable after the closure of COVID-19 hospitals. The return of nurses to their usual working conditions, characterized by low wages, irregular work and rest hours, higher workloads, and weak organizational and public support has not been investigated by Russian researchers. This article focuses on the pandemic and  post-pandemic contexts of the emotional labor of nurses in Volgograd. We study how the  emotional labor of nurses was realized and how that experience determines their (non)sensitivity to  today’s post-COVID working conditions. The concept of emotional labor allows us to focus on  the  intuitive practices of feeling and expressing those feelings by nurses and on ways to avoid alienation from feelings in order to continue working in the less attractive working conditions after COVID-19. The article is based on 27 interviews with nurses from Volgograd hospitals. We  show that the  emotional labor of Volgograd nurses, despite the uncertainty, general anxiety, and chaotic nature of what was happening during the pandemic, was carried out in more favorable conditions than after it. For this reason, the experience of working during COVID is remembered by some nurses with a sense of gratitude, and regret that similar support for health workers is not expected in the near future. The rationalization of emotions helped nurses to distance themselves from the  suffering, pity and experience of death in the workplace during the pandemic, and after it  from expressing dissatisfaction with current working conditions.