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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.
Thinking about it, a manager who knows how to trick adhd workers to hyper focus on stuff could make a killer department 🤔
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
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.
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.
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.
50% done work kills team productivity. Having to micro manage sucks for everyone involved.
These are challenges that must be addressed in most roles.
Employers wants slaves and servants, not mentats. Yes, its fucked up
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.
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!
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…
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.
It’s also pretty cringe “mom says I’m a genius” shit
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.
I agree to an extent, but also that the parents need to take time to understand how to “gas them up” appropriately. It’s not everyone’s case, but it became very apparent to me when I was young that my parents would cheer me on over anything, and never take any time to learn about the things they were cheering me on over, and that led to disbelieving pretty much any positive feedback from anyone long-term. The only feedback of substance growing up was the very rare negative feedback, because they would only pull it out when they understood it enough to know it needed improving. That, and emphasizing their efforts as the thing to cheer on, not just the end results.
I’ve learned to work through that, and maybe it goes without saying for most people, but being a genuine and substantive cheerleader is important.
It’s so weird that we have a culture that treats teaching pride to children as a bad thing.
https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/why-reactionaries-hate-pride-and-narcissists-938d39261f13
I am so fucked up in part because I was taught that pride is the root of all evil and that it’s better to be humble.
I struggle to accept compliments, I struggle to not be intensely critical of myself, and I feel like I have very little drive for just about any form of competition.
I felt like you my whole life. All that shame, embarrassment and guilt. I literally assumed it was just because I was in fact a shitty human.
Then I read this: https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-and-adhd/amp/
Holy shit. What a revelation. I told my psychiatrist about this and sent him the article. He prescribed Clonidine. Clonidine is amazing! It got rid of all that shame and allowed me to realize that I do not suck, that everyone does not hate me, and that those horrible emotions were basically fictions created by my shitty brain chemistry.
Oh that’s just for normal kids. Like half of what a private school does is teach kids to have pride and confidence. The other half is introduce them to a network of wealthy people so they can get a VP job after their dirt easy business degree that also teaches them they’re now experts in becoming experts at whatever their team does
Which is why they’re so insufferable and why they think they can micromanage someone who’s bringing literal decades of experience and learning to a situation.
As to why conservatives go so hard on it? It’s their ideology. If they thought the Walmart greeters had any intrinsic worth then they would feel bad about how they treat them. So nobody’s special until they’ve proven themselves and that just happens to coincide with going to private school where they tell the kids they earned their spot because they did an interview and wrote an essay.
What a weird thing to call pride and narcissism the same. Being prideful is nothing to do with being narcissistic. One is an external thing, the other an internal. The prideful person cares about things other than themselves and shows that. The narcissistic person cares about no one but themselves, and their actions reflect that.
That’s not true at all. I have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and I care about others very deeply. And My actions reflect that. For example, recently I shut down a cult discord server run by a pedophile who’s dating kids from the cult. This is because I think adults dating kids is bad.
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
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…
Honestly as a guy with ADHD in a small company this really is a gift
I am also pretty hyper-social nowadays
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.
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.
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.
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.
I would be lying if I said I hadn’t done the same thing. “New bag new bag new bag new ba… hey why did I leave that camp chair over there. Man I miss camping. Well trash is done, back to the computer!”
I put a new bag in before I leave the room to avoid that. Not ADHD just a terrible memory. Bag is in plain sight so it’s hard to forget the task between steps.
Pharmaceutical companies gotta $$$$$.
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 allows me to play to my strengths and make a positive difference in the workplace.
I cannot read this sentence. I have tried 3 times but nothing is reaching my brain.
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.
It’s definitely too long of a sentence just to say ‘ADHD is a superpower and society is bad.’
Maybe it’s time to put on some tunes and take a brain break.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
An awful lot of those bullets hit me
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 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.
Crap, now I need to know about competitive Jenga …
Like watching into mirror
Yeeeeeep
ffs literally every single bullet point applies to me (not that this is news)
Yep it sucks ass
Are…are you me?
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’
It’s kinda both
But what can you actually DO?
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.
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
I heard (but haven’t actually checked because squirrel) GCHQ in the UK were actively recruiting ND people.
They always have done this, even before there was a wider understanding / acceptance of neurodiversity (e.g. at Bletchley Park)
What’s GCHQ?
Govt Communications Headquarters. One of the branches of military intelligence in the UK.
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.
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.
