ADHD folks clustering in jobs

[Anonymous]

I worked for a medical device company (I have retired from a successful career) working in the field with a lot of running from pillar to post yet having to concentrate at very interesting but intense environments.

A few years ago my boss was sitting with me in a room doing independent work when he asked me to stop clicking my pen (I have to avoid buying pens with click tops!). I stopped for about 2 minutes only. He then said he would like me to consider getting assessed for ADHD. I thought that was a bit ludicrous at 50+ years of age, but agreed as long as the company paid for it.

I then had five 2 hour sessions with a specialist in adult ADHD. After the first meeting with him, our group had a North American meeting with 40 or so colleagues (we see each other maybe 2 or 3 times a year). I noted that a high percentage of us were doing something else rather than focusing only on the speaker: emailing, checking emails, typing documents, reading and doodling. On occasion someone got “caught” because he turned on his laptop and the “lovely” Windows tune comes on, or a cell phone goes off.

So, I mentioned this to the specialist. He said, ” Well, you have to understand that ADHD’s tend to cluster in jobs”. That is, they tend to work out well in similar kinds of jobs. I told my boss, who wasn’t too impressed. In the end, the specialist indicated that I was “grey” for a full blown diagnosis and couldn’t recommend medication (my boss thought I should be on Ritalin!!). Job life carried on just fine (with occasional bumps) for another 10+ years.

With respect to other posts:

I found so many things resonate . I am more impulsive with emailing and “SEND” before thinking clearly or reviewing for spell errors (I usually forget as I want to get on with another task).

Does anyone have impatience with games that seem great to start: e.g. the MYST families but don’t have the patience to find all the mysterious keys but go to the cheats instead?.

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[Anonymous]

I have heard that some career fields attract more ADHD people than others do, but I don’t know how truthful that is.

I don’t have much patience for a lot of games. I like ones where there are a lot of different tasks for me to choose from and I can quit and try something else when I want.

I don’t know about at work, but I know that most of my favorite friends in high school were ADHD.

They were the people my non-diagnosed self felt normal around. When I was with any of those people it was great, I didn’t hide myself. One of us would say “hey, I wonder what happens if you shake a soda bottle and then hit it with a sledge hammer” and instead of looking at the speaker like they were crazy we would start running around looking for the stuff we needed to try it.

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[Anonymous]

the only games i really ever play are 60 second timed ones like bejeweled blitz or dr mario type ones where you just flip blocks and click click click away at high speed to be rewarded with a bunch of instant gratification by way of flashing exploding disapearing blocks and/or a voice yelling “excellent! outstanding! awesome!” every 2 seconds. cos yeah- impulse control… attention span… effort involved in mastering something complicated, etc… umno. even tetris requires too much focus and has too high of an exasperation potential for me… the minute that it looks like i made a bad move in solitaire i quit and deal again.. its dire.

it makes complete sense that people with ADD would ‘cluster’ in the sense that you might expect a fair percentage of them to be drawn to careers with high stimulus, clear targets and rewards/feedback, very short term goals, lots of moving around, space to wave their arms, etc. my idea of hell would be a dull repetitive job in a grey cubicle with lots of 18 month long projects involving projections, statistics and data input- urgh. give me complete and utter chaos, a stack of tasks involving creative, short-term problemsolving, clear goalposts/targets that move every 20 seconds or so, and plenty of feedback (eg: a class full of rowdy 7 year olds armed with recycling materials, art supplies and instructions to make dragon puppets) and i’m a happy pixie.

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[Anonymous]

So jeneticallymodified you teach art or your classroom teacher! Best job in the world! I teach art and it seems “art” in it’s various forms is in the “cluster jobs” category! I loved college because I never had to stay at one job long or one class long for that matter! Of course, I always put everything off until the last possible minute…even if I TRY “time management” my brain (the creative side any how) doesn’t seem to kick in until I am in crisis-has-to-be-done-now mode! I had lots of 100’s marked to 80 because I turned them in late! Now as a teacher, my projects are great and hyper-organized but my actual lesson plans are a week behind or more. This is especially true when we are continuing a project…I always wonder why I have the hardest time just writing “continuing project” if nothing else! Just too tedious! I also have so many awesome art projects but instead of recycling them for the next year, I have to come up new ones. The kids and parents beg to do what another class is doing or what they have seen me do with them before! Never can just make things easy for myself!

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[Anonymous]

nah, i’m not working right now- but i did study art at college, have worked in a classroom support role on numerous occasions, and was a detached youth worker in my last job (thats the type who hang around at bus-stops looking shady and talking about sex and drugs). my mum is a primary teacher, and has been for about 40 years- they’re not sure if she has ADHD, brain damage from a childhood accident, or both, but she’s just the same- ‘head like a seive’ she calls it… she’s quite bad for writing her planning sheets some time after the event.

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[Anonymous]

I am a special ed teacher and it really suits me. I get to move around the building. I am constantly interacting with different people and children. I do a variety of tasks. The only thing that I have not really done yet is write a real IEP (Individual Education Program) for a child. I am really nervous about that because it is a long and involved legal document. If I make a mistakes and have to change something after a certain time it would involve getting an entire team of people together to say it is ok.

Ususally when it is time to write them you have 2 days to do it. Apparently you are not supposed to do it in advance.

That scares me

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[billd]

@KnittingKat:

>>I have heard that some career fields attract more ADHD people than others do, but I don’t know how truthful that is.<<

I can believe it. There’s a fellow who works over at ITE (IT enterprise for the state) my team lead, the network admin here, mentioned his name with a couple of attributes this fellow has, so I asked “say, who is this fellow and exactly what does he do there”?

The response was “he’s basically your counterpart and pretty sure a bit ADD” then they went on to further describe this guy. Yeah, sounds a LOT like me in all too many ways!

Deep technical network work, firewalls, computer “forensics” and such, almost requires one to be ADD and a bit “flaky” at times.

Like so many other things, different personalities tend to do similar things or act in similar ways. The problem with ADD is that it includes a pretty good mix of personalities otherwise, so maybe ADD folks don’t fit as many molds, but I’d bet there’s more of a tendency.

I’d guess actors and comics would often be ADD, more so than other “types”.

(If Robin Williams isn’t ADD, I’d be surprised – there’s something going on in that creative genius head of his)

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[Anonymous]

Soduko anyone? ……. That’s one that drives me nuts. I was good in math etc… and loved that, but this game is SOOOOO tedious for me – I totally relate to jeneticallymodified – short “rewarding” games are my favourites too.

As for clustering in jobs: that was my experience and it makes sense that some, (rewarding for those with some ADD), jobs, would work out that way.

Another area for “clustering” may be certain recreational clubs. I am volunteering at a boat shop which restores wooden boats as well as work with kids at risk to build a boat. The work gets done but I think we all appreciate the opportunity to jump from one project to another : 3 boats to work on and boat kits to complete. If you get bored with one, simply move onto the other. There is no rigid schedule but with summer approaching we want to get these boats into the water – self inflicted schedule.

If you’re in the Greater Toronto area and think this is up your alley let me know we could use more people with ADD!!

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[Anonymous]

i won’t go near sudoku if you paid me- i have number issues and it hurts my brain doing that even more than dialling phone numbers does- i stare at the paper and my brain thinks *ohmygodohmygod itsabigrowofnumbers keepcalmdon’tpanic* and eventually gears start to grind and it says ‘seven?!’ to me when i know that i’m looking at a 4, and if there was a letter F on the phone i’d end up pressing that instead -type of thing.

don’t even get my started on those phone numbers where they put words in like 1-800-WTF-IS-IT insteada *stares at phone for several minutes attempting to decypher* 1-800 983-47-48, or whatever…. how much more complicated do they wanna make it than it already was? now i have to look at the letters on the phonepad for the second part instead?! urgh!

um… lets just say that i’d make a frighteningly bad accountant, and it’d be an entirely different kind of cluster that would occur if i attempted such a career.

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[trashman]

jen I agree thats why they call it a phone number.DA. spelling things on a pone is just wrong.

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[Anonymous]

Another teacher here. For years I taught drama, which was ideal. Now I’m a high-school Independent Study teacher.

I have 30 kids that I see individually, for an hour each. I may be doing Shakespeare with one kid, algebra with the next, and modifying a ’68 El Camino with the one after that. Art, science, psychology, government — yeah, EVERYTHING. There’s a lot of counseling involved, which I love, and about half my kids have ADHD, diagnosed or not.

Best job in the world, except for the paperwork, which turns into a nightmare at the end of each grading period (9 weeks.)

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[Anonymous]

I work with quite a few ADHDers. It seems to suit the the controlled chaos of the primary classroom — but not the paperwork end of the job. *sigh*

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[Anonymous]

jenetically modifed wrote: “1-800-WTF-IS-IT?” – LOL!

When I was given the phone number to call the ADHD specialist’s office for more info, I kept dialing the wrong number and getting an animal hospital. It wasn’t alphabetic letters, I just couldn’t dial the bloody number correctly. My doctor’s office had to call them and get them to call me. DUH! 😳

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[Author]

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