neuroatypicality in the workplace

August 15, 2020 6:28 PM

"should I tell future managers about my ADHD?" Advice from Ask A Manager, and many comments from people with ADHD about how to handle it in job searches and in the workplace. A followup to "how to succeed at work when you’re not neurotypical... an open thread for readers who aren’t neurotypical about what’s been useful for you". Relatedly: "mental health/neurodivergent symptoms as strengths, a [Twitter] thread.... 'Doesn't pick up on social cues' -> Immune to attempts to distract with indirect digs or insulting tone. Unflappable; focused."
posted by brainwane (21 comments total)

Interesting. My current boss is the first who really seems to get me and how to use my strengths to our team’s advantage (which also allows me to avoid some of my weakest areas). I came close to telling my current boss about my ADHD diagnosis, but didn’t. I’m glad now, because the pandemic has our industry in a tailspin and I’d hate to be wondering if that could be a factor in deciding whether or not to keep me. I’m not saying it would be - just that it would be on my mind now.

Maybe ironically, I think my ADHD qualities have made me extra valuable during the tailspin. I’m at my best when things get urgent. Last minute changes in scope or direction don’t get me down. Yet, if people knew I had ADHD I’m not sure those would be seen as strengths.
posted by Kriesa at 7:20 PM on August 15, 2020 [10 favorites]

I one revealed some of my neurodivergent characteristics (social blindness and anxiety) to my boss at an office party. I can’t be sure if it’s related but this coincided with a reassignment to a different part of the company, where this person was no longer my mentor or supervisor. I felt we’d had a warm and close working relationship up until that point. I will never make this mistake again until I am in a position of power.

I like the spin on dyslexic “spiky profiles” in the last link, as I have noticed that this is definitely a recognized talent in my office- I’m often assigned people who have “difficult” talent profiles as “somehow” I can figure out how to communicate and motivate with people who think differently. I’ve come to believe that empathy with different modes of thinking and motivation is a crucial, unique skill that isn’t discussed enough in management.
posted by q*ben at 7:39 PM on August 15, 2020 [11 favorites]

Wow, the visceral reaction I had to this was strong enough that I am gonna need to revisit it with my therapist the next time I talk to them. My body actually curled in on itself in an attempt to ward off the residual vulnerability I feel whenever I consider the times I disclosed my neurodivergence to a boss or coworker. All of those times were bad times.
posted by Kitchen Witch at 7:53 PM on August 15, 2020 [16 favorites]

Yeah, I felt the warning signs of a panic attack reading the description and knew I wouldn’t be clicking without a lot of time to mentally prepare.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:20 PM on August 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Well, spoiler for everyone who can't click the link, she says "don't disclose", and the commenters agree.
posted by Cozybee at 8:34 PM on August 15, 2020 [14 favorites]

I know someone who is open about her ADHD at work so she could get accommodations. I suspect I have it but haven't bothered to get officially diagnosed, and I vaguely considered doing it and disclosing just so I could get some allowances made for myself.

But as everyone else said/knows, the odds of that going bad are very high and it's not worth the risk.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:34 PM on August 15, 2020

I struggle with both ADHD and chronic depression. I've only disclosed this to one boss. I was thereafter assigned an entirely different sort of work for which I had no training or experience. I was fired after my next performance review.
posted by Craven Yeti Superstar at 10:16 PM on August 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

never trust a boss never trust a boss never trust a boss management is not your friend, ever. the relationship between employee and management is at best competitive even when it’s not plainly adversarial. someone who has made the choice to enter into management has by so doing told you who they are. keep them on a strict info diet at all times. gain leverage over them and do not allow them anything that gives them additional leverage over you.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:35 AM on August 16, 2020 [34 favorites]

Maybe ironically, I think my ADHD qualities have made me extra valuable during the tailspin. I’m at my best when things get urgent. Last minute changes in scope or direction don’t get me down. Yet, if people knew I had ADHD I’m not sure those would be seen as strengths.

That is the key right there. As far as work is concerned, you don't have ADHD, you have a flexible and adaptive mindset that doesn't tolerate stagnation. I'm not pathologically hyperfocused and antisocial, I am self-driven and maintain a work-life balance that's favorable to employers. Rephrasing weaknesses as strengths in a work context is an exercise I did with a therapist/career counselor once, and some of those are still on my CV. Turns out capitalism can work just fine with all kinds of broken minds if you brand yourself right.
posted by Freyja at 5:15 AM on August 16, 2020 [36 favorites]

I disclosed once to a boss when my work performance has been declining and I needed to provide an explanation that would help keep me employed. I told her I had been in a medication that hadn't worked and was switching to a new one. I never went back to being her top performer, but my performance did improve after the switch. I otherwise would never have disclosed. I always worry that the questionnaire about disability at the end of applications which they swear will not impact the hiring decision will be. But that if I put "no" they can go after me for lying later. I've been putting "I do not wish to disclose"and hoping things work out.
posted by Hactar at 5:58 AM on August 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm a manager in IT consulting, and I agree that you probably shouldn't share.

I (really hope) I'm one of those rare good managers, because I view my role as facilitating and leading rather than managing. Relating to the post, a key part of how I approach my role is making sure everyone on the team plays to their strengths, gets stronger in areas of weakness, and avoids those things for which they have no desire or aptitude to grow.

Unfortunately, I think I'm kind of a black sheep in my company (and in every other place I've worked, I'd be considered downright subversive). I frequently keep things in confidence, knowing that many of the things people have shared with me would be viewed as a negative by other members of the leadership team and would have the potential to negatively impact careers.
posted by Ickster at 6:23 AM on August 16, 2020 [3 favorites]

The absolute worst thing, hypothetically, would be noting that there are massive issues relating to your management that are coming from poorly controlled aspects of a supervisor's non-neurotypicality, trying to talk about these in as kind a way as humanly possible, and getting exploded over in a shame cycle you personally recognize and spend significant amounts of time in. With increasingly fewer avenues of control over how to deal with it, and bizarre layers of guilt over figuring out how to talk about it in ways that don't trigger waves of public shaming that will hurt you both even worse.

This isn't a problem that is just "how do you, a neuroatypical, survive in a world of neurotypical people." This is a problem of silence, shame, and blame, and dealing with it on a cultural level is going to require outing ourselves and learning to talk about these issues as professionals. And yet doing that is terrifying and comes with massive costs for anyone who tries to do it.

I'm still testing the waters about how much I disclose within my tiny professional fishbowl of a world--and yes, Metafilter is a semi-professional environment to me; my profession just isn't big enough for it not to be. It seems to me that we're caught in a closet-like bind here, though. And--fuck, I'm just exhausted, looking at the magnitude of things that will need fixing before we even try to deal with it.
posted by sciatrix at 7:35 AM on August 16, 2020 [14 favorites]

I once had a moment, when I was managing a set of arts facilities in Baltimore for a major arts organization there, when my boss, who stands as one of the best bosses I've had to date, was on-site at one of the facilities and the gallerist there and I were having a conversation and somehow I mentioned that I'd been in special education in school.

"Wait, you were in special education?" my boss asked, confused.

"Yeah, for several years."

"We have someone running our facilities who was in special education?" she repeated, with a pause. I was momentarily wondering if I'd made a huge mistake in letting this bit of information out, but I could see a pattern of unvoiced thoughts make their way across her face like an actor warming up for a method role, ending with the slightly-jutting lip and microscopic head tilt that translates roughly into huh, how about that. As the Chief Operations Officer for the organization, she had a lot of extension into fields like HR and development, and I could tell that this detail had run through a lot of those departments, been examined, evaluated, weighed for pros and cons, and signed off on. "Huh," she said, and asked "How was that?"

"Special," I said. "Good preparation for working in the arts."

We all laughed.

When she departed, some time later, for a fantastic position at a museum in the city, I headed into a year of stomach-knotting mistreatment by her vastly inferior replacement and the abusive manager who eventually had my entire department folded into her department and my role eliminated in that process, the announcement of which filled me with genuine glee and soul-warming relief and set in stone the dictum that I will forever hold, which is that if you luck out and get an amazing boss and that boss leaves your organization or corporation, you leave too. Things will not get better.

Interestingly enough, I've built my midlife career on taking the externalized organizational habits I developed as a survival mechanism for getting by in an accountant's world when I have a hunter's brain and applying them to project management and problem-solving in a professional environment, and I'd be unlikely to let slip in a social way that I have these skills because my wiring is sufficiently different than regular wiring that it was sink or swim, and learned to swim. It's none of their business, as long as I manage my shortcomings of focus with fantastic digital tools that get around those atypicalities. My watch taps my wrist and it's a faithful companion, the little bits of scaffolding that cross gaps in my brain to keep everything together, and I know that this is, oddly, a sort of superpower, this deep understanding of things most people never understand because they're never required to, and I'll never tell.

I'll just be there, slightly early and almost overprepared with detailed notes, a catalog of possible failure modes, and a comprehensive list of the next units of action in the process of navigating from idea to completion. Is it unfair that, like Ginger Rogers, we have to do all the things, but backwards, and in heels?

Damn right it is. And yet—

…not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.
posted by sonascope at 7:48 AM on August 16, 2020 [30 favorites]

Its fun to be the mad scientist in my company ad be known for being able to solve problems others can't/won't. It is less fun to be unable to do the mind numbing status updates that waste more time than doing the work entails. I'm at a point in my career where my earning potential either will go down because I can start being lapped by fresh GenZ blood, or I can move into management. So... time to face the music and tackle self improvement.
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:59 AM on August 16, 2020 [8 favorites]

I would never disclose my ADHD during the job-seeking or interviewing process, but I disclosed my diagnosis to my prior boss because she had already disclosed her diagnosis to me -- plus, my boss's boss made no secret of being ADHD as well.

My current boss knows, too; if anything, it's helpful, in that it aids her in understanding some of my quirks. But I work in an industry and in an environment in which I feel immensely "safe," so I consider myself fortunate.
posted by Annabelle74 at 11:56 AM on August 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Never ever ever give management ammunition they can use against you.
posted by Sassenach at 12:48 PM on August 16, 2020 [6 favorites]

I am a manager. [In the past I've been a manager in the fairly traditional arrangement of "we are all full-time workers at the same company (plus the occasional short-term contractor) and I manage your work," and I've managed seasonal interns as well. Now I have my own business and I often subcontract work to individuals for specific projects. And I am a short-term manager for projects involving small groups of contractors or volunteers.]

I recognize that, because of the power dynamics involved, many people will choose the "never disclose to colleagues or supervisor" path, no matter what I do, or my institution does, to try to make disclosure safe. I figure the most important thing is that my colleagues, including the people who report to me, should be supported in doing their best work and being as safe and comfortable as possible. So I go for kind of a universal access approach. I've done things like, early on in the process with a new person, talked with them about what kind of day-to-day status checkin is useful for them (email? call? text chat? something else? what frequency?) so that I don't accidentally set them up for something they find super exhausting compared to the alternative.

Also I'm based in the US and have rarely worked in unionized workplaces, so that affects my experience; I wonder what it's like in countries and organizations where setups are different.

Through the Ask a Manager comment threads I learned about the Job Accommodation Network which has a giant organized list of accommodations an employer could make, sorted "by disability, by limitation, by work-related function, by topic, and by accommodation". For example, here's a list of strategies and accommodations that may be helpful if an employee has an anxiety disorder. Their advice to managers about when to initiate conversation about the need for accommodations ends:

“Is there anything we can do to help you overcome the problems you’re having?” With this approach, you don’t mention disability or accommodation so you don’t have to worry about the ADA’s medical inquiry rules, but at the same time you let the employee know that you would like to help.

which strikes me as reasonable when there's a particular problem you want to help solve. I want to get better at getting ahead of that and providing some pathways even before problems come up -- again, more of a universal access approach, I think.
posted by brainwane at 4:16 PM on August 16, 2020 [12 favorites]

I don’t say every manager is going to treat you badly when they find out you have [condition]. But enough of them do that there’s just no way to tell in advance. And even if your supervisor doesn’t have a problem with it, you never know if their supervisor is going to be just as cool. Or maybe that person in HR. I was in a situation once where my direct supervisor really went to the wall for me, but there was only so much he could do to shield me from the higher-ups.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:13 PM on August 16, 2020 [6 favorites]

I have one specific accommodation than I need (other than the more general please leave me alone to let me do my work at my own pace and my own distraction level), that I've had to talk to my past two bosses about, and it was such a fraught process leading up to it, because I put it off until the last possible moment...and yet it worked out okay. I got the accommodation, both times, without any questions asked. Which is nice, I guess, but spending years worrying about asking, because in general management just can't be trusted with your wellbeing, is a horrible, horrible thing. Sometimes I wish I had employees again, just so I could be the boss you didn't have to worry about telling things to.
posted by mittens at 5:23 AM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

Can we talk about expense reports and expense reporting software and ADHD?

#ADHDSymptomsAreNotCharacterFlaws

a Twitter thread by Jennifer Davis about what can be difficult about submitting expense reports, and what would make it easier.
posted by brainwane at 7:37 PM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

I disclosed my ADHD at work and it worked out great: I got accommodations (a private office because the office I was in had constant interruptions). However, it was at a university whose HR was thrilled to be able to give accommodations because they could put that into their statistics and show it was a great place to work.

However, if anyone has ADHD, does not want to disclose, and also has managers who buy into/are friendly toward management things like Myers-Briggs and CliftonStrengths, the CliftonStrengths' Adaptibility' trait is ADHD to a T (and it's my #1 Strength according to the test, unsurprisingly), and I'd be talking that up as a strength of mine if I wasn't able to mention ADHD.
posted by telophase at 10:51 AM on August 18, 2020 [5 favorites]