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> people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway Of course, that applies to everybody who achieves a stable career at all. Exc

> people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway Of course, that applies to everybody who achieves a stable career at all. Exceedingly few people (if anyone) are competent and capable at everything, even when you're just talking about basic skills that are handy for common, everyday work. Your doctor may be a incorrigibly terrible driver, your bus driver may pass out at the sight of blood, your Michelin chef might have been never made sense of geometry, your mechanic may need deep focus just to read through a manual, your bricklayer might go into a panic if they need to stand in front of a crowd, your bartender may never have experienced a clear thought before 11am. Struggling with some things, even deeply struggling, is normal if not universal. But once you age past the gauntlet of general education that specifically tests all these things, the hope is that you can just sort of flow like water into a valuable enough community role that you can take care of yourself and help some people. A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture stirs up an idea that there must be something unusual about you if you find this thing or that thing difficult, when the reality is that everybody has a few things that they struggle with quite a lot, and that the people who seem like they don't have just succeeded at avoiding, delegating, or hiding whatever it is that's hard for them.

qazxcvbnmlp 10mo ago
Well put. > A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture Theres also a pernicious way of identifying with the struggle. Instead of I have trouble focusing in certain situations, so maybe I should find ways to spend my time (careers, hobbies) that work well with that. We instead go to 'I have ADHD' and my 'job' should make special accommodations for me. Regardless of whether a job should or should not make accommodations. It's not a very helpful construct to think they should. It removes agency from the person experiencing the struggle. Which in turn puts them farther from finding a place that they would fit in well. For the vast majority of behaviors (ADHD, attachment issues, autism, etc) they exist on a continuum and are adaptive/helpful in certain situations. By pathologizing them, we(society) loose touch for what they mean in our life. It also makes discourse hard because the (this is causing me to truly not be able to function) gets mixed in with the (this is a way that my brain behaves, but I can mostly live a life).
- paulpauper 10mo ago
  Being diagnosed with a learning disability or other type of neuro-divergency does not automatically entitle someone to special treatment. The vast majority of that 38% are likely just "diagnosed" people who are asking for no special treatment at all. Hmm ..the irony is that jobs that require the least amount of credentials have the least accommodations. White collar jobs, especially in tech, seem to have so many accommodations or delays and extra time. Think how often employees come in late or delay work. HR exists to accommodate these requests. College, and school in general, has far fewer accommodations and flexibility than seen in most work environments, save for low-skilled jobs where puantiality is necessary.
  - hnfong 10mo ago
    Saying blue collar work is "low-skilled" is probably inaccurate, I think the important distinction is that most blue collar work requires the person sitting at some physical location doing stuff, while significant amount of white collar jobs have a lower physical presence required. Like if you work at an assembly line making widgets, the upper bound of productive work you do is proportional to the time you're physically there, so in this aspect it makes more sense for the employer to use that as a metric. In contrast a lot of tech jobs can be done remotely, sometimes if you're trying to solve a particularly nasty problem you don't even need an internet connection while you're thinking deeply about it.
- barchar 10mo ago
  I don't see how you spending time in ways that work well with your challenges is different from your job providing accomodations, except that if your employer is willing to work with you then you don't have to randomly roll the dice until you come up with an employer where things happen to work in whatever way you wanted. It's not like one of the accomodations on the table is "not doing your job"
  - swatcoder 10mo ago
    The difference reduces to: 1. The career I would like to have, and the life I desire to live, is my free choice. Once I've made that choice, the community's responsibility is to give me whatever I need so that I can apply myself to that career and live the life I imagine for myself. vs 2. I have certain capabilities and limitations. The community has certain needs. If there's any way for me to do so, it's my responsibility to figure out how my capabilities can service the community's needs, respecting my limitations, and it's the community's reciprocal responsibility to make sure my contribution is fairly acknowledged so that I can live a secure and constructive life. I'll figure out the rest from there.
Hizonner 10mo ago
> But once you age past the gauntlet of general education that specifically tests all these things, the hope is that you can just sort of flow like water into a valuable enough community role that you can take care of yourself and help some people. ... provided that that gauntlet hasn't stuck a label on you that makes everybody think you're unsuitable for any role, and provided that it's bothered to develop the abilities you do have, and provided that other people aren't being unnecessarily rigid about what roles they'll allow to exist. Sure, maybe it's stupid to frame it as "THIS counts as being disabled and THAT doesn't"... but we have a world where many systems have decided to do that, and may act slightly less insanely inflexible if they've put you in the "disabled" bucket. If everybody has some limitations, maybe everybody should get some accommodations. You know, so that they can actually contribute using their strengths. But I'm not holding my breath.
brailsafe 10mo ago
> Of course, that applies to everybody who achieves a stable career at all. This stuck out to me, because even in tech, especially after being diagnosed with ADHD (out of desperately failing to adapt, despite technically being reasonably competent) my career and statistically that of many others is normally anything but stable. An overwhelming percentage of jobs and disciplines do not have any real affordances for just a little variation from the norm, and people broadly still do not believe the condition presents anything but hilarious superficial differences, but that otherwise if the person shares one skill with other employees they should be capable of being an arbitrary cog like any other. "Other people are capable of showing up on time, why can't you!?" "Well, I have ADHD, I have to take medication to regulate my dopamine levels and struggle with time blindless, it's a real problem that I wish I didn't have, but I do my best given regularly switching contexts and priorities" "Ya, great, that's cute but show up on time, are we on the same page?" "No, but I'll say yes because you can't understand, I have no choice, and I'll continue doing what I'm doing until you fire me for not meeting your expectations, even if they have nothing to do with the skill I do actually have and gravitate towards, and would like to continue applying in service of company growth or whatever" "Great, then we're on the same page, and I'll just start checking in on you more frequently because clearly you're retarded, thanks" ---- The only people who do realistically get accomodations are either in super niche fields, are absolutely exceptional in their niche field, or are just on their own or in industries that require none of the normal things associated with their discipline.
trow232134 10mo ago
Some people have harder lifes than others. Saying everybody has a few things that they struggle is kind of offensive. I struggle because my parents were drug addicts and my father tried to kill us all when I was 5.
- snapdeficit 10mo ago
  Somebody ALWAYS has a harder life than you.
  - Yeask 10mo ago
    Those are not mutually exclusive. You can have a life harder than most and at the same time not having the worst life in the world. 17% of children experience violence at home. The fact that 5000k away there are other kids dying in wars is the consolation you think it is.
- dotancohen 10mo ago
  And my children grew up with rockets regularly targeting us, and our home has sustained damage, and we have had friends killed. Yet my oldest has succeeded in gifted children's organisations her entire time at school. And at the gifted children's organisations I've seen families who have it much harder than we ever did. Children in those families grew up to be resilient, face danger, and overcome obstacles direct and obstacles covert. Some of them with physical disabilities too. Somebody is always suffering worse than we are.
  - hnfong 10mo ago
    I think you're misreading GP's point, which I think is probably also your point. The comment they replied to was apparently suggesting that everyone struggles in some areas, so it's meaningless to highlight one group's struggle over another given that they all have reached a certain stable career. GP main point (as I understand it) is: no, some people actually do struggle harder than others to make it. I don't know why people get triggered and start comparing traumas but let's avoid doing it here.

qazxcvbnmlp 10mo ago

Well put. > A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture Theres also a pernicious way of identifying with the struggle. Instead of I have trouble focusing in certain situations, so maybe I should find ways to spend my time (careers, hobbies) that work well with that. We instead go to 'I have ADHD' and my 'job' should make special accommodations for me. Regardless of whether a job should or should not make accommodations. It's not a very helpful construct to think they should. It removes agency from the person experiencing the struggle. Which in turn puts them farther from finding a place that they would fit in well. For the vast majority of behaviors (ADHD, attachment issues, autism, etc) they exist on a continuum and are adaptive/helpful in certain situations. By pathologizing them, we(society) loose touch for what they mean in our life. It also makes discourse hard because the (this is causing me to truly not be able to function) gets mixed in with the (this is a way that my brain behaves, but I can mostly live a life).

paulpauper 10mo ago
Being diagnosed with a learning disability or other type of neuro-divergency does not automatically entitle someone to special treatment. The vast majority of that 38% are likely just "diagnosed" people who are asking for no special treatment at all. Hmm ..the irony is that jobs that require the least amount of credentials have the least accommodations. White collar jobs, especially in tech, seem to have so many accommodations or delays and extra time. Think how often employees come in late or delay work. HR exists to accommodate these requests. College, and school in general, has far fewer accommodations and flexibility than seen in most work environments, save for low-skilled jobs where puantiality is necessary.
- hnfong 10mo ago
  Saying blue collar work is "low-skilled" is probably inaccurate, I think the important distinction is that most blue collar work requires the person sitting at some physical location doing stuff, while significant amount of white collar jobs have a lower physical presence required. Like if you work at an assembly line making widgets, the upper bound of productive work you do is proportional to the time you're physically there, so in this aspect it makes more sense for the employer to use that as a metric. In contrast a lot of tech jobs can be done remotely, sometimes if you're trying to solve a particularly nasty problem you don't even need an internet connection while you're thinking deeply about it.
barchar 10mo ago
I don't see how you spending time in ways that work well with your challenges is different from your job providing accomodations, except that if your employer is willing to work with you then you don't have to randomly roll the dice until you come up with an employer where things happen to work in whatever way you wanted. It's not like one of the accomodations on the table is "not doing your job"
- swatcoder 10mo ago
  The difference reduces to: 1. The career I would like to have, and the life I desire to live, is my free choice. Once I've made that choice, the community's responsibility is to give me whatever I need so that I can apply myself to that career and live the life I imagine for myself. vs 2. I have certain capabilities and limitations. The community has certain needs. If there's any way for me to do so, it's my responsibility to figure out how my capabilities can service the community's needs, respecting my limitations, and it's the community's reciprocal responsibility to make sure my contribution is fairly acknowledged so that I can live a secure and constructive life. I'll figure out the rest from there.

Hizonner 10mo ago

> But once you age past the gauntlet of general education that specifically tests all these things, the hope is that you can just sort of flow like water into a valuable enough community role that you can take care of yourself and help some people. ... provided that that gauntlet hasn't stuck a label on you that makes everybody think you're unsuitable for any role, and provided that it's bothered to develop the abilities you do have, and provided that other people aren't being unnecessarily rigid about what roles they'll allow to exist. Sure, maybe it's stupid to frame it as "THIS counts as being disabled and THAT doesn't"... but we have a world where many systems have decided to do that, and may act slightly less insanely inflexible if they've put you in the "disabled" bucket. If everybody has some limitations, maybe everybody should get some accommodations. You know, so that they can actually contribute using their strengths. But I'm not holding my breath.

brailsafe 10mo ago

> Of course, that applies to everybody who achieves a stable career at all. This stuck out to me, because even in tech, especially after being diagnosed with ADHD (out of desperately failing to adapt, despite technically being reasonably competent) my career and statistically that of many others is normally anything but stable. An overwhelming percentage of jobs and disciplines do not have any real affordances for just a little variation from the norm, and people broadly still do not believe the condition presents anything but hilarious superficial differences, but that otherwise if the person shares one skill with other employees they should be capable of being an arbitrary cog like any other. "Other people are capable of showing up on time, why can't you!?" "Well, I have ADHD, I have to take medication to regulate my dopamine levels and struggle with time blindless, it's a real problem that I wish I didn't have, but I do my best given regularly switching contexts and priorities" "Ya, great, that's cute but show up on time, are we on the same page?" "No, but I'll say yes because you can't understand, I have no choice, and I'll continue doing what I'm doing until you fire me for not meeting your expectations, even if they have nothing to do with the skill I do actually have and gravitate towards, and would like to continue applying in service of company growth or whatever" "Great, then we're on the same page, and I'll just start checking in on you more frequently because clearly you're retarded, thanks" ---- The only people who do realistically get accomodations are either in super niche fields, are absolutely exceptional in their niche field, or are just on their own or in industries that require none of the normal things associated with their discipline.

trow232134 10mo ago

Some people have harder lifes than others. Saying everybody has a few things that they struggle is kind of offensive. I struggle because my parents were drug addicts and my father tried to kill us all when I was 5.

snapdeficit 10mo ago
Somebody ALWAYS has a harder life than you.
- Yeask 10mo ago
  Those are not mutually exclusive. You can have a life harder than most and at the same time not having the worst life in the world. 17% of children experience violence at home. The fact that 5000k away there are other kids dying in wars is the consolation you think it is.
dotancohen 10mo ago
And my children grew up with rockets regularly targeting us, and our home has sustained damage, and we have had friends killed. Yet my oldest has succeeded in gifted children's organisations her entire time at school. And at the gifted children's organisations I've seen families who have it much harder than we ever did. Children in those families grew up to be resilient, face danger, and overcome obstacles direct and obstacles covert. Some of them with physical disabilities too. Somebody is always suffering worse than we are.
- hnfong 10mo ago
  I think you're misreading GP's point, which I think is probably also your point. The comment they replied to was apparently suggesting that everyone struggles in some areas, so it's meaningless to highlight one group's struggle over another given that they all have reached a certain stable career. GP main point (as I understand it) is: no, some people actually do struggle harder than others to make it. I don't know why people get triggered and start comparing traumas but let's avoid doing it here.