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I wonder if the workplace has gradually become worse for ADHD workers as the number of secretaries continues to decline[0]. Anecdotally, early in my career when

by pwpw 4y ago

I wonder if the workplace has gradually become worse for ADHD workers as the number of secretaries continues to decline[0]. Anecdotally, early in my career when I had little sway, I was often tasked with scheduling meetings, taking minutes, and keeping track of various things on behalf of my boss while still having to perform my own job. I think this sort of role would have been previously handled by a secretary that workers at my boss’ level no longer have access to. Keeping track of that logistical stuff is a nightmare and is directly incompatible for most with ADHD. And then as the ADHD worker progresses in their career, they no longer get a secretary who would have offloaded these incompatible tasks for them previously. This new setup distracts ADHD workers from focusing on what they’re good at. It then becomes a terrible look to a neurotypical (NT) person when an ADHD person forgets a meeting or a little request that isn’t part of their core work. To an NT individual, forgetting to do these little things is baffling, but it’s a part of having ADHD. Add in an environment where people want to have meetings all the time and instant messaging services constantly pinging your computer, and I can see how the modern workplace is a very tough situation for an ADHD worker to demonstrate that they’re going above and beyond when their workflow is not catered to. I do think the shift to working from home from the previous open office layouts is very much in favor to those with ADHD, so it’s not all bad. Perhaps one day there won’t be such a stigma against neurodiversity where those who are neurodivergent (ND) have to hide it and mask during the entire working day. If we reach that point, we’ll be able to put ND individuals in environments that let them achieve their full potentials and thrive in situations where NT individuals cannot. [0] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/office-and-administrative-support/secretaries-and-administrative-assistants.htm#tab-6 https://www.bls.gov/ooh/office-and-administrative-support/se...

tpmoney 4y ago
While working say directly next to the sales team isn't the best, at least for me I thrive better in the office than I do working at home. The office provides structure, better routine, commute time (to shift mindset from "home" to "work") and other people who are also working which acts as a form of "body doubling"[1]. While the surrounding conversations can be distracting to a degree, it's significantly better than the distraction that is slack notifications. A conversation among other members of my team happening around me is something I can either tune out entirely, listen with half an ear or wind down what I'm doing and start paying attention to all based on what I hear while I'm doing something else. But slack (and other remote communication systems) require me to stop everything I'm doing and switch my attention exclusively to sorting through conversations that are or have already happened. And when someone pings me for attention in person, I can ask them to give me a moment to finish up without actually taking my attention away from what I'm doing to see who and what I'm being pinged about in the first place. Additionally, my experience is that remote work tends to increase the likelihood of meetings being scheduled at odd hours like 10:30AM or 3PM. For whatever reason being in person people seem more likely to try and schedule at the beginning or end of a morning or afternoon block (e.g. 8AM, 11AM, 1PM or 4PM). That sort of scheduling is much better for me because something in the middle will effectively cause me to lose a bunch of time right before or right after since it takes so long to "spin up" into a task, and once there I run a high risk of me losing track of time. Obviously MMV but the modern office seems to work well for how I experience ADHD. That said, I don't think I would have done well in say 70's era IBM offices, and did terrible at a GE office way back at the beginning of my career which was effectively a set straight out of Office Space. [1]: https://add.org/the-body-double/ https://add.org/the-body-double/

by pwpw 4y ago

tpmoney 4y ago

While working say directly next to the sales team isn't the best, at least for me I thrive better in the office than I do working at home. The office provides structure, better routine, commute time (to shift mindset from "home" to "work") and other people who are also working which acts as a form of "body doubling"[1]. While the surrounding conversations can be distracting to a degree, it's significantly better than the distraction that is slack notifications. A conversation among other members of my team happening around me is something I can either tune out entirely, listen with half an ear or wind down what I'm doing and start paying attention to all based on what I hear while I'm doing something else. But slack (and other remote communication systems) require me to stop everything I'm doing and switch my attention exclusively to sorting through conversations that are or have already happened. And when someone pings me for attention in person, I can ask them to give me a moment to finish up without actually taking my attention away from what I'm doing to see who and what I'm being pinged about in the first place. Additionally, my experience is that remote work tends to increase the likelihood of meetings being scheduled at odd hours like 10:30AM or 3PM. For whatever reason being in person people seem more likely to try and schedule at the beginning or end of a morning or afternoon block (e.g. 8AM, 11AM, 1PM or 4PM). That sort of scheduling is much better for me because something in the middle will effectively cause me to lose a bunch of time right before or right after since it takes so long to "spin up" into a task, and once there I run a high risk of me losing track of time. Obviously MMV but the modern office seems to work well for how I experience ADHD. That said, I don't think I would have done well in say 70's era IBM offices, and did terrible at a GE office way back at the beginning of my career which was effectively a set straight out of Office Space. [1]: https://add.org/the-body-double/ https://add.org/the-body-double/