Trigger

It's funny how tiny, insignificant events can trigger strong emotional reactions. Today on the way out the door for work, I happened to glimpse on the kitchen table the US road atlas that I study obsessively. This atlas reminded me of my desire to just get in the car and drive to all kinds of places I've never been, and that reminded me that I can't do this because I'm shackled (however temporarily) to a job I don't really like in an overgrown town I hate working for someone who values routine just for routine's sake.

As you might imagine, focusing on work today is kind of tough.

Tell me what would make you happier -- no, tell me what I want to think would make you happier.

Imagine this scenario: [Anecdote removed. Although losing my present job wouldn't be a terrible setback in the long run, I'd prefer not to risk it or make myself subject to blackmail by getting too specific here. The point of the story was, the boss asked for some feedback, then embarrassed a person who gave it in a meeting because she gave not quite the precise feedback he wanted. This struck me as counter-productive and frankly rather detached from the big picture purpose of trying to improve morale, but hey, I'm not a manager so I don't get these things.]

Back in my naive days, I used to think that senior managers got to be senior because they possessed more of a big-picture view than the rest of the staff. Perhaps this was just wishful thinking on my part -- I'm MBTI iNtuitive, remember, which is a poor word choice by Myers and Briggs. They should have said big-freakiN'-picture. So perhaps it's self-serving to think that senior managers are supposed to have a big-picture orientation much like I do. But it has a certain logic to it. You'd think that the big boss would need to develop the broad strategy for the whole organization, and delegate the details to the specialists. Incidentally Strong listed "senior executive" as one of my Top 10 fitting careers, so I don't think I'm totally on the wrong track here.

But come to find out, there are probably plenty of people running companies who so get caught up in the details that they don't care much about the big picture. I can't imagine why running things makes them happy, but apparently it does.

Who knew?

Wanna read something simultaneously heartbreaking and infuriating?

Check out the number of threads on the ADDForums career forum that are essentially the same theme: I have ADHD, somehow I didn't fit in the paradigm expected in my job, so I got fired.


Now, lest you think I'm just endorsing whining, no, I don't know the specifics of every situation, and I don't know those where some accommodation could have been made versus those where the person wasn't fit for the role in the first place. But I do know from first-hand experience that Corporate America is basically organized on the principle that, where the individual is incompatible with her work environment, it's 100% incumbent on the individual to change or leave. The corporation never adapts its hours, performance evaluation, work culture, etc. to the needs of the individual. (The only exception in the US that I'm aware of is where the individual aggressively demands accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and a lot of ADHD people are reluctant to make these demands for various reasons.) I could be unfairly projecting from my own experience, but what I read there makes me think I'm not. Maybe there are a couple of individual-friendly corporations, and maybe like Google they get to pick from the top 0.01% of available talent, but those are very much the exception.

Anyway, I'm still slogging along in an ill-fitting career, but reading that forum makes me realize how much worse it could be. At least they're not trying to fire me (yet).

CC2: Answering a lot of questions

I haven't blogged here for several days, for a couple of reasons. Mostly it's that I'm less inclined to write when I'm not suffering, and I've been working hard on leaving my career dissatisfaction to God and coping with the suffering (but not denying it!). That seems to be going relatively well.

Likewise, moving forward with the counseling has really helped. I still have issues, and indeed, the counseling is only confirming my impression that I'm not in the right career! But at least I don't feel so desperate to make something positive happen right away. I feel more inclined to trust that I can wait it out, because I know there's a plan in place to improve things. Some of my fellow Christian friends might see that need for a plan as a lack of faith. Perhaps.

And finally, despite the inadequate feedback where I work, I've gotten better at picking up on small bits of positive feedback. That makes me feel better about myself and feel valued here. Even though it really isn't a good long-term fit, it's a lot better for people like me to go to work every morning when we feel valued.

So then... about the career counseling.

I had session #2 yesterday, and to be honest it was more about Debbie reading my results to me than anything. I took the Meyer-Briggs Type Indicator, the Strong Interest Inventory, and the 16PF. I come out as:

• An INFP on the MBTI (strongly iNtuitive and weakly Introverted, moderate on the other two).
• SAE on the Strong
• I can't tell you what on the 16PF, but it certainly makes me sound emotionally unstable.

One of my favorite contrasts is that the 16PF gives me low potential for leadership (3 of 10), but one of the others indicates strong leadership potential. I think that reflects my ambiguous view of leadership: I love to motivate others to a common goal, but only if it's an authentic goal. I have no inclination whatsoever to be a bureaucratic middle manager, or for that matter senior manager.

I've been reading up on INFPs. I love this INFP profile from Typelogic. However, this one from personalitypage pissed me off with this graf:

INFPs do not like to deal with hard facts and logic. Their focus on their feelings and the Human Condition makes it difficult for them to deal with impersonal judgment. They don't understand or believe in the validity of impersonal judgment, which makes them naturally rather ineffective at using it. Most INFPs will avoid impersonal analysis, although some have developed this ability and are able to be quite logical. Under stress, it's not uncommon for INFPs to mis-use hard logic in the heat of anger, throwing out fact after (often inaccurate) fact in an emotional outburst.

However, the more I think about it (and about how MBTI defines "thinking" versus "feeling"), the more I realize why I'm so challenging. I'm not a typical F! To the contrary, I'm very good at logical thought. I just grow less enamored of it with each year of life experience, so I value logic only in situations that call for it. I think I come up F because I'm becoming more of a person who values feeling, even thought I'm still very capable of thinking.

In fact, I think this cuts to the heart of why it took them so long to diagnose me with ADHD. I've always done superbly in school, whereas most people like me can't focus on school. I guess it's a great reminder that four letters don't define who I am. It does remind me of my evil plan, with my best friend in college, to blow up the Greek system and replace it with 16 co-ed frats based around the MBTI.

In other news, a friend sent me a link to a careers-related blog, which led me to this fascinating NYT article about law and medicine being less prestigious than they used to be. It's a great point; in general our society values stability less than in the past. Maybe I'm well-positioned to gain in prestige as a vagabond -- as if prestige meant that much to me anyway.

CC2: Game postponed on account of my absent-mindedness

Yesterday was supposed to be the second session of my career counseling. I was really anticipating it: I made sure to charge my cell phone the night before, and I bought a new notebook to write down my notes. I made sure to download my test results onto the laptop so I could have them at hand during the call.

What I forgot to do, however, was bring the laptop with the test results to work. Debbie was gracious and we rescheduled the appointment to next week. But.... ARRRRRRGH! How could I be so stupid?

I know I shouldn't beat myself up, but really, this says it all. I was detail-oriented, all right, but I focused on the wrong details! I triple-checked my phone, and bought the notebook without being asked, but I forgot the docs that she had made clear we needed for the session.

I hate being absent-minded.

Deck chairs on the Titanic

I omitted a few details from my earlier posts today, in part because they're specific to my situation -- I'd like to focus more on general ADHD-in-the-workplace issues -- and in part because I was writing from work and didn't want to get into gory details.

We had a company-wide meeting today (less than ten of us) that confirmed some of what I've suspected about, um, let's call it a disconnect in direction. Basically my boss wants me to focus on projects that in my opinion don't add much value, and wants to deemphasize projects that in my opinion have the most upside. He forgot about the work I was most anticipated, and once I reminded him, stated that it's just an afterthought that we need to knock out in a week or two.

Moreover, it's clear that no one's visiting the particular site I work on. I'm not an idiot. I know that when no one views your site, you don't sell advertising. I don't think anyone blames me for this state of affairs. Indeed, I actually have some ideas that I think would go a long way toward "monetizing" the site I work on. But even if no one directly says, "He's working on a doomed site," it's clear that if sites get shut down then demand for developers decreases. I think the boss is happy with my work, but I could be wrong, and in any event I'm the last one hired.

I also think the economy in general is headed down the crapper -- remember the olden days of yore when electing Republicans was thought to be good for the economy, with economy not necessarily defined to mean "portfolios of the CEOs"? -- so I'm very reluctant to make a career change now without a clear goal in mind. Well, that's why I need the career counseling.

Gradually returning to normal

I'm finding myself starting to worry about the same things that worried me before I got sick. Does software development interest me enough to keep doing it? What would I rather be doing all day? How can I keep solvent long enough to learn to do what it is I really should be doing? What exactly do I aspire to?

I wish I could keep the concern for the big picture, but not as worry per se. Worrying is pointless and stupid. Doing something to change the situation, that's where I need to spend my mental energy.

I finally finished all the tests for my next career counseling appointment tomorrow: MBTI, Strong, PF16. I actually like tests like that -- they help clarify my thinking about career issues -- but a few of the questions were vexing. Going from memory, this was the gist of one of the MBTI ones:

Would you rather have a boss who is:

• Consistent but unimaginative?
• Visionary but arbitrary?

Is it just me or do both of those extremes seem really unpleasant? I forget what I said, but I figured the general point of the question was to infer whether I like working with creative or "predictable" people. And in fact, I general like creative people. But if the cost is having my manager be arbitrary (that wasn't the precise word, but I took it to be a synonym), I take that to mean I might turn in the same work and get totally different feedback from one day to the next. As much as I love creative people, I don't think I could stand that.

Still.... can't a manager be visionary, a "creative," but still treat people in predictable fashion?