Managing ADD/ADHD On the Job

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Permalink Reply by SoCali on November 17, 2009 at 5:31pm

I totally agree. I love dealing with mass quantities of people - it makes work interesting. I like jobs where the phone is ringing off the hook and emails are pouring in with simple requests or when you have to move a huge line of customers and I like making little competitions with myself on how quick I can do something (accurately that is) and how much I can do, and that keeps my momentum up.

Linda W said:

While it's a love/hate relationship for me sometimes I think that any job dealing with the public is a good thing for adhders...you never know what to expect and no day is ever the same because each person you deal with is different. I work as a pharmacist and retail is perfect for me. Some days are lovely, and some days they just "rip me a new one." :) Hospital pharmacy and mail order pharmacy are too boring and repetitive for me. I need the challenge of dealing with a couple hundred different people a day. I've also enjoyed sales (face to face, not telemarketing)...working as a waitress, etc.

My fear of boredom is HUGE...I highly recommend a retail job if you are at all a chatty person. I've been in retail pharmacy since 1989 and have only been bored at incredibly slow pharmacy where there were no customers. I've worked a range of pharmacies with varying prescription volumes and it's sad to say that I need around 200 prescriptions a day to keep me from being bored.

You can use the ADHD as a tool...it can make you very productive because I just hate standing around so I'm always looking for things to do if it's not busy...lol...bosses LOVE that! If you can't leave your current job and you are bored, I know this may sound counter-intuitive, but I would ask for more work to do. I'm telling you...you could soon be the MVP at work!

~Linda

paisley said:

oh my gosh, where do i begin? i am stuck in the typical loop of being underemployed because i feel incompetent, but then my job is boring and repetitive, so i get depressed and don't want to go to work. i need some good suggestions about what jobs work best for adhders! i have a masters degree in social work, but am employed as a secretary! yikes! the worst job for someone like us! ha ha ha! I am planning to quit soon and I am thinking of getting several part-time jobs to keep me engaged, because i am worried that i would screw up a desk job. any thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Ann Makinen on November 19, 2009 at 3:57pm

Oh what a relief to read the words of others whose daily lives are filled with all the same anxieties and difficulties as mine. I just read a great book 'Fidget to Focus' that really helped me begin to see my condition in a different way and I have just started being conscious of what's going on in my head and why I do things my crazy way. There are others like me out there!! The book suggested that ADDers generally do love sales but the ideal job is in the emergency room at a hospital. It has these key qualities: urgency, tight structure, and brevity. I felt for the woman who wrote back in August that she was a social worker but working as a secretary. That is me. I have a Master's in Counselling but am working in a very low paid admin job and hate it. I'm trying so hard to get out and do better things but even if I make it to interviews it's very hard for me to articulate myself well enough verbally to succeed. I'm thinking of starting my own counselling business but am scared of the isolation, the lack of structure, and the need to take care of so many details. Sometimes I feel like I'll never do anything and that would be awful. If you get through grad school its hard for a psychiatrist to believe you have ADD though because they think you've been too successful to have it. I don't think my non-career and huge marriage problems are signs of a super succesful life. Any tips on interviews??

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Permalink Reply by Just Silly on November 20, 2009 at 12:51pm

OMG....I almost started jumping up and down when I saw "Master's Degree in Social Work"; that's me TOO....and I worked in public school for 3 years and almost lost my mind b/c my ADD wasn't being treated, I was bored, and much to my unknowing, I was still depressed......now, I'm subbing in public schools and I know, I could be doing WAY more, but I too suffer from not feeling competent. I have very low self-esteem, etc. I just started new med regimen w/ my psych, so I'm thinking I might "get it together" soon!! We could long lost sisters; just kidding; but we sound very similar.

paisley said:

oh my gosh, where do i begin? i am stuck in the typical loop of being underemployed because i feel incompetent, but then my job is boring and repetitive, so i get depressed and don't want to go to work. i need some good suggestions about what jobs work best for adhders! i have a masters degree in social work, but am employed as a secretary! yikes! the worst job for someone like us! ha ha ha! I am planning to quit soon and I am thinking of getting several part-time jobs to keep me engaged, because i am worried that i would screw up a desk job. any thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Just Silly on November 20, 2009 at 12:55pm

Funny, okay not funny, but anyway, I have had work problems and marriage issues as well. I have an MSW. I worked in public school as a Guidance Counselors; the hours are great, it definitely gets hectic, but there's no real brevity (each school year here is 10 months long). It's always an option; I know here, the position pays better than working for a mental health agency, etc....wow, I'm happy to stumble upon women like me!!!

Jennifer Ann Makinen said:

Oh what a relief to read the words of others whose daily lives are filled with all the same anxieties and difficulties as mine. I just read a great book 'Fidget to Focus' that really helped me begin to see my condition in a different way and I have just started being conscious of what's going on in my head and why I do things my crazy way. There are others like me out there!! The book suggested that ADDers generally do love sales but the ideal job is in the emergency room at a hospital. It has these key qualities: urgency, tight structure, and brevity. I felt for the woman who wrote back in August that she was a social worker but working as a secretary. That is me. I have a Master's in Counselling but am working in a very low paid admin job and hate it. I'm trying so hard to get out and do better things but even if I make it to interviews it's very hard for me to articulate myself well enough verbally to succeed. I'm thinking of starting my own counselling business but am scared of the isolation, the lack of structure, and the need to take care of so many details. Sometimes I feel like I'll never do anything and that would be awful. If you get through grad school its hard for a psychiatrist to believe you have ADD though because they think you've been too successful to have it. I don't think my non-career and huge marriage problems are signs of a super succesful life. Any tips on interviews??

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Ann Makinen on November 21, 2009 at 4:15pm

I'm bored because I am bright and my mind is always flitting about a million fascinating subjects and career plans but I can't execute one plan well enough to be successful. This week for example I've fantasized about being a children's photographer, a fitness instructor or delivery person (anything to get away from being stuck at a desk all day - drives me insane!), a writer, and a travel consultant. Most people my age do not do this every week I feel sure. I too have thought about giving up the day job (only been in it 6 weeks but feels like much longer) to do a couple of part-time jobs. Thanks for the guidance counselling suggestion; I think I would love helping young people work out what they want to do. I trained in America but am now back in my native England; that job is not open to me I think but I am looking at school counselling work. I think what the book meant by brevity was not that the job had to last a short time but that each task should ideally be quite short as opposed for example to a long college paper that takes weeks to write and needs lots of discipline and organisation to follow through all the steps to get through it. I think I have to accept that I'll always be bored and need variety and to change jobs every so often but when I was in my counselling internships I was the least bored I
ve ever been which is why I was so excited to find it.
I'm trying to learn from my Dad who seems quite like me but has been quite successful doing lots of different things and working for himself. I dont think he has severe ADD but he's made his uniqueness work for him which is what we should all be doing. My resolution is to quit wasting time wishing I were different and concentrate on the great gifts I do have. The biggest hurdle to doing well though is to pick one thing and stick to it. If I want to have a counselling business I have to calm down the inner voice panicking about all the other things I wouldn't then get to do. I'm not doing anything right now!! But in my heart of hearts I just don't know if I have the planning skills to organise it. I need a non-ADD person to look after all the details. Thanks for listening.

Just Silly said:

OMG....I almost started jumping up and down when I saw "Master's Degree in Social Work"; that's me TOO....and I worked in public school for 3 years and almost lost my mind b/c my ADD wasn't being treated, I was bored, and much to my unknowing, I was still depressed......now, I'm subbing in public schools and I know, I could be doing WAY more, but I too suffer from not feeling competent. I have very low self-esteem, etc. I just started new med regimen w/ my psych, so I'm thinking I might "get it together" soon!! We could long lost sisters; just kidding; but we sound very similar.

paisley said:

oh my gosh, where do i begin? i am stuck in the typical loop of being underemployed because i feel incompetent, but then my job is boring and repetitive, so i get depressed and don't want to go to work. i need some good suggestions about what jobs work best for adhders! i have a masters degree in social work, but am employed as a secretary! yikes! the worst job for someone like us! ha ha ha! I am planning to quit soon and I am thinking of getting several part-time jobs to keep me engaged, because i am worried that i would screw up a desk job. any thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Cathie May on December 2, 2009 at 10:15am

Great to find this forum. The term 'disorder' bugs me, as I really feel that it is the world which has gone made with two much of every kind of stimulation and people like us would be fine in a less mentally cluttered situation. And that leads me to working life. I have needed to work to support the kids while my husband has been a blur of activity on commission sales, or rather lack of sales.
It is easy to be a square peg in a round whole when you have ADD. I have often thought that I can do things that not many people can but can't do things that are supposed to be elementary - clerical work, eg. Finishing university, I took a clerical job in a large government department and created havoc losing heaps of files or overlooking things on forms. Square peg.
I then took a different route to research job on social policy. Round peg, but the working day of seven and a half hours just about killed me. I can go like a mad woman for about five hours a day and that's it. My therapist calls this 'hyperconcentration'. Apparently an ADD trait.
Kids arrived. Next called up my first qualifcation and got a contract to write a history book, working from home. So far so good but, with the extra pressure and exhaustion of children, a whole lot of other issues arose. Interruptions were the kiss of death. If concentration was lost, procrastination would set in. I have done things like put up a tent in the yard with a desk in it and a very long electrical extension. When the chips were down with finishing the book I had to book into a motel and spend a bomb to rivet my mind on the job. There have been two more book contracts, both traversing different years of the kids' development and therefore with different 'ADD mom' kind of issues.
Having seen how non-ADD historians work, I know that I am fatal at deadlines and organisation and therefore the projects have been really heavy going. On the other hand, I am told that the finished products are a great read, so I think our ways of seeing things (emphasis on right brain? just an idea) means that what we achieve can be surprising - most of all to us!!
The worst thing about writing projects for other people has always been that a time comes in the project when I just want to let go with both hands. I detest the responsibility of having to meet expectations and have now decided to freelance so that I do something and then put it on the market. I think this is getting towards ideal ADD work, but there are still the interruptions! Just resumed Strattera after a break because it is so damned expensive (at least it is here in Australia).
I feel sure this would have made my working life a whole lot easier, but had not been diagnosed until a year ago.




The working day, however, is based on a set number of hours and I just about flipped out having to sit there for seven andn a half hours (as it was in the 1980s) just kind of plodding. I was placed in two clerical jobs and practically brought down the organisation forgetting entire heaps of files and that kind of thing.

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