Hello to anyone who might read this. I’ve just registered because it seemed like the best thing for my well-being. I’m about to change my career because of ADD (once been fired, now it is pretty close to it too). My first psychiatrist appointment is in June and I have no idea how to manage my emotions till then, people at work are being openly aggressive to me. My contract ends in July and till then I have to figure out what to do with my professional life. Please tell me your stories about your career paths, if it has changed and how (with time or with getting access to medicine).
Glad to join and thank you for letting people speak about these things.
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Some_girl
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So many of us have been through difficulties in life. I tried to try to figure out all my struggles on my own. I did that for about 30 years (from my teens until I was 45), until I finally got an ADHD diagnosis.
The host of the "ADHD Essentials" podcast, Brendan Mahan, refers to ADHD as "life on Hard Mode."
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Take note of your natural talents, learned skills, knowledge, and interests.
What do you think you want to do?
What captures your imagination?
What type of work (paid or volunteer) have your enjoyed doing (regardless of whether you were "good" at it, or not)?
Are you creative? Are you a "people person "? Do you like to work on one project after another, or do you prefer having consistency in your work duties?
Do you like a good challenge, or would rather do lighter work? Do you prefer action oriented work, thinking work, or getting to switch off between the two?
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My career path has been meandering.
* Summer camp staff (as a teenager)
* Retail salesperson
* Retail "3rd Key" (above salesperson, but below management)
* Computer Lab Assistant (at a community college that I was enrolled at)
* Retail salesperson (again!)
* Office Assistant (at a school)
* Mathematics Tutor (at the same school)
* Correctional Officer (at a Minimum Security Prison...I hated that job! But I needed the health benefits for my family)
* Retail Assistant Store Manager (I was supposed to be trained to take over as Store Manager, but my first manager wrote me up for a bunch of small things, so I got passed up for promotion)
* Retail Salesperson (part-time, while returning to college)
In my 30s, I finally found my "niche", combining my natural empathy, my customer service skills that I developed in my retail career, and the computer expertise that I learned in college. I didn't finish the degree, but I did gain the knowledge.
* Lead Technical Support Representative (at the Computer Help Desk for the same college, after I ran out of financial aid to pay tuition there anymore)
* various other lower level "IT Technician" roles (long story, but the short of it is that my employer kept changing up my job duties every few months...it was a nightmare situation for an ADHD Brain...worst job and worst manager I've ever had! I suspect that the manager was trying to make me quit.)
* IT Application Administrator (at the same college, until my contact wasn't renewed... essentially the same as being fired)
* IT Technician (all around tech support at a small hospital)
* IT Service Desk Technician, level 2 (at a small-medium size manufacturer)
Over the course of my career, I've learned the following about myself:
1) I'm motivated to help people, because of my natural empathy
2) I'm curious about people; I want to understand them, what interests and motivates them, what makes them the way they are
3) I like solving problems; I like a good mystery or puzzle to solve
4) I like variety and novelty in my work
5) I try to understanding the interconnectivity... between people, between things, between people and things...the ideas that bring people together...etc. (This is sometimes called "Systems Thinking".)
On top of the ways that ADHD can make our job performance less than desired - like missing due dates, forgetting things, not fitting in socially - we are also prone to rejection sensitivity.
We have explained our life history to ourselves as incompetence, laziness, lack of caring, moral failures. That is before we know what ADHD is and how it drives all those behaviors. When you know that it is a deficiency in regulation of neurochemicals that drives you, that allows you to throw away the guilt, reject the shame and understand yourself anew.
But, with an internal view of ourselves as flawed, lazy, uncaring, unreliable or whatever else opinions you had formed, we naturally see signs of rejection everywhere. We imagine that people don't like us - because we wouldn't like us if we saw all those character defects we think we have. We try to hide it, masking the inner self, but we are sure that people see through us and are disapproving.
It is possible that some part of what you feel from the coworkers may be your RSD triggering the wrong interpretation. Neurotypical people usually don't understand us and they too can build up false beliefs. They think we don't care about them. They think we cavalierly don't complete work or do what we promised. Both sides can be acting on incorrect assumptions.
Owning the impact of our behavior is important - when co-workers realize that you did take an obligation seriously, but had problems delivering, they may still not see you are trustworthy or reliable, but they won't believe it is out of disrespect.
In my early career I was terminated every year or so like clockwork. I was given promotions, failed to meet the expectations and was shifted back. What changed was some subconscious ability I developed to sense what jobs or tasks within jobs were things I could do well at. I slowly gravitated to areas where I could do well with my enjoyment of new things and could minimize routine and boring things.
My tenure at jobs got stretched a bit because people saw that when I did deliver, I was valuable and they were glad to have me. They shook their heads, unable to understand why I would be flaky in other ways or fail to execute on things they KNEW were trivial to do. Many tried to shift me around in jobs to find places where the value I delivered was higher and my unreliability was less impactful. I got to 4+ years in a job, not one year.
I then found a job where I was supporting sales of very high end computers, meeting new potential customers and situations all the time, flying all over the world, therefore lots of novelty and less routine. I still was terrible on writing reports, routine paperwork, the tasks that were triggering to my ADHD, but I lasted 18 years because there were always new products, new technologies, new customers and new sales teams. Then, one day, I was put in a position that was going to be very boring and unfulfilling. Within months I was gone - in this case voluntarily because I saw the future clearly and didn't want the horrible feelings of being fired.
The next job also lasted about 18 years. It was also filled with novelty, heavy travel, but had a great deal of flexibility in shaping what I worked on. While the job was nominally a mix of writing reports, handling phone calls with clients, giving speeches, flying to places and meeting with industry leaders, I was able to deliver very high value in the speeches, industry leader meetings, and jumping into brand new technologies or issues.
I was able to meet productivity while absolutely minimizing reports and other boring parts of the job that my peers all did. The productivity metrics showed me performing well above average with this very skewed approach to the tasks. However, about two years before the end, senior management decided that everyone had to conform to the mix percentages of tasks - everyone do some speeches even if not great, everyone write reports, everyone travel a bit.
I was under the spotlight for failing to meet the percentage mixes they wanted. I struggled and eventually was terminated for failing to write enough reports. Frankly, these were super simple and nobody could understand why I just didn't use some willpower, due the simple things and therefore stay successful in the job. I didn't know I had ADHD nor anything about its characteristics other than the stereotype of a hyperactive troublesome boy in school, so I had no explanation. I just couldn't bring my self to do it. I was put on performance plans, but when I didn't try to turn it around, they assumed I didn't care or was oppositional. I was fired again.
Since that was only a couple of years before retirement age, I just transitioned to retirement and tried to hide the reasons from my family and everyone (out of the shame because of my false believe I was just lazy and uncaring). Being diagnosed was incredibly helpful. I know understand all of my life in a new and better way. I can find medications, tips, advice and other 'crutches' to help me deal with my ADHD.
we don't always have the chance to write the job description that is perfect for us, but what will be very helpful for you is to honestly assess what are the things you will excel at, what are the things you can accomplish to an acceptable level, and what are the things you must avoid since you will fail at them. When you get that self knowledge, you can start looking for careers, jobs, positions in companies where it fits you so that you can succeed. I wish you success in that journey.
It sounds like you experienced a classic fallacy of management... trying to put everyone into the same box. I wonder how many of your peers also failed to meet expectations, because they didn't didn't perform well in the areas of the work that you excelled in.
I like working on a team where my teammates and I can divvy up the work based on how we each excel.
In my favorite job, I got to train and mentor people, and in the process I got to know them well ...their unique capabilities, what they were gifted at, areas where they were growing, and what they weren't so adept at. The team was always pretty balanced for overall knowledge and skills, so everyone got a chance to be the superstar at some point, and everyone got to show appreciation for everyone else at some point.
(Then management cut the staffing budget to hire more middle managers, and broke up the Dream Team that we had built. Things did not go smoothly at all after that. I ended up leaving, first voluntarily into a newly created position, then involuntarily when that position was cut. Last I heard about my former employer, they cut the excess managers, had to reorganize again, and continue to have trouble keeping good employees. It's been 6 years since the first reorg; I've been gone from there for 2 years.)
Hi! I have changed jobs more times than I like to think BUT I was able to find work that used my skills like customer service, technical support, and now counselling in a way that I am able to be in short term connections with people to help them with their problems and then walk away. I would look for things that you can do that leverage your hyper focus and permit you freedom to change when you get bored along with flexibility in work time, location.
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