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Are there things we can do to take advantage of this? Even on my meds I struggle to write my documentation, but the initial period of trying to find a solution and making a working POC is so great
I use copilot to draft all my initial copy. It’s FAR too time consuming for me to try to produce original copy myself. Once I have the copilot results though, then I can analyze and optimize from there. That said, I fucking hate writing documentation and I procrastinate too much.
I use chatgpt for most of my non technical copy. It didn’t a decent job on my resume too, though it lied… A lot. So had to clean it up
Spend weeks automating your documentation
You will surely not regret spending that much time on something that probably wont be used
Assign it as a research collection task to a junior dev and forget to follow up.
(Fr tho, auto doc frameworks and related instrumentation are easily worth weeks. I will fight your manager.)
I am generating markdown tables with a Json file and a GitHub action that builds a markdown table for me lol I just learned today that I have to upskill on QA more and lead some organizational change. Reading tense technical manuals on testing is my nightmare
Pretending it doesnt have downsides is disingenuous.
Just like non-adhd brains do.
I think the issue brought forward here is the lack of ahdh friendly work environments compared to the advantages that can be just as brutally exploited.
But your average manager is an extroverted neuronormie achiever & to such adhd work processes are really not intuitive. Not to mention how much less work they have if there is less individuality among the workers & everyone behaves the same-ish.It’s like morning people vs evening/night people. The morning chickens just have to “trust” that the lazy owls really do have energy later in the day & not judge (perceived) others evening productivity by their own.
Employers wants slaves and servants, not mentats. Yes, its fucked up
But what can you actually DO?
Anything that is more about talking to different parties rather than documenting and being the one to deliver. the more specialised people the better you connect, the bwtter. They will love your ability to see the patterns of the work place, your helicopter perspective. That will help them to test their ideas, to understand the concepts and what their task is all about. They will also love that you will not micro manage (as long as you dont end up hyperfocusing on their topic) and let them do their thing.
Don’t be the specialist. Don’t be the one that tries to have an eye on all the details, all the numbers. I tried to be an accountant for a while…
Ooh this is good. Yes I can see my ability to absorb wikipedia coming in useful here.
How do you think I should prepare myself for a role like this qualification-wise? I’m interested in STEM but the thought of picking one niche (say, chemical engineering) and devoting myself to it really hurts.
Also I can see this being useful in startups, right?
I was gonna ask this too. I’ve heard that some employers in the UK (perhaps in the Netherlands too) are actually explicitly asking for ND people in their job listings.
I heard (but haven’t actually checked because squirrel) GCHQ in the UK were actively recruiting ND people.
What’s GCHQ?
Govt Communications Headquarters. One of the branches of military intelligence in the UK.
Yeah, this is the example I heard too
They always have done this, even before there was a wider understanding / acceptance of neurodiversity (e.g. at Bletchley Park)
yeah. Turns out the economy is fake. who knew?
I know you’re (at least partially) joking but wtf are you talking about?
Which comment are you referring to?
Yours, about the economy being fake.
Hmmm. Idk. on my screen it looks like some comments have vanished and i can’t remember what was there. maybe an overzealous mod?
Nothing has been removed
Try starting with not blaming muslims for all of your problems
I didn’t
https://feddit.nl/comment/12161796
There are so many more comments you made about muslims and inhumanised gazans but I’m not sharing each of them cause I just noticed your account is a day old. So yeah don’t reply to me troll.
One girl at the same time.
ADHD, great for exploring, hunting and making it back home. Not so great for cubicle work…
I’ve made it work surprisingly well in software development - I work in the architecture field and as long as I’m truly diligent about note taking (or am lucky enough to have a trusted coworker to lean on) I’m able to make it work.
Also, micromanagers are your fucking bane if you have ADHD - sometimes I’m not working, I accept that and do house shit when I can’t focus… I still produce more output than most of my coworkers but I absolutely do need full brain breaks.
I will never return to office. I’ll manage a Wendy’s first.
It’s kinda both
That’s a great way to put a positive spin on it, but be realistic. ADHD is not a super power, it’s not all sunshine and roses, it is a disorder. You can sometimes harness parts of it for positive outcomes but it has a lot of negative results too.
Another thing to remember: your ADHD is not everybody’s ADHD. Some people have less severe cases, others have more severe cases.
All totally true! It’s definitely not great, but I try to find the silver linings rather than beat myself up about the hard parts. Good point about my ADHD being different than others’
For every time you can hyperfocus on work, imagine every time you’ve hyperfocused on ants walking by, or a speck of dust, or literally anything other than what you actually need to do.
That’s called practice.
What do you mean? I’m totally supposed to be on Lemmy instead of working …
Hyperfocus is an amazing tool, unfortunately we have no fucking control over it.
Yeah, like I dunno, I think a lot of things I do by accident with my ADHD are super cool. But it definitely hurts more than it helps, and I don’t think that’s just because “we live in a society”. This post feels like huffing a suffocating dose of copium.
- “Oh, sorry, I heard literally every word of what you just said, but my brain encoded nothing.”
- “My sleep schedule is casually off by like five hours because I lost track of time hyperfocusing on learning about competitive Jenga until 4 AM.”
- “I know I could have been doing things, but I had this thing I needed to be at in 8 hours, so I just couldn’t focus on them.”
- “I either lose everything or create an intricate, tedious framework for where I keep everything at all times.”
- “I struggle immensely to cope with stress in a healthy way and have issues with my temper.”
- “If I can focus at all, it will be on exactly one thing, either for unhealthily long periods of time to the detriment of everything else or for so briefly that I accomplish nothing before moving on to the next dopamine rush.”
- “I have a much higher risk of substance abuse because my body is starving for dopamine.”
- “I have trouble keeping promises I’ve made to other people because they vanish out of my mind.”
- “I constantly miss small details and need to quintuple check everything I do.”
- “My priorities are constantly fucked, and I consistently put off everything until the last minute.”
- “It often feels physically painful for me to focus when it’s not on the first thing my brain decides it wants to do.”
Crap, now I need to know about competitive Jenga …
Are…are you me?
An awful lot of those bullets hit me
“I constantly miss small details and need to quintuple check everything do.”
This one is the opposite for me. I’m great at detail work. The stuff I miss is the glaringly obvious giant thing right in front of me.
I went to a wedding this weekend, and bought four drinks from the bar before I noticed half of the bartop was covered in two liter pop bottles I could have been pouring drinks from for free the whole time…
I think we’re describing the same tendency lol. I have a knack for recognizing problems i expect to see. There was this one job where i was like rain man, scanning qnd noting imperfections that needed to be fixed before the next process could start.
But i also can have a very hard time with complicated interlocking processes. Many times i end up overthinking the problems i do see to the detriment of something simple.
To extend the metaphor of this brain i(we?) inhabit, i am exceptional at finding things in difficult places but have the hardest time finding something right in front of me
It’s SUPER hard to parse the different flavors of logical problem solving challenges. Some I can see the pattern almost immediately, others not so much. Thanks to Adderall though, I can now at least recognize this problem and begin to analyze what characteristics of the situation or problem in particular are causing my brain fog response.
I’ve had a similar experience too. One time I couldn’t find my phone, so I start looking high and low. Not in my bedroom, not in the bathroom, the kitchen… At this point, I’m turning over every stone, looking through cabinets and drawers, running out to my car to see if it’s in there. Come back in and decide that it must’ve fallen under my bed and I just didn’t hear it. Can’t see under there really well, so I pull out the flashlight on my phone. Start looking under there, still not turning up. The panic is really starting to kick in.
An embarrassing amount of time passes before I realize that I’m holding and using the thing I’m looking for.
The Apple Watch ability to instantly ping my phone has been a godsend. Wish I had gotten one sooner.
I think I can relate to literally all of them. Not competitive Jenga, but some other niche topic that I will be hyper interested for a consecutive 4 hours after midnight. I spent a whole night one time learning about roller derby and watching replays of the women’s final for the past few years. I had never watched it before in my life and went all in. The men’s version is not as good. They are too fast and strong, so it’s more boring and less nuanced.
I have a coworker on my team who does roller derby! We should talk about this in depth for several hours.
/s
ffs literally every single bullet point applies to me (not that this is news)
Yep it sucks ass
Like watching into mirror
I know this is in response to a post saying your ADHD is not other people’s ADHD, but I’m pretty sure your ADHD is my ADHD.
Yeeeeeep
Imagine how many things that you have to do that only exist because of ridiculous social expectations on what someone else thinks is important.
Being different in a way that would work if conformity was less important shouldn’t be a disability.
exist because of ridiculous social expectations
This is called “taking other people’s opinions into account”. That’s what a society is. If you want your opinions listened to and acted on by others, you have to reciprocate.
Do you think “neurotypical” people love dealing with random people’s opinions and needs? No, but they see the value in cooperating with others to get what they want. You are “expected” to wear clothes in public because I don’t know how often you bathe yourself. You are “expected” to not yell in public because if every rando yelled whenever they wanted, life would be more stressful.
You are expected to slave away for corporate oligarchs so they can continue to in reward the rate at which their unspendable horde of dragon gold increases? You are expected to rollover and take it whilst the SJC strips away our rights and protections? I’m not trying to be an asshole or bring politics into it. I just think it might be important to point out that blanket statements about following societal “rules” might not be such a great idea.
It puts on the colorful noose and heavy black coat in summer, or else it gets the hose again.
“How we’ve always done it” is stupid without reviewing why on occasion.
Please re-read:
Do you think “neurotypical” people love dealing with random people’s opinions and needs?
Disliking a suit and tie isn’t some revelation to “normies”. You are not a radical for thinking that. In fact, all the little things that annoy you probably annoy other people too.
This is a clue to easy small talk. Just say that something annoys you. “Oh man, this suit is murder in this heat.” It’s easy.
Either the answer will be “Yeah man, heh” or “nah, I like it”. You have now successfully engaged in small talk.
Disliking a suit and tie isn’t some revelation to “normies”. You are not a radical for thinking that. In fact, all the little things that annoy you probably annoy other people too.
So why do we need to go along with it?
You know the answer to this. Because the CEO at your company sucks but you still need the money. Many people, even those in your industry, do not wear suits at work. I guarantee it.
I cannot read this sentence. I have tried 3 times but nothing is reaching my brain.
It’s definitely too long of a sentence just to say ‘ADHD is a superpower and society is bad.’
Me nodding in somber agreement. And yet, at the same time, also reaching for the trap-door lever. you tried and that’s what matters.
Maybe it’s time to put on some tunes and take a brain break.
But you don’t understand, Mr… Sandbag Tiara, was it? Can I call you Sandbag?
Sandbag, what we’re really looking for in this position is someone who’s really a people person, you know? Somebody who’s a team player, ready to go the extra mile, fit in with our company culture because we’re a “”“”“family”“”“” here. Really shine in our three pointless but mandatory department-wide meetings per day, smile on demand, have a very firm handshake, and really help us close those KPI numbers.
The job in question is a backend software dev position, where the employee will theoretically never have to interact with anyone except their immediate boss, and has no reason whatsoever to emerge from their dungeon. But never mind that.
makes me want to break out the old suspenders and palm pilot.
The
childrenIT professionals yearn for theminesbasement… the cool, dark basement with soft lighting…Software development is very collaborative and often involves daily and/or weekly meetings and frequent calls with coworkers.
I develop software for a huge company that everyone has heard of, and work by myself on my own projects with no collaboration required and incredibly small amount of oversight. I get to do it my way. Living the dream.
Many of my friends work in the scenario you described and do not like the whole collaboration thing!
Those traits gave me two things in my IT contracting career, the ability to roll into a new position at the same contractor so I didn’t have to job hunt, and the contractor wanting nothing to do with bringing me in as a full time employee. I saw it as a win/win
It seems we’ve been taught strict expectations about “functioning.” When a machine doesn’t get the resources it needs to do its function, it does not function, and it is not expected to function, if the mechanics are understood. We know a lot about what people need (still more to discover) but we’re expected to “function” without having our needs met.
I need you to email this to my director at work immediately
I struggled with this most of my life without knowing why, always feeling like I never measured up. Since being diagnosed and treated at 47 it made a huge difference. I set reasonable boundaries at work and I’m blessed with a sympathetic manager. He gives me tasks that allow me to play to my strengths and make a positive difference in the workplace.
My Director likes to just write me up rather than to actually “lead.” Any chance your manager is hiring?
50% done work kills team productivity. Having to micro manage sucks for everyone involved.
These are challenges that must be addressed in most roles.
Where are these high functioning ADHD people? The adhd person I know I’m my life can’t really get things done in a reliable way.
Hello it’s me, high functioning non medicated adhd (or some form of) person.
I do extremely well in my tech-centric job because of exactly what the post is talking about. I do fall short on longer term projects (forget about them until last minute) but most of my job is more in the moment, which works well for me and my skillset.
Edit: I guess that’s ultimately the thing right, it’s possible for the work or job to fit with an ADHD mind, but many jobs do not.
Imagine being a Financial Auditor / Accountant with ADHD.
I’m willing to bet they don’t exist.
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I can tell you that it’s it’s very difficult when operating within a stable, established framework.
But working on a revamp / redevelopment of a system or solving novel problems definitely engages the gears.
I do work with numbers a fair bit, excel helps a lot with keeping it all organized… ish
Just thinking about that makes my dopamine receptors shrivel up.
I did alright for a while. Changing up clients worked when I started to get bored.
It’s not going so great now. Considering a career change but also not wanting to throw away years of experience and a professional license. But yeah, I’m at “this is all bullshit and I don’t wanna”.
Right here with you after seven years at this company Not finance but still
Also work in finance and feel similarly, I oddly would feel really bad about leaving though, I have a wealth of intimate knowledge of how our systems work and answers for oddball questions no one else at my level at least would know, so… I feel guilty even wanting to leave. I know it’s not good but… Can’t help it lol
Once I got Adderall, this became me. I was astounded
It’s an interesting juxtaposition. I did politics and governance in Afghanistan and was extremely knowledgeable about it. But remembering to shave every morning was hard. I’d come back from lunch and my sergeant would be like, “great work, now when’s the last time you washed your coffee cup? Did you remember to empty your desk trash last night?”
To be fair, I also have a TBI and nobody’s sure how much of this is TBI and how much is ADHD.
Me. Am engineer. Make great money essentially being empowered to ask why the work people are doing exists. Not necessarily to automate it either. Lot of what I do these days is process simplification. Turns out having someone who thinks meanial tasks are bullshit is a fantastic skill in my field.
if it’s immediately rewarding
Hell of a caveat there.
If more workplaces incorporated performance based snacks it wouldn’t be!
Sure, if you want an even greater obesity epidemic.
Cucumbers are a good snack. And peanut butter celery, but that takes more work than just throwing a cucumber in the fridge.
Burn it off pacing around the office.
It means I’m definitely good at sex.
Thinking about it, a manager who knows how to trick adhd workers to hyper focus on stuff could make a killer department 🤔
Someone close to me has struggled forever with ADHD. A heroic effort got her through med school. They are an ER doc. Their life outside the ER would not work at all without an amazing partner, but at work, it’s kind of perfect. Fix it, it goes away. Everything is different all the time. Fix shiny thing, send it home, find next shiny thing.
It is a very unique situation though.
In my experience all it takes is a reasonable manager who can make progressive goals that are easily achievable which help build and develop a person while getting them engaged and acknowledging their hard work at each stage. It’s much easier than tricking i feel
