A bit fucked up, isn't it?
A bit fucked up, isn't it?
134 comments
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Implying you can control or induce these hyperfixations in a productive way is disingenuous at best, measurably harmful at worst.
If you work in a job that can use use the chaos in a productive way that's great, but I'm willing to bet you still face abnormally high difficulty with general life tasks, and consistently struggle to enforce a work/life balance.
You're not helping people with ADHD by posting this. You're establishing an unattainable standard for people that are already doing everything in their power just to get by.
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It's also pretty cringe "mom says I'm a genius" shit
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Every parent should be gassing their kid up though. Most of our "successful" people are just normal kids that never hit a wall or had help getting around walls. Realistic expectations are what keeps people from jumping jobs for a raise; applying for positions they don't fully qualify for; moving for better job market access; retraining for management roles; and so much more.
Note, I'm not talking about rags to riches, success can be a first generation college graduate getting a professional job; a homeless kid getting a steady job and pulling their family off the streets; a burnt out delivery guy getting a union warehouse job. The point is people with low expectations don't look for new opportunities.
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Thank you. That's exactly right.
There are so many, countless disadvantages people with ADHD suffer from. And this post just suggests they're hidden geniuses with no problems at al...
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Right, not once have I fixated on something by choice.
You think I want to be googling and playing pokemon go at work home and in bed for the past 3 weeks despite only playing it for a week 8 years ago?
Just once I want the fixation on house work or something like the gym
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This swerves way into "ADHD is a superpower" territory which is bullshit.
edit: For example, while I have a lot of these traits, I also can't remember to put a new trash bag in the trash bin when I take the full bag out to the garage, which is a 1 minute task. Despite reminding myself AS I'm removing the full bag. Twice a week. For years now. Because I will see something in the garage or think of something while doing the mundane task that completely derails my train of thought.
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I do similar things when a task has two physically separate locations like taking out the trash.
While walking out with the trash I will repeat constantly "put in new bag" all the way to the garbage and all the way back, otherwise the task doesn't get completed.
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Not saying this will work for you, but I’ve had some success with convincing my self conscious to do things without me thinking. Then I can shut down the thinking part of my brain for periods of time in between tasks. I’ve done this through meditation since I was a kid. It has helped me to “just know” what needs to be done and I do it.
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The simplehuman line of trash cans has a step that keeps the internal trash can liner out of the trash can so you can easily see that you didn’t replace the bag. It’s very helpful for this.
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if it's immediately rewarding
Hell of a caveat there.
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Thinking about it, a manager who knows how to trick adhd workers to hyper focus on stuff could make a killer department 🤔
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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
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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.
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It means I'm definitely good at sex.
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If anybody here is an engineer, I'd highly recommend applying for jobs at tech startups. It's very chaotic and disorganized; you'll be constantly putting out fires. But you know where you're at when you're putting out fires? Flow state.
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It's so true, but i also get tired and burn out fast
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This went from engaging to utter burnout and misery very quickly for me.
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The problem is that they are horrifically toxic places.
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Pretending it doesnt have downsides is disingenuous.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Once I got Adderall, this became me. I was astounded
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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.
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ADHD, great for exploring, hunting and making it back home. Not so great for cubicle work…
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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.
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I will never return to office. I’ll manage a Wendy’s first.
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ITT:
"it's not a superpower! i cant even do a boring and monotonous task!"
and
"I love that I found a place where I'm able to utilize the benefits of the way that my brain functions!"🤔
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It's a super power in the same way that being able to mentally move yourself while not being affected by gravity is a super power. In specific circumstances it's awesome. The rest of the time you're just trying to not float away.
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To put a finer point on it: OG Quicksilver (don't even get me started on the historic Marvel v DC handjobbery) ended up so "super powered" that his inborn celerity transcended the very laws of physics — having little to no frictional effect on the reality he was moving through. Thus, much like Jean Grey, Magneto, Legion, and a few others, his powers were not only beyond "super", but recognized as equal parts boon and curse to the entire species. Thanks, 90s.
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You mean my heat vision is not appropriate in all situations?!
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But what can you actually DO?
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One girl at the same time.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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Also I can see this being useful in startups, right?
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I cannot read this sentence. I have tried 3 times but nothing is reaching my brain.
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It's definitely too long of a sentence just to say 'ADHD is a superpower and society is bad.'
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Maybe it's time to put on some tunes and take a brain break.
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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.
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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.
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I need you to email this to my director at work immediately
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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.
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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.
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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!
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makes me want to break out the old suspenders and palm pilot.
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Employers wants slaves and servants, not mentats. Yes, its fucked up
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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
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Spend weeks automating your documentation
You will surely not regret spending that much time on something that probably wont be used
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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.)
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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My Director likes to just write me up rather than to actually “lead.” Any chance your manager is hiring?
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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
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It's kinda both
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Honestly as a guy with ADHD in a small company this really is a gift
I am also pretty hyper-social nowadays
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This description sounds extremely hirable. I’ll take 5 please.
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You can have 4, they'll do the work of 7. But the 5th hire has to be a maid/cook.
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We need to start a company
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50% done work kills team productivity. Having to micro manage sucks for everyone involved.
These are challenges that must be addressed in most roles.
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Pharmaceutical companies gotta $$$$$.
134 comments
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.
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.
Hyperfocus is an amazing tool, unfortunately we have no fucking control over it.
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.
What do you mean? I'm totally supposed to be on Lemmy instead of working ...
That's called practice.
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’