Abstract
This article explores how disabled people navigate normative temporalities in the workplace through everyday practices of adaptation and resistance. Grounded in qualitative research with disabled participants, it examines how linear, productivity-driven temporal norms—referred to as chrononormativity—shape discriminatory and exclusionary structures that possess constitutive power in the production of disability. Using the lens of crip time, the analysis reveals how ongoing temporal negotiations and adjustments generate additional labour for disabled people and challenge the common assumption that flexibility offers a sufficient remedy to temporal constraints. The article thereby contributes to broader debates on disability, work and precarity while strengthening and empirically supporting critiques of the ableist foundations of the labour system, which marginalise those whose temporalities diverge from the norm. Ultimately, it calls for temporality—until now largely overlooked—to be foregrounded as one of the key structuring forces of ableism in the workplace.
Introduction
Adina, 40, has lived with multiple sclerosis for over fifteen years, with an official diagnosis received fourteen years ago. The symptoms she is dealing with are, among others, overall fatigue, issues with eyesight and problems with balance and fine motor skills. Her condition is not continual but comprises attacks that necessitate hospitalisation and intravenous infusions. In her previous job, she worked as a quality controller on twelve-hour shifts in a factory, and to meet the criteria for that kind of work, she tried to adapt to the temporalities of the workplace as much as possible. She recounts:
It’s true that I used to ignore the attacks because there was just no way around it. I would have had to be at home every three months.
So, in a way, to keep your job. . .
Yes, I was sort of covering it up between night shifts so that I wouldn’t have to be on sick leave. I actually went straight from a night shift to the infusions, came home, slept for two hours, went to another night shift, another infusion the next day and another infusion the day after.
Temporal sacrifices like Adina’s, revealing how normative temporalities (re)shape particular bodies, were numerous in our research. The participants in the study were able to work productively—but in different temporalities. Yet, the temporal dimension faced by disabled people in the labour market has received little scholarly attention and has only recently begun to attract more interest (Cepeda, 2021; Edwards and Sudlow-Haylett, 2023; Georgiadou and Damianidou, 2025; Jammaers and Williams, 2021; Nash, 2024; Rodgers et al., 2023; Soldatic, 2013; Williams et al., 2025). Thus, the article aims to strengthen and empirically support critiques of the ableist foundations of the labour system, which marginalise those whose temporalities diverge from the norm, and calls for greater attention to temporality as a key—yet often overlooked—structuring force of ableism in the workplace.
The study was conducted in the Czech Republic, a post-socialist country in Central Europe, where disability is predominantly understood as an individual physical limitation, as framed by the medical model (Shakespeare, 2014), thereby disregarding how structural social factors, institutions and barriers co-produce disability (Oliver, 1990; Porkertová, 2021). Neoliberal reforms further emphasised flexibility, self-responsibility and individual accountability. Consequently, adapting to the normative settings of a workplace requires personal strategies, negotiations and struggles rather than relying on profound, systematic and collective changes.
The Czech case, intensified by neoliberal reforms, renders more visible temporal mechanisms operating across late-capitalist labour markets, which are also present in countries where structural barriers are more comprehensively addressed (e.g., Foster, 2007; Jammaers and Williams, 2021; Williams et al., 2025). As Kafer (2013: 4) remarks, ‘Despite the rise of disability studies in the United States, and decades of disability rights activism, disability continues to be seen primarily as a personal problem afflicting individual people, a problem best solved through strength of character and resolve.’
By focusing on the temporal practices that disabled people employ in their everyday experience in the workplace to navigate linear, productivity-oriented temporal normativity—chrononormativity (Freeman, 2010)—this study develops the existing research in several ways: drawing on the concept of crip time (Kafer, 2013), characterised by uncertainty, non-linearity and embodied unpredictability, the article (a) scrutinises both bodily and discursive practices for reconciling one’s needs with the chrononormativity of the workplace. Thus, it diverges from approaches that treat time and disability at work as either discursive, as in texts that draw on the social model of disability (see Georgiadou and Damianidou, 2025), or as a bodily problem, as in the medical model (Shakespeare, 2014). Consequently, it (b) demonstrates that the normative temporal orderings at work are not just contextual factors but have constitutive power in the production of disability. Furthermore, the article (c) advances the discussion on disability, work and precarity by exposing the pitfalls of flexibility as a way of orchestrating one’s unique time. Finally, by linking chrononormativity, crip time and work, it (d) provides a more layered understanding of the concepts of chrononormativity and crip temporalities.
After introducing the literature review, analytical concepts and research methodology, the text presents the findings. In the first two sections, it examines (1) the personal bodily practices that disabled people adopt to keep up with the temporal demands both within and beyond the workplace, showing how such practices affect their health and bodies, and (2) the personal discursive practices around the labour of justification and micromanagement used to negotiate needs that conflict with chrononormative expectations in cases where bodies cannot be adjusted to chrononormativity. In the subsequent two sections, the article addresses a structural level: it explores (3) the possibilities and pitfalls of navigating the temporal asynchronies through flexibility, situating flexibility within broader social and temporal relations. Then, it (4) highlights the unsustainable effort required to comply with chrononormativity arising from the disregard of plural temporalities in the neoliberal system. The concluding discussion synthesises these insights to show how temporality functions as a constitutive force of ableism in the workplace and outlines the implications for developing more inclusive temporal arrangements.
Temporal dimensions of ableism and disability in employment
Existing studies on disability and work discuss how neoliberal market logic based on marketisation, commercialisation and privatisation creates exclusionary practices for disabled people in the work environment (Remnant et al., 2024), explore discrimination in the labour market based on social prejudice (Østerud, 2023) and investigate employment discrimination experienced by disabled people who have not been diagnosed as such (Draper et al., 2011). Further studies scrutinise the materialisation of disability through organisational spaces (Bend and Priola, 2023); examine how disability discrimination operates in large, bureaucratic organisations (Robert and Harlan, 2006); and document the experiences of disabled employees in negotiating workplace adjustments in the public sector (Foster, 2007).
Critical reflection on disabling practices at work largely draws on the social model of disability, highlighting how structural and social conditions, institutions and barriers produce disability (Oliver, 1990). Although the social model emphasises removing physical barriers to achieve accessibility, it foregrounds prejudices and social barriers, often overlooking material bodies by framing disability as socially constructed (Shakespeare, 2014). This perspective is also evident in studies on the experiences of disability and temporality in the workplace. Georgiadou and Damianidou (2025) primarily emphasise the ‘perception’ of a transition towards disability and the internalisation of stereotypes around productivity and ability. Similarly, Soldatic’s (2013) work on the temporal governing technology of the appointment focuses on moral ‘meanings’.
However, the issue of disability and temporality is not only a matter of perception (Georgiadou and Damianidou, 2025) but also of how temporality and disability are co-constituted. In this respect, we follow the work of Williams et al. (2025) on the embodied temporal precarity of endometriosis in employment, showing how temporality at work negatively affects bodily symptoms. We also build on Cepeda’s (2021) account of how the accelerated, normative time of academia intensifies mental disability and Rodgers et al.’s (2023) argument that neoliberal time regimes in universities exacerbate disability by erasing and penalising crip temporalities. The close relationship between health and work is also accentuated by Jammaers and Williams (2021), who examine how disabled people navigate the work-life balance, highlighting that a significant amount of time must be allocated to maintaining one’s health and caregiving responsibilities, leaving little time for leisure.
Consequently, it is crucial to recognise that the strategies disabled people use to meet temporal expectations are not merely forms of internalised oppression stemming from ableist temporal norms (Geogriadou and Damianidou, 2025), but material necessities that often have tangible effects on their bodies. Therefore, we explore both discursive and bodily practices, following the relational model of disability, which understands disability as the result of mutually transforming relations between bodies, society and materiality. As these relations are not fixed, disability is dynamic and open to political contestation (Kafer, 2013).
Chrononormativity and crip time as critical analytical concepts
In order to shed light on clashes between broader temporal expectations and the needs of people who participated in the study, we employ the concept of chrononormativity, originally coined by Freeman (2010). The term is used as an analytical lens to examine the dominant temporal organisation of work, while the empirical material illustrates how chrononormative expectations are experienced and negotiated in everyday working lives.
Building on queer theory, Freeman argues that queer people do not align with heteronormative sociocultural expectations regarding life stages that unfold in the correct order and at the right time. These expectations are projected into a normative temporal scheme—chrononormativity—that permeates the entire organisation of society with standardised sequences, speeds and endurance.
Chrononormativity binds various timeframes together, ensuring that schedules, plans and activities are aligned to enhance the production of both goods and bodies (Freeman, 2010). The organisation of working hours and the planning of everyday activities follow these broader temporal norms. Time 1 is thereby divided and monetised into particular sequences, presupposing its linearity, which can be measured by the clock and reflected, for instance, in an hourly wage. However, although the concept was initially introduced to challenge capitalist notions of time, its use in analysing workplace temporal structures is still relatively underexplored.
Chrononormativity is inherently intertwined with disability. While chrononormativity is characterised by linearity, predictability and smoothness, disability is full of interruptions, irregularities and troubles (Kafer, 2013). The linear temporality of human development, divided into life stages such as childhood, productive age, and retirement, creates temporal dissonances in the lives of disabled people whose bodies and/or minds do not correspond to their chronological age (Samuels, 2017) or their minds to their bodies (Kafer, 2013). These dissonances tend to be corrected through medicine based on linear temporal terms like ‘prognosis’, ‘frequency’, ‘incidence’, ‘remission’, ‘chronic’ or ‘terminal’ (Kafer, 2013; Samuels and Freeman, 2021).
To criticise chrononormativity is not to say that society should not be temporally organised, but to analyse the consequences of a specific temporal normativity tied to production. Clock time assumes a universal framework, dismissing the possibility of a plurality of temporalities (Jessop, 2008; Soldatic, 2013). Legitimate, that is, productive time is goal-oriented, expectations-oriented and future-oriented (Freeman, 2010), and is often present in the organisation of work or even in accommodations in the workplace for disabled people. As a result, Adina’s crip time is undervalued; as she says, ‘The employer would generally not comply with your needs.’
The response to this neglect and undervaluation of alternative temporalities comes from critical disability studies through the concepts of crip time / crip temporalities, 2 which intersect chrononormativity and disability. Along with its critique of the normative temporal realm, crip time represents a way of envisaging the subversion of the temporal normative ordering, one of the ‘potential tools for thinking otherwise, [. . .] tools for mobilizing against ableism, white supremacy, patriarchy’ (Kafer, 2021: 420). The unsettling word ‘crip’ underscores ‘reworldings that challenge the order of things’ (Chen, 2012 in McRuer, 2018: 22). Kafer adds that crip time refers to a ‘reorientation to time’ (Kafer, 2013: 27), challenging the ‘normalizing expectations of pace and scheduling’ (Kafer, 2013: 27).
Although not yet widely used in studies examining the relationship between time, disability and work, research employing this concept has been on the rise in recent years (Bailey, 2021; Bailey and Madden, 2015; Cepeda, 2021; Kafer, 2013, 2021; McRuer, 2018; Samuels, 2017; Samuels and Freeman, 2021). By building on the concept of ‘crip time’, the article highlights the role of temporality not only in discriminatory practices, inclusion, accommodations and accessibility, but also as a constitutive factor of disability. Furthermore, by examining the intricate, co-constitutive relationship between work, temporality and disability, the article challenges the binary positioning of flexibility and standardisation prevailing in crip studies (Kafer, 2013; Williams et al., 2025), showing that they are neither opposites nor points on a spectrum, but rather mutually conditioning.
Research methodology and context of the study
The study took place in the Czech Republic, where about 13% of citizens are diagnosed with a disability, over half of whom are older than 65. Only around 30% of working-age disabled people are employed (Úřad vlády České Republiky, 2020). Companies with more than 25 employees must ensure that 4% of their work positions are designated for people with disabilities. Alternatively, they can buy services from disability-inclusive businesses or pay a state levy. Employers must also adapt workplaces to disabled workers’ needs, and state subsidies support inclusive hiring. Despite these measures and EU-aligned policies, the employment rate of disabled people remains low, and finding jobs on the open market is still difficult (Úřad vlády České Republiky, 2020).
People officially diagnosed as disabled and not yet eligible for an old-age pension are eligible to receive disability benefits (Česká správa sociálního zabezpečení, 2024). However, the process is complex and lengthy, which may discourage people from even applying. The degree of disability is assessed by a certified medical examiner based on long-term health conditions and reduced work capacity (Česká správa sociálního zabezpečení, 2024), similar to procedures in other European countries (Brage et al., 2015).
The collected data are part of the research project ‘Geographies of Crip Temporalities’, led by the main research question: how do temporalities and disabilities co-create each other? During the years 2023–24, the six-person research team conducted 19 semi-structured interviews with disabled people recruited through ‘snowball sampling’ (Seale, 1998), mainly via our social networks. The interviews ranged from 78 to 195 minutes and resulted in 38 hours of recorded material.
Given the topic’s high sensitivity, most interviews were conducted in research pairs, which enabled more attentive reflection and helped maintain ethical awareness, while sharing the emotional labour of interviewing. As this study is part of a larger project covering various thematic areas, not all interviews focused equally on work-related issues, and certain participants are therefore cited more than others. Drawing on Latour’s (2005) view that phenomena are constituted through associations within heterogeneous networks, situations in which particular dynamics take shape are emphasised. Rather than providing an episodic overview, the study aims to put forward a situated, relational understanding exemplified primarily through the narratives of Adina, Beáta, Klaudie, Zita, Eva, Rudolf, Alice and Petr. Although aspects of crip temporalities emerged in various interviews, the focus on empirically rich cases (Patton, 2002) enables the tracing of temporal negotiations and disruptions that might otherwise remain obscured and marginalised, without implying that similar experiences were absent elsewhere.
Building on McRuer (2006) and Kafer (2013), we adopt a broad understanding of disability that encompasses impairments and illnesses, aligning with the term ‘crip’, which challenges fixed definitions and highlights the relational character of disability. Kafer (2013) acknowledges bodily realities while highlighting common experiences of discrimination, whether due to being labelled as disabled or sick or feeling pressured to conceal bodily and mental difficulties to fit into societal and temporal norms. Following the relational model (Feely, 2016; Goodley et al., 2014; Whitburn et al., 2017), impairment, describing bodily conditions, and disability, referring to social discrimination and exclusion, are not distinguished. Such a conceptualisation understands disability as a material-discursive assemblage of organic and inorganic, linguistic and material elements that intra-act and transform one another (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987/2005). Thus, disability is not permanently fixed but is always provisional and processual.
Consequently, ‘disability’ and ‘crip’ are used more as analytical and political categories than as descriptive terms. In the same vein, we prefer the term ‘disabled people’ over ‘people with disabilities’, aligning with the current preference in (critical) disability studies. Although this term is often referred to as ‘identity-first’ language, the aim here is to emphasise processes of embodiment shaped by disabling practices (Shildrick, 2009) rather than focusing solely on identity. While the participants consented to participate in research that includes the words ‘crip’ and ‘disabilities’ in its title, some do not closely identify with these terms. However, the article adheres to Kafer’s (2013: 14) perspective, suggesting that ‘rethinking our cultural assumptions about disability, imagining our disability futures differently, will benefit all of us, regardless of our identities’.
Although a diagnosis was not a requirement for inclusion in the research, all participants have been officially diagnosed. Far from wanting to revert to the medical framing of disability, this information is provided because diagnoses are a part of forming specific disability assemblages that connect people and their bodies to biomedical infrastructure. Furthermore, they play a significant role in negotiating work adjustments (Foster, 2007) and, under certain conditions, enable people to obtain disability accommodations and benefits.
While institutional approval was not mandated by the funder, the research team adhered to processual ethics, attending to ethical concerns as they arose throughout the research process (Rice et al., 2018). Participants provided oral consent after being informed of the study’s purpose and its voluntary nature, including their right to refuse to answer any question, withdraw from the interview at any time, and request the withdrawal of their data from use in the study. They were informed about data anonymisation, and their names and other identifiers were changed by the authors. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. They were conducted in Czech, and the authors translated selected excerpts into English. Table 1 lists the participants’ pseudonyms, their current and sometimes past occupations, disability and chronological age, as these may be relevant to ‘age normality’ (Krekula et al., 2017).
Participants’ details.
The data were analysed using abductive analysis, which examines empirical material through selected theoretical frameworks and requires engagement with existing literature from the outset and throughout the research process (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012). It aims to actively search for data to uncover new insights that are not yet captured by the utilised theories, thereby enriching them. In such analytical work, ‘theory is not discovered but revised, not induced but improved, not deconstructed but reconstructed’ (Burawoy, 2009: 13).
The qualitative data analysis software (ATLAS.ti 9) facilitated the organisation of the data and its transformation into analytical material (Konopásek, 2008). During the analysis, we coded the data and converted them into specific themes. Some codes were theoretically informed (e.g., chrononormativity, bodymind, flexibility), whereas others emerged from open coding, carrying analytical potential (e.g., organising time, strategies, flexible work). While the initial intention was also to explore the ‘alternative temporalities’ created by disabled people in resistance to chrononormativity, space constraints led us to reserve this for a separate article.
‘There really isn’t a choice’: The compulsory chrononormativity of work
The unpredictability of Adina’s body and need for medical intervention were at odds with the chrononormative temporal demands of her workplace, highlighting that linearity is not a natural flow but something that must be actively produced. The difference between able-bodiedness and disability does not lie in the actual contrast between linearity and nonlinearity but in identifying discontinuity only in disability (see Kafer, 2013). However, more often than not, able-bodied people, unlike Adina, do not have to plan infusions between shifts to evoke the perception that they can fit into the linear order of factory production. Minor irregularities are expected, but as Adina says, her health issues cannot be ‘brushed off like a flu you can get over in four days between shifts’. Her disability does not align with success stories (Lundberg, 2022), in which failures and illnesses are only episodes on the way towards physical fitness (Campbell, 2009).
Adina’s personal strategies to comply with the chrononormative ordering of her job negatively impacted her health, making it evident that chrononormativity is not merely a background condition but has constitutive power in the production of disability (Bailey, 2021; Lahelma et al., 2012; Williams et al., 2025). This effort, however, was not driven by internalised stereotypes about disability in relation to temporalities at work (cf. Georgiadou and Damianidou, 2025); it was existential. Chrononormativity is woven into the fabric of the neoliberal system as a whole (Soldatic, 2013), allowing us to consider wider economic relations. Paid employment is directly tied to financial obligations such as mortgages—a reality that Adina herself faced. She reflects on this: Of course, it took a toll on my health. I know that, I know. But at that time, because of the mortgage, I had no choice, it just wasn’t possible. There really isn’t a choice at that moment.
She obtained the mortgage before receiving her diagnosis, and trying to keep up with the linearity of the workplace was also a way to keep up with the linearity of the mortgage, which presupposes able-bodied people, as it is often scheduled for tens of years. Simultaneously, it limits people’s choices, binding them to steady work (Bracke et al., 2014). Adina was trying to adhere to the image of an ‘ideal worker’ (Lundberg, 2022; Østerud, 2023) in order to find ‘ways to survive, to wedge [her] nonnormative bodymind 3 into the apparatus of capitalist production far enough to keep a roof over [her] head’ (Samuels and Freeman, 2021: 248).
She did not want to expose the troubles she had been experiencing, knowing it would disqualify her from keeping the job. Adina thus faced the same dilemma as many people with invisible disabilities, whose conditions are associated with a range of negative connotations, prejudices, fears and questioning of the physical and/or mental health required for performing a job (Ragins, 2008; Samuels, 2002; Santuzzi et al., 2014). She says, ‘I’ll just bite the bullet and go on, whether I feel bad or not. It’s unfortunate, and I feel sorry for myself, but that’s just what I do.’
Zita, 27, a lecturer and podcaster whose work involves numerous meetings and travel to various venues, does not want to disclose her disability in certain situations either, which requires various strategies. Since birth, she has been living with essential tremor, a progressive disease that primarily manifests in limb shaking. This tremble is not constant, and she has learned to recognise certain circumstances that can worsen the symptoms, whereas other factors remain a mystery to her and are thus beyond her control. In recent years, Zita has been interested in disability justice, has read literature on disability/crip and has critically reflected on the interconnection between her situation, wider social structures and ableist expectations (see Campbell, 2009; Goodley, 2013; Shildrick, 2009). Yet, she admits: Actually, I’m still trying to fit into the form that is expected of me so I can function in this system. I am experiencing something, but I try to hide it to some extent.
She further describes how this concealment has a significant temporal dimension: I plan a lot. I know when I can have coffee and when I can’t based on what’s coming up that day. I know I need to eat now, even if I’m not hungry. I need to be well-fed; otherwise, I will shake more, you know?
Events that are coming up that day are not singular moments (cf. Price-Robertson and Duff, 2019). Zita’s eating and drinking regimen ensures that events occurring a few hours later proceed as smoothly as possible, without the irregularities of her shaking body. Thus, temporal ordering does not stop at work; managing one’s health occurs both in and outside the workplace. It creates additional labour to come to work fully recovered, which affects one’s work-life balance (Jammaers and Williams, 2021).
‘I don’t appear to be struggling with anything’: Micromanagement, negotiations and invisible labour
Despite strenuous efforts to synchronise one’s time and body with chrononormative expectations, there is still a range of situations in which this is not possible. Then, a ‘constant labour of justification’ (Price, 2021: 272) is needed, which costs not only a lot of time but also ‘enormous emotional energy’ (Price and Kerschbaum, 2016: 51). Zita laments this: When we perform live with a podcast, I need a microphone stand. So, we request the stand, because they [the organisers] usually don’t anticipate this. So, first, I have to write to them. They usually have a problem with it, and the moment I write that it’s due to a disability, because that’s a word that somehow works, suddenly, yes, yes, of course, we’ll arrange it. Right? But always, when we just ask for a microphone stand, why isn’t it possible? Isn’t this enough?
Zita highlights the ableist anticipations that connect the present activity—not having a microphone stand—with an imagined future, in which a performer does not need one. This obscures various needs and, consequently, temporalities that must then be justified. Simply asking for a microphone was not enough. After a negative response, this request needed to be negotiated. The ‘micromanagement’ (as Zita calls it) of finding and negotiating ways to accommodate one’s needs requires not only a great amount of time-consuming, invisible labour (Soldatic, 2013: 414) but also articulating one’s disability. Instead of being perceived as a common variation, disability is conventionally considered something ‘extra’, delineating the normal and the abnormal. This turns the microphone stand into ‘assistive’ technology associated with disability, whereas technologies used by able-bodied people are considered banal and ordinary, without an attribute (Gibson et al., 2012). However, without the extra explanation, the stand is so banal that it is not worth the organiser’s effort and time.
Adina and others also need to cope with multiple, troublesome everyday issues, which are not recognised as they seem to be easy and unproblematised for the able-bodied majority (cf. Samuels and Freeman, 2021). However, bit by bit, they disrupt the smooth and linear functioning of the ‘chrononormative worker’. Adina recalls this: [Colleagues at work] tell you, ‘But you can’t have any problems, there’s nothing to see.’ Yes, often there is nothing visible on me, but here you stumble, there you fall, here you bump into doors, there you can’t go downstairs, here you can’t climb the stairs, and suddenly, as I say it, walking two hundred meters becomes an almost superhuman effort for you.
Even when her struggles were evident, they were often not taken seriously. ‘When suddenly you just say that you can’t go on, that you feel unwell, then people think, “Oh, she just doesn’t want to”,’ Adina complains. In her case, talking about disability did not make her colleagues considerate and disabled people often face mistrust and are accused of inventing their struggles (Blanck, 2001; Furui, 2013; Harris, 2019).
The mistrust is further reinforced when at odds with expected chrononormative life stages. After graduation, Eva, 28, had a budding career as a physiotherapist at a hospital. But since December 2021, she has been struggling with tinnitus, which she describes as a specific, ‘metal-like’ noise she hears. Tinnitus affects her sleep, and it is difficult for her to work eight hours a day. To better coordinate her needs with those of the workplace, she left the hospital and went to a private clinic, where her career ‘slowed down’. Samuels (2017) notes that ‘crip time is time travel. Disability and illness have the power to extract us from linear, progressive time with its normative life stages and cast us into a wormhole of backward and forward acceleration.’ Deviation from the expected career path, however, has, as Eva shares, elicited adverse reactions: I have encountered situations where people don’t understand that it actually limits me. I had many conflicts, especially with my grandmother, when she would simply criticise me for how I arranged my work. And I would say, ‘But I just can’t work for eight hours.’ ‘Why can’t you? You’re a young girl!’
Eva’s invisible disability is often not taken seriously as many people assume that tinnitus is only slightly discomforting. Moreover, the chrononormative expectations make talking about her situation even more difficult—her disability is questioned and underestimated because of her young age, from which strength, resilience and endurance are expected. Her transition from the hospital to the private clinic did not align with the temporal presumptions (Krekula, 2019), but was unexpected and problematic. The decision of hers thus needed to be constantly and effortfully justified (Price, 2021).
To avoid the requirement for justification and conceal the temporal needs of her bodymind, especially when the outcomes were uncertain, Klaudie, 36, a social worker living with type 1 diabetes since the age of 12, presents arguments that do not deviate from the chrononormative expectations: In my request for part-time work, I mentioned that I might need it for training or because I want to focus more on myself and have more space for professional development, which is something the social services tend to be receptive to. However, if I were to communicate that it’s due to diabetes, I’m not sure how they would react. I have no idea, actually, because I can imagine they might see it as a problem. And if that’s the case, it could potentially provoke a sense of ignorance or panic in them.
Klaudie’s strategy involved aligning her needs with the discourse of ‘self-development’ (Makovicky, 2014), in accordance with an ‘ideal worker’ (Lundberg, 2022; Østerud, 2023), conforming to the idea of productivity and linear professional development. She believed that emphasising diabetes could potentially worsen her situation as revealing troubles related to the diagnosis may invite scepticism, reinforce stigma or prompt unwanted scrutiny, especially when the disability is invisible or episodic (Ragins, 2008; Samuels, 2002; Santuzzi et al., 2014).
However, trying to comply with the image of the ‘ideal’ worker comes with significant pitfalls. Besides taking insulin injections four times a day, Klaudie’s body is constantly exposed to osmotic stress and pressure, which leads to various issues. Staying in the ‘green zone’—the medically recommended range for blood sugar levels—requires significant coordination, which can be stressful and frustrating. Although her employer and colleagues are aware of her disability, and her job as a social worker might suggest they would be more attentive to her needs than those in Adina’s factory, her disability largely goes unnoticed as long as she successfully aligns her bodymind with the chrononormative demands of the workplace. Klaudie clarifies: Other people really don’t know what it all involves, what kinds of things a person’s dealing with. Because it’s sort of hidden, and these people just seem to function, to manage. They don’t appear to be struggling with anything, so it’s not tangible for others to understand what’s going on inside, whether it’s fatigue or other issues.
Crip time is embodied in the ongoing micromanagement of everyday life through planning, negotiating and advocating for needs that are not typically part of the daily experience of able-bodied people. Klaudie’s ability to pass as the ideal worker—someone who can self-regulate, stay productive and minimise disruptions regardless of internal strain—masks the continuous effort it takes, rendering her bodily and emotional labour largely invisible and unacknowledged.
‘I worked when I could, when my body allowed it’: The possibilities and pitfalls of flexibility
Chrononormativity links different temporal frameworks, coordinating schedules, plans and activities to optimise the production of goods (Freeman, 2010). To ensure this production, it is necessary to optimise bodies. A standard working day is divided into working hours, leisure time and sleep, which is supposed to provide enough rest for the body to function properly the following day. However, many people in our study struggle to comply with chrononormative daily routines. For example, Petr, 34, a researcher with OCD, regularly has trouble falling asleep and stays awake until around 5 a.m. He recalls a sleepless night before an exam: Actually, I’ve had quite a few days when I was completely exhausted but still couldn’t fall asleep the entire night. Since you mentioned a memory like that, I have one too—the night before my statistics exam. I had it in the morning. I was dead tired. I knew I needed to get some rest before the exam, but I didn’t sleep a single minute that night.
Others—like Rudolf, 54, suffering from depression and delusions, and Judita, 38, a visually impaired radio editor—also shared difficulties sticking to fixed sleep and work schedules. Night-time awakenings left them tired during the day, leading to fatigue, reduced productivity or even struggles to continue in their jobs. Sleep problems, whether insomnia or the need to strictly follow specific routines and schedules to ensure better rest, are common even among the so-called able-bodied population.
That is why flexibility, promising the possibility of structuring one’s work time around personal needs, may appear to be a good solution. Williams et al. (2025) emphasise flexibility as a means of orchestrating time that is unique to individuals and an option many disabled people prefer (Schur, 2003; Williams et al., 2025). This is the case for Beáta, 30, who works flexibly as a self-employed web designer for multiple clients, and for Alice, 26, a PhD student whose academic work allows for a flexible schedule. Both Beáta and Alice have been diagnosed with ADHD. Beáta notes that people with this condition often experience executive dysfunction, which leads to difficulties in completing tasks and a lack of motivation to start them. Beáta and Alice characterise the ADHD experience as ‘time blindness’, referring to their struggle with time orientation, including planning, distinguishing between the near and distant future and perceiving the past. Beáta also mentions finding task-switching challenging. This leads her to allocate larger blocks of time for each activity in her planning so she does not have to switch as often. To manage her work, she relies on sophisticated apps that track her task schedule and deadlines.
However, flexible jobs do not revolve solely around one’s needs (cf. Williams et al., 2025). They also include broader chrononormative expectations, which in turn require negotiating time with others, adhering to sociocultural norms of productivity, meeting deadlines, communicating with clients, and managing administrative tasks (cf. Kotýnková Krotká, 2024). Beáta explains how this works: It [a task] wouldn’t take me so long if I didn’t get so caught up in it, or if my hyperfocus didn’t take over. Again, I can’t—I simply can’t—expect my client to pay for ten hours of graphic work that should have taken three, just because I let my own mind carry me away.
Chrononormativity at work refers not only to the division of time throughout the day but also to the specific duration assigned to individual tasks—sometimes very precisely, other times within a range—which are linked to hourly wages. Moreover, graphic design is a highly competitive job, further narrowing Beáta’s timeframe. In order to remain competitive in the labour market, she used to adjust her work schedule to the needs and capacities of her bodymind, which led to the elimination of the boundary between leisure time and work, and subordinating everything to work needs. Beáta clarifies: I worked when I could, when my body allowed it. This led to situations where, if I discovered that there were fifteen emails in my inbox and dozens of tasks in the queue at eight in the evening, I had to get up and do them right away because I didn’t know if I would be able to work the next day, or if I would be knocked down again.
Beáta’s unpredictable bodymind led to unpredictable crip time, which, combined with flexible working, meant she worked whenever (physically) possible. This effort was not sustainable in the long run and ultimately, Beáta decided to take ADHD medication that facilitates task initiation. 4 Consequently, she was able to establish a routine based on the repetitiveness of certain daily activities rather than on measurable time.
Beáta replaced unpredictability with a strict daily regimen that suited her needs, closely adhering to her schedule and carefully weighing any deviations. Although she works every day, including weekends, her shorter work periods and consistent routine provide crucial structure and orientation in spacetime (cf. Price, 2017, 2021). The strict regimen has allowed her to reconcile the needs of her, now medicalised, bodymind with the broader temporal structures of (not only) work life.
The need to adhere to a strict regimen to get enough rest in order to be able to go to work the next day also affects Eva. As she says, ‘My partner and I really need to stick to a schedule because I have to go to bed at 9 p.m. to get some sleep. It essentially excludes us from a lot of activities.’ Her schedule demonstrates that, while specific times are set, some flexibility is often expected, such as the ability to go to bed late and still function the following day. Thus, although chrononormativity is frequently criticised for enforcing a rigid structure aligned with broader temporal expectations of productivity, our study shows that chrononormativity is not the opposite of flexibility; rather, a certain level of flexibility is an essential part of it. In contrast, Eva needs to adhere to her strict schedule and carefully assess the consequences of any deviations.
‘Constantly worrying about whether one can meet the expectations’: Unsustainable effort to comply with chrononormativity
More often than not, adopting various practices to adhere to chrononormativity proves unsustainable over time, as these practices run counter to needs that surface sooner or later. Samuels (2017) emphasises that: crip time is broken time. [. . .] It insists that we listen to our bodyminds so closely, so attentively, in a culture that tells us to divide the two and push the body away from us while also pushing it beyond its limits.
Although the medical model of disability revolves around the body, the imperative is not to listen to it but rather to try to overcome it, to eradicate the body as a ‘problem’ (Shakespeare, 2014).
Adina’s crip time had been broken for a long while. She attempted to dismiss attacks of multiple sclerosis and arrange infusions between shifts. With enormous effort and at the expense of her health, she was striving to quiet the voices of her bodymind, pushing beyond its limits in order to keep her job and pay the mortgage. Over time, however, her needs and the demands of her position as a quality controller working shifts in a factory became increasingly divergent and trying to comply with the chrononormative requirements of her workplace ceased to be feasible: If I started taking sick leave weekly, or perhaps a three-month leave every six months, that would definitely cause issues. I experience sudden dizziness and unexpected attacks that immediately necessitate hospitalisation. During these times, I’m given high doses of corticosteroids, and I generally feel quite unwell for the following two weeks until my condition starts to stabilise. Recovery can take up to two months. Unfortunately, you can’t do anything about that. At that point, you must find something else, and choosing a job to your liking becomes very difficult.
Sudden attacks and a long recovery time clashed with the chrononormative demands of not only her job but also any regular job for which she was qualified. The labour market is connected to social services that are supposed to respond to such situations. However, this would require coordinating various temporalities, which Czech social services fail to do. Adina remarks: If suddenly an illness knocks you down in such a way that you go straight to a commission [to determine the degree of disability and to assess disability benefits], and they tell you that you’re done, what would you do? Do you give this to your employer? Do you stay at home? This happened to me, and in that moment, I suddenly felt completely helpless because it takes several months before your benefits are approved. It takes another few months before they send the money. So, at that moment, I had no choice but to take a part-time contract job to maintain a standard of living and keep my apartment.
Crip time meant asynchronies in the brittle, temporal configuration that enabled Adina to maintain her standard of living and keep her apartment. Each component of the configuration has a different temporality—the illness is abrupt and immediate, while the factory workplace must be predictable and linear. Whereas the onset of the illness manifests rapidly, the bureaucratic process of disability benefits approval and the subsequent disbursement of funds from social services unfold at a sluggish pace. Consequently, Adina had to find a temporary job that did not require a long-term commitment to employment with standard, linear temporality, which led her to a tenuous and precarious future (cf. Kafer, 2021), a common situation for disabled people, who are more likely to work in precarious jobs (Jetha et al., 2020).
The temporality of Rudolf’s job as a researcher and lecturer also increasingly clashed with his needs, leading to a meltdown. He describes the struggles: These mental issues were related, let’s say, to being overloaded with work, to certain very problematic aspects of scientific projects, such as grants that were risky, in the sense that they [outputs] were barely met in the end, with the risk of having to return the funds and so on.
Ultimately, Rudolf ended up in a psychiatric hospital, where he spent five weeks. Although his manager and colleagues were attentive and compassionate, it was clear to him that staying at the job was no longer possible, as Rudolf wanted to avoid the ‘constant stress, always scrambling for money, dealing with people and constantly worrying about whether one can meet expectations’. In general, the level of stress among academic staff and researchers has been described as an escalating crisis that requires urgent attention (Brewster et al., 2022; Jayman et al., 2022). Nevertheless, systematic changes are still not in sight, and instead, people choose the personal solution of leaving their jobs. Rudolf’s physician suggested that he go on disability benefits, which Rudolf welcomed with relief. Staying in the pressing, unpredictable, and risky temporalities of research and academia was no longer feasible. Rudolf’s exit meant transitioning into a time of healing at a psychiatric hospital and, ultimately, a somewhat stable and slow temporality of being on disability benefits while working in a sheltered workplace.
Concluding discussion
This article examines how disabled workers navigate chrononormative demands through bodily and discursive practices and shows the additional labour these practices entail. By engaging with existing debates, it contributes to an understanding of time as one of the key structuring forces of ableism in the workplace—an aspect that, despite its previous neglect, should be addressed as such by both disability studies and the sociology of work. The analysis develops four key areas: (a) bodily and discursive practices in managing temporalities at work, (b) the constitutive power of temporal orderings in the production of disability, (c) the ambivalent role of flexibility as a temporal practice and (d) the concepts of chrononormativity and crip temporality through their interconnection.
The scarce research on the clashes between the needs of disabled people and normative temporalities at work (Cepeda, 2021; Edwards and Sudlow-Haylett, 2023; Georgiadou and Damianidou, 2025; Jammaers and Williams, 2021; Nash, 2024; Rodgers et al., 2023; Soldatic, 2013; Williams et al., 2025) indicates that temporality as a key issue for addressing inequalities has been largely overlooked. Current initiatives that seek to address the temporal challenges faced by disabled people follow the logic that the problem of crip time is merely a matter of speed, pace or time allocated for rest (Kafer, 2013), which is reflected in reduced working hours (Cox, 2022), remote work (Schur et al., 2020) and flexible employment (House of Commons Library, 2022). Yet, as Kafer (2013) emphasises, crip time refers to a ‘reorientation to time’ (p. 27) and to an acknowledgement of plural temporalities and temporal unpredictability that go beyond the simple logic of speed and quantity. The rich empirical findings from our study elucidate aspects that have so far remained obscured and disregarded.
Linking chrononormativity and crip time reveals how linear, future-oriented temporality permeates the neoliberal system, making it highly resilient and dependent on individuals’ everyday practices based on self-management and the individualisation of responsibility to comply with the dominant temporal order (cf. Foster, 2007; Jammaers and Williams, 2021). In order to achieve productivity, the ‘ideal worker’ (Nash, 2024; Østerud, 2023) requires not only sufficient working time and adequate leisure time, but, above all, appropriate housing. Keeping a roof over one’s head (cf. Samuels and Freeman, 2021) ties paid work to mortgages scheduled over decades, presupposing predictable, future-oriented workers despite the dissonances between different temporalities.
The bodily and discursive practices that disabled people employ then have profound and often negative impacts on their health, exacerbating their disabilities. Therefore, it is necessary to address temporalities at a more structural level to make work more sustainable. Within existing policy measures, flexibility is often considered an adequate solution for addressing normative temporalities at work (cf. Schur, 2003; Williams et al., 2025). However, the detailed empirical material in our study adds nuance to this issue. While flexibility encompasses broader chrononormative expectations, chrononormativity presupposes a certain degree of flexibility, one that can create further difficulties for those whose bodies are neither linear nor flexible. Although chrononormativity and flexibility are frequently contrasted in the literature on crip time (Kafer, 2013; Samuels, 2017; Samuels and Freeman, 2021), they are in fact mutually conditioning.
The issue of temporality becomes increasingly pressing as digital technologies become integrated into contemporary capitalism, accelerating time and intensifying work (Wajcman, 2015). The troubles described in this study thus do not apply solely to people designated as ‘disabled’, as the normative timeframe does not suit various other people either. Disability rather serves as a magnifying glass that uncovers the principles of capitalist time ordering, as clashes become more visible and adherence to the idea of an ‘ideal worker’ (Nash, 2024; Østerud, 2023) becomes increasingly unsustainable. Employers and organisations should recognise non-linear and fluctuating temporalities at work as legitimate rather than exceptional, and treat temporal disruptions as part of work rather than failure. Potential measures based on our findings can thus not only target employees with disabilities, but also foster workplaces that acknowledge and accommodate diverse forms of difference, thereby addressing broader structural inequalities, such as those related to gender and caregiving (Bryson, 2007; Chung and van der Lippe, 2020). This logic resonates with the broader principles of universal design, which demonstrates that accessibility interventions not only remove barriers for people with disabilities but can inspire deeper systemic transformation towards more equitable and sustainable forms of work and participation (Doussard et al., 2024; Story et al., 1998). Chrononormativity and crip time thus serve not only as analytical concepts addressing the harsh situation of disabled people but also as tools for identifying problematic aspects of workplace temporalities and reimaging alternative temporal orderings that challenge established norms and work expectations (Kafer, 2021; McRuer, 2018; Samuels, 2017).
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our participants for sharing their stories and our colleagues from the project ‘Geographies of Crip Temporalities’ as well as the anonymous reviewers for their time, effort and insightful comments, which have helped shape the article into its current form.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation under the grant number [GA23-05096S].
