How we kept every project on track through a concussion 

Shared Sciences gives you all the benefits of an independent expert – with agency-level back-up.

At the end of June last year, I was finally getting over the malaise and lethargy left by an April bout of COVID. I had a bunch of exciting projects and clients keen to work with me and pay me to be curious and excited about their research. 

And then I stood up on the Island Bay bus, before it came to a complete halt, and cracked my head on the edge of a video screen.  

Concussion sucks. For the first week my sentences got muddled up. I cancelled the trip to Oz for my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. For a month I couldn’t look at a screen without feeling nauseated. I was so sensitive to noise that buses and cafes were impossible; and if more than one person was speaking, I would experience full body tics.  

It was months before I could read, and for someone who devours around 150 books a year, I felt a bit like I’d lost part of my soul. The migraines I’d been slowly winnowing down returned with a vengeance and a decreased responsiveness to drugs. Concentration was impossible and I was grumpier than a mama bear going through menopause. 

Two-and-a-half months later I started doing wee bits and bobs of work. It took eight months to come right neurologically. To feel the spark of ideas connecting rapid-fire and twinkling across my brain in a way that felt familiar. To have words at my fingertips again. To be able to do my job to the height of my ability. 

With all of that time off, I truly would have lost my livelihood along with my sanity if it hadn’t been for Shared Science.  

⚡️Annabel McAleer took on the policy briefs for Ngā Pae o te Maramatanga and delivered flawlessly, always checking in to get my thoughts. 

⚡️Allanah Robinson filled in for me on an international project in economic modelling and climate change (RESET Network), ensuring that it ran more than smoothly, and I knew what was going on.  

⚡️Kylie Bailey helped me finish up some amazing storytelling for the (sorely lamented) Marsden Fund at Te Apārangi Royal Society, and I could trust her writing and clarity completely. 

Because we have a shared understanding of what we are all working on, our strengths and abilities, it was easy to manage project handover.  

All the work got delivered on time and to Shared Science’s usual high standard. We all charge the same, so the work stayed on budget. We sub-contract to each other, so there was no need to adjust purchase orders or invoicing.  This gives you the kind of cover you’d expect from an agency – but without an account manager (and their overhead) standing between you and the person doing the work

Really importantly, I knew that they weren’t going to steal my clients or keep the work for themselves once I was well again. Instead, it just brought us together in the way that only helping one another can. It bonded me to them as workmates I could trust implicitly. 

Most of all, it was the friendship of these amazing, clever, caring wāhine that got me through. They didn’t push. In fact, they told me to nap, to do yoga nidra, to only work to my capacity. They offered to help in practical ways and were constantly supportive. I’m hugely relieved to have made it through the worst year of my life financially and emotionally with my sanity intact (as much as it was to begin with, anyway).

Got a critical project and nervous about putting it all on one contractor? Work with Shared Science and get an independent expert with back-up built in.