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The silent struggles of workers with ADHD

bbc.com

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Re: The silent struggles of workers with ADHD

#151

Post by prometheus76 »

itronitron wrote: post #103

This article is basically just one giant pharmaceutical advertisement. Consider this excerpt: “I had a tough time grappling with the sorts of executive functioning that our world operates by, like being able to set up meetings, follow through with things, focus and be detail oriented,” he says. His manager had pointed out these failings for months, which is why his termination was hardly shocking. Folks, learn how to…

Knowing something or knowing how to use something is not the same as using it. This is a classic struggle between those without ADHD and those with it. People without ADHD think it's just a training issue. It's really not. This is an especially difficult dynamic between non-adhd parents and adhd kids. Ask me how I know.

In other words, I know how to use Outlook, and it can help. I know how to use Post-it notes. And it helps a little, but if I don't have a chance to write out a post-it note and put it in a prominent place (with the other 250 prominent post-it notes in a prominent place) it's going to get lost and/or I'm going to forget. This isn't just a "you're just not organized" problem. One of the bigger challenges is categorizing things.

As you can see just in this post, my brain started sprawling out to all the issues that confront someone with ADHD and the scope started to spread and I started talking about other things besides your post-it notes idea.

This isn't a training issue. Largely, the issue is with impulse control and a dysfunctional intrinsic rewards system. Here's a video with some actual useful advice for ADHD people and their managers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tpB-B8BXk0

Re: The silent struggles of workers with ADHD

#153

Post by filoleg »

robotresearcher wrote: post #81
cheeseomlit wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you familiar with 'amphetamines'?

Typical use of 'narcotics' means opiates and similar drugs (narc = sleep), and not amphetamines.

It could be that the person is not from the west and/or not a native english speaker.

And unnecessary specific example goes here. In russian language, every (99% of the time, illegal) drug that is associated with abuse is called a narcotic (including cannabis). There isn't a russian language equivalent word for "drugs", "drugs" is a synonym for "narcotics" there. There is "medicine" and there is "drug"/"narcotic".

Which is why I saw, more than once, middle schoolers there in an English language class giggling once they saw a "drug store" sign in a photo, as it led to the "hehe, why do they sell drugs/narcotics at pharmacies there, US is a weird place huh" jokes.

Re: The silent struggles of workers with ADHD

#154

Post by yamtaddle »

Tao3300 wrote: post #93
pcurve wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And nearly half of them mentioned "by the way, I have ADHD" Statistically that seems rather unlikely, so I wonder if people are being over-diagnosed?

The statistics you're not citing are from history. It could be that in the past it has been majorly under-diagnosed.

I still suspect that yes, it was under-diagnosed or overlooked for a long time, but that ultimately it's a disorder that is, for most people who have it, a result of a fairly-large section of the ordinary human brain-development spectrum being badly mis-matched with modern society, in a way that it hadn't been in the (perhaps somewhat distant) past. Since differences in brain development aren't really considered disorders unless they cause a problem in ordinary life, if ordinary life itself changes to put different sorts of demands on people, then it seems plausible that could create disorders where there were none before. I'm pretty sure that's a lot of what's going on with AD(H)D.

I mean, if you look at early 20th century jobs most similar to office jobs today, they look from the outside, and are depicted by contemporary media, as crushingly dull—but, they had the benefit of also being highly repetitive, stack of papers to go through, do the thing you do, put it in the outbox, move to the next stack. Now everything's every bit as dull, but we're also expected to juggle a much broader set of not-terribly-similar tasks, often taking on little bits of what used to be the jobs of entire, dedicated humans before computerization "freed" companies to smear those tasks across their entire workforce. That seems like a recipe for failure for someone with ADHD-brain.

Re: The silent struggles of workers with ADHD

#155

Post by TrevorJ »

unethical_ban wrote: post #59
ryandvm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, most ADHD is really just a case of "I have limited willpower for extremely boring shit." Give me something interesting to do and I can work on it non-stop for 12 hours. The problem is that most jobs and almost all schooling is flat out incompatible with being an easily distractible person. I think it's just a phenotype that doesn't work well in the traditional professional environment. And yes, Adde…

I am having this issue at work, and have throughout my career, come to think of it. Give me a challenge, AND all the tools to conquer it, and I can get it done. Give me a lab environment with the servers and scripting tools I need to automate something, and I'll put it all together. Hamstring me by not giving me the tools I need, make the barrier to accomplishment too much, or give me really boring work without some…

Guanfacine is a non stimulant med, might be worth talking to your doc about.

Re: The silent struggles of workers with ADHD

#156

Post by cowpig »

marketerinland wrote: post #77
RationPhantoms wrote: post #53

This article feels like it was written for my brother. He's been fired, sequentially, 4 times in roles of progressively narrower scope/salary. From project manager (80k+) at a large NYC-BASED structured-cabling company to a billing coordinator position ( It makes me want to put my head into a pillow and scream because he's an intelligent, sociable and kind person but his mind just sits so juxtaposed from what these c…

Hey. Sorry to hear this. I have also been fired a bunch of times, and people describe interacting with me in the exact same way as you just described it. Your brother is consistently going for the wrong kind of job, from the sound of it. Operations jobs. I eventually succeeded when I switched to work that is more strategic and creative. I got really into language learning, blogging, website building, and then just fo…

I've had a less extreme version of this but similar arc: I have ADHD, I've always underachieved at normal jobs, founded my own company and now run a successful business (though it's certainly been a bumpy ride).

Re: The silent struggles of workers with ADHD

#157

Post by [deleted] »

itronitron wrote: post #116
viburnum wrote: post #97

I feel like ADHD is just normal for a huge percentage of people but the people gifted with an abundance of concentration are extremely overrepresented in medicine and management positions.

Close but not quite. The issue is that people in management positions are overly invested in finding flaws in other people, especially those people that may have some leverage over them by virtue of having particular skills (technical or otherwise.)

[deleted]

Re: The silent struggles of workers with ADHD

#158

Post by vsareto »

mitchdoogle wrote: post #89
2bitencryption wrote: post #17

I just started working with a new team a few weeks ago. So far I've had "nice to meet you" calls with six or seven of the people on this team. And nearly half of them mentioned "by the way, I have ADHD, just so you know." And since I share so many characteristics with these individuals, now _I'm_ wondering if I have ADHD. Certainly the never-ending Instagram ads want me to think so. Or is this becoming a blanket term…

There is strong evidence that ADHD is overdiagnosed https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042533/ And of course, there is the issue of drug-seeking - for increased concentration and focus, for fun, or some other reason. And many doctors suspect patients of drug-seeking. Symptoms can easily be faked and are difficult to spot. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3173757/ https://healthland.time.com/201…

>There is strong evidence that ADHD is overdiagnosed

>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042533/

That's for children and adolescents just fyi

Re: The silent struggles of workers with ADHD

#160

Post by TrevorJ »

adynaton wrote: post #137
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Just write a list, how hard is that?" 1. Remember to keep a list 2. Remember to update the list 3. Remember to check the list 4. Start a new list because I can't remember if / why I care about anything on the old list (Personally, I've never started a list but I can imagine how it would go.)

I feel personally attacked by this comment. I've tried to used every single type of note taking software (even the second brain types) and I've failed because I always forget to use it.

I had the same issue for years, and silly little thing that has helped me a lot is that I put a reminder in my calendar that simply says "Just because you stopped using a system, doesn't mean the system is bad". That's enough to prompt me to 'get back on the horse' when I fall off versus spending a week looking for a better horse.

On balance, this shift in my attitude means I definitely use more simple organizational tools more often than I did in the past, and that has certainly helped my productivity.

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