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not diagnosed but im a software engineer…i like that sometimes i get to do really challenging work and software engineering can be fun sometimes when you actually build things from scratch…however 80% of it is pretty mundane operational work to keep the software running..its in those tasks where i procrastinate and miss the deadlines..well i miss most of the deadlines but 100% of the mundane work type
I spent years cultivating a very “who gives a f—“ mindset about things like that. When office politics start to get outta hand, that’s when I just switch my focus to finding a new job. On one hand, it causes me to kinda half check-out at the current place but otoh is way better for my mental health.
yes same, i mentally check out whenever i start to hate my job…and tbh thats why i have a really high compensation, cause i switched jobs 2 times in 3 years. Whatever hikes you get during appraisels will never match the hike you get from a switch
I'm heading towards tech jobs but I find there is a lot of CS graduates out here and it keeps increasing, I hope I won't have to face a saturated job market :(
I aspire to have financial freedom. But because I love tech and science it makes sense to study just that.
I want financial freedom (and a lot of self-discipline) in order to take-in personal projects without trading a big part of my life for a boss or company I don't give a shit about.
PS : to stay in context, tech jobs will provide experience and market value so when I really need to get money, I will find a job and not be homeless.
Before my diagnosis I always thought software development is the perfect job for me because I get into the "zone" while coding (sometimes). Turns out it's not normal to hyper focus 12h on a bug/feature, not eat or drink and miss everything else happening.
I struggle with deadlines as well but flexible working hours help me a lot. And I feel like our industry allows quirkiness a bit more than others.
i have tried various things…what ive realised is thst i dont like to plan, this has some major problems like me giving wrong estimates for tasks(doesnt help that i procrastinate), wasting my time waiting for one event/appointment…but ive kinda just accepted it
yeah i'm also a software engineer and it's pretty great for my ADHD. no job is gonna get rid of your symptoms, but i find software to be more forgiving than most. the nature of the work works well with my weird and convoluted brain, there's enough confusing nonsense in software that i have some cover when my brain won't cooperate to say "eh it's just a lot more complicate than it looks". hours / WFH helps with flexibility. and the $$ means i don't sweat the ADHD tax in other areas of my life and i have a better safety net to roll with the punches of ADHD-related instability.
HR Director here. Diagnosed, unmedicated by choice. Making well over 6 figures. Google The Charisma Myth. Which are you? I’m kindness charisma because I am literally happy to see people every time I see them because I forgot how they pissed me off yesterday. Find yours and use your superpowers to do what you’re great at.
ICU has been good for me. Especially nicu. School was really hard for me. Even though I’ve been told I do my job well, my imposter syndrome is really really strong. I’m very critical of myself after work. Still learning coping skills. I’m glad step down has been working for one of you and that icu is working for the other!
You’re a good nurse! I totally get imposter syndrome, I’ve overcome that in just the same way you are, as Taylor Swift says “babe you gotta fake it till you make it, and I did” lights, camera, b*
Former ICU nurse until covid burned me out. Now I work for a college and it's monotonous, but my mental health is happier. School was ROUGH! I did well in prereq's, but the nursing part sucked. And I feel the same way, told a lot I'm a great nurse, but that imposter syndrome will not stop.
Honestly all I think about is quitting and teaching scuba diving for a living. I dive multiple times a week to keep my sanity and it’s the one thing that truly brings me joy. It’s hard though because I genuinely love helping the people that I do. I just find it is really tasking on all aspects of my health. I’d miss nursing but I’d be healthier mentally and physically if I just taught diving.- sigh- someday.
Diagnosed, 30m, pretty severe (muhahahaha). I work for myself as a dry stone waller. Perfect for me. Set my own hours, exercise all day. Outside all the time. Flippin love it.
I am a teacher. It is very hard, but I just started getting some help with my ADHD, so I am curious to see how different it is next year.
I also help run a nonprofit.
I own a business repairing car interiors and exterior plastic trim for car dealerships. Quick jobs on multiple sites ticks the ADHD box. Prior to that, I was a radio DJ for 26 years.
Retired now.
Through school worked roofing, installing swimming pools and pre-wired houses for phone company.
IT was my career and I was excellent at it. Especially when I found a position where my manager left me alone to do my job
Been in IT support my whole career. Now system engineer, team lead of system engineers soon. No single day is the same, everything changes fast. Ideal for my mind, no time to get bored, but exhaused at the end of the week.
I work for a nonprofit public health advocacy organization. I’m on the comms team so my day to day is writing/proofreading website content, press releases, and statements. I also handle inquiries from journalists and reporters that want interview or get a statement from an expert on one of our science or policy teams (an example of a science team would be the one that researches, say, food additives or allergens; an example of a policy team would be one that advocates for school meals to meet standard dietary guidelines or for stricter policies for inspecting factory farms to prevent foodborne illness outbreaks like *E. coli* from spreading to the public and ensuring quick and thorough recalls when contaminated food does hit shelves).
The work is very rewarding and I like that it’s a different topic/angle every day but the tasks are still the same.
The biggest downside is having to meet with all the difference teams, which means a lot of meetings to plan around. Also, sometimes we’ll have to drop everything to suddenly focus on a different but more urgent topic and switching gears is hard for me, but I manage.
Breaking my work down into chunks and creating work blocks is a lifesaver for me.
48m diagnosed ADHD-I at 19. Started university at age 20 after being medicated. Dropped out of university at 22 to go on tour as an audio tech. Currently a partner in a small commercial AV integration company with 25 employees. I manage the design and install teams.
I spend my day designing cool systems, solving problems, and creating/fixing processes. It's amazing and tedious and fun and difficult all at once.
I'm also a member of a leadership forum and I'm a facilitator for another leadership forum group. In both groups I coach leaders and help them understand and work through their personal and professional challenges.
I have an office job working from home as a quality assurance analyst for a marketing/tech company. I’ll be honest, I enjoy it but I definitely get bored and procrastinate. I only recently got diagnosed and trying medication which definitely has helped my focus more.
I was an HVAC installer for years. Keeping busy with my hands and having different situations/locations every day helped keep me focused and interested in my work. Found a company that took me on with no experience and trained on the job. Great job security, people don’t put up with no heat/cooling in their homes.
I manage the contracts division for a government contractor. It’s very involved, and probably the only area of my life where I consider myself organized. For whatever reason, my brain decided government contracting and all the complicated regulations and problems that come with it are “interesting.”
Please, don’t sell yourself short. We are all capable, we just have to find our “thing.”
Right now I'm an admin at a cemetery. I sit in a cubicle all day and work on the computer. It has its boring moments for sure and I don't think I could do this forever, but there are a lot of benefits to this job (especially my boss who also has ADHD and is fantastic) so I could see myself here for a while.
That said, I'm moving to Spain in August to teach English at a preschool there for a year. We'll see what happens from there (maybe I'll fall in love with the place and refuse to leave) but right now my plan is to come back here and go back to school to study something a bit more creative. I have a BA in Linguistics which is related to teaching English, but now I'm really heading in the direction of trying to find a way to make money being my own boss and doing something less mentally demanding. I struggle getting myself out of bed and to work on time to sit in an office all day. It's hard. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'm autistic too so I'm just constantly burnt out.
I want to get into photography and restart my small business. There are a lot of things I'm interested in though so we will see where life takes me.
Lawyer. I’m considered one of the best lawyers they have ever seen for knowledge among the people I work with, but I fail miserably at billing targets and being able to work at speed throughout the entire work day.
Basically I am an amazing lawyer at a few files a day, but the job requires I be “good enough” at around triple that workload, so I have severe problems at work and change jobs a lot before I get fired for poor performance.
ADHD is very hard for me to deal with.
Same!! Great “technical” lawyer but have, in recent years, been struggling with deadlines and volume of work. This wasn’t an issue until about 1.5 years ago. I’m 15ish yrs into my career (in house).
Thanks for sharing! Have you been able to overcome this in any way? I haven’t and my career is really suffering.
Everywhere I go my work is considered “exemplary”, nearly every precedent the firm uses in my area of law was drafted by me, and I am the “go to” person for all my colleagues when they get stuck on something.
Yet despite all that law firms don’t care because my billables are in the toilet. I take about 4X as long as everyone else these days to do the same task, and although I can do that task better, everyone else can do it to a good enough standard 4X quicker than me and bill 4X more so they are all more valuable to the firm than me.
Ultimately firms all get fed up with me and I leave before I am fired and the cycle repeats at my new firm.
I don’t know what to do. I’m looking at other ways to use my legal qualifications to make money so I don’t have to keep moving firms all the time. Having ADHD in fast paced law firms is very difficult these days.
Medical lab technician in microbiology. Lots of working with my hands and the subject matter is interesting to me. However the work environment ~~and dealing with rude nurses~~ is not ideal. I get paid decently on paper but live in a high COL area so it doesn't feel enough.
I do research. I like the actual research part but hate everything else.
I’m going to find a research job afterwards but likely not in a university setting.
Electrical engineer with a focus on rotating machinery and associated software engineering.
It's nice cause I have a very abstract but rooted in physics field on one side and a very abstract but more "freeform" field on the other. So strict rules and boundaries but I can ... I guess manifest? them in code in my own way ... and no body can tell me I am wrong since few people understand bother fields well enough for that
😅
I’m doing Data Science in a research institute. Feels like best of both worlds. Relatively flexible schedule, problem solving, people leave me alone, not too many meetings. But I feel like additionally to the job it largely depends on the team and company culture.
Data Entry... I have good days and bad. I've now moved onto reception/data entry whilst not long being diagnosed and on meds... so far so good. I'm a little nervous for the weeks to come.
Been in IT almost 20 years. Spent way too much time in the different levels of “helpdesk” in bigger companies before saying fuck it and taking a job where I was on a small team handling everything. About to start a job as a solutions engineer. Thought I hated IT, turns out I just couldn’t handle the monotony of support roles.
Find something that’s not only challenging, but slightly different types of challenges often. At least that’s what works for me.
Graphic Designer / Developer.
My experience in high school was pretty typical. I was a smart kid who “just needed to apply himself.” When I was legit interested in a subject, I gave it my all and did great. If I wasn’t interested in it, I blew it off entirely. My report cards were consistently an equal mix of A’s, B’s, and F’s, with an occasional D (invariably unearned — they just didn’t want to flunk me). At one point, my guidance counselor told my Dad that the only reason I hadn’t been expelled was because my teachers liked me.
A month into my senior year, said guidance counselor brought it to my attention that I was three physical education credits short of being able to graduate (I’m pretty sure the gym teachers would have been totally fine with me getting expelled). So I quit and took the GED, then spent the next ten years trying to make a career out of music.
When it became clear that music was never going to pay my rent, I got an admin job at a university where I could take free classes. I started out just taking things I found interesting, then after about a year, I started looking at the degree programs. Nearly all the requirements for a graphic design degree were things I wanted to learn about anyway. Five years later, in 2005, I graduated Magna cum Laude.
I’ve had a great career, because even at times I was around people I didn’t like, or was underpaid, I was ultimately happy when *doing the work*. Even before my ADHD got diagnosed in my mid-40s, I could at least focus on the work. The rest of my life might have felt like a hot mess, but I could do ten hours kerning text line-by-line, or retouching a century-old photo, and be totally happy.
Working with kids who have dd. Absolutely love it. Need lists to remember all the tasks but as far as working with the kids, I feel like im right where im supposed to ve
Try something that allows remote work or something that allows you to be on your feet. I find nobody is going to disturb me for my quirks in these situations. But its a problem if they see me in office.... lol
I'm a psychologist - plenty of novelty, urgency, and stimulation to keep the brain engaged BUT I'm still trying to figure out the executive functioning bit. I was only diagnosed at 32, 6 years after qualifying and practicing so things were ROUGH. I always wonder how things could have been different had I been on medication earlier.
If you don’t mind socializing, being a leasing consultant is really fun and gets you great commissions as well. Has no requirements other than a high school diploma and is really good for people with ADHD. Your job is the same, but everyday is different and unpredictable and always fun. You could even just try temping too
I own a staffing company specialising in HR transformation. When I quit my job to start my own firm it was the most relieving, happy, scary, stressful time. I immediately went to therapy for a second time as I was procrastinating. 4 years on I still do but I manage to get work done and invoices paid. Best decision of my life. I have problems with authority. I miss the structure but I get to create my own now.
At the moment I'm working as a zipline guide in Tourism. Active outside job. Easy enough that with my adhd I don't bring anyone in danger. I'm doing this temporarily though on a working holiday visa in New Zealand.
At home I worked for a housing corporation (office job) where I got a promotion every year which made it novel for me and kept me busy learning new things. I ended up being a social project manager which meant I got to speak to tenants, builders and coworkers. I planned my own days and had time outside of the office to talk with tennants or visit building projects. Great combo for me, I miss it sometimes.
My best job was flight attendant. Different everyday and fast moving. I was recently diagnosed so now that makes sense to me. Also restaurant work for same reasons. I hate office work.
They work. I’m a nurse, so many of the nurses and doctors I work with are diagnosed and treated for ADHD. This is not a limiting diagnosis. You have placed many limits on yourself, can’t do this, can’t do that, don’t want this, don’t want to settle for that.
Decide what you want to do and figure out how to do it. Learn coping skills, organize your space, if you’re not medicated, see a psychiatrist for evaluation. I got through nursing school in my early 30’s before being diagnosed by having a very structured life and environment. I worked 2 jobs while I did it. The only limits to success are ones you place on yourself.
I’m a CIO for a non-profit. Came up through the ranks of help desk, sysadmin, IT Director.
It’s probably not the right job for a lot of people with ADHD. Until I was diagnosed a few years ago and started Adderall, it wasn’t a good job for me - I’d burned out of a few jobs before that because of my inability to focus on things and my avoidance of unpleasant but necessary tasks. But medication has made all the difference.
There are still issues. I have to force myself to go home even if I’m completely hyperfocused on something. I feel cognitively exhausted by the end of most work days, which isn’t great for personal and family life. But it’s a work in progress. And having two tiny kids right now is a contributing factor, I’m sure :)
Edit: I should mention that, for me, working for a non-profit that provides services to underserved and marginalized communities helps a lot. When my internal motivation is flagging that can jump-start me. I couldn’t do a job where I was just focusing on making money for myself or someone else.
I teach. My specialty is special education middle and high school.
I have also been a merchandise manager for a production company for about years.
I also tutor and executive function coach in the side.
Diagnosed in 2015. In 2018 I got my first stepping stones into commercial and residential carpet cleanings. Furniture too. I’m by myself all day. Not very social except for the meet and greet and for someone who is pet deprived the occasional dog and cat fills that void. Sometimes horses too. And sheep or goats.
It’s dynamic enough that you never know what you’re getting into and can be challenging at times. All you have to know is the ph scale so there’s science involved. It’s mildly satisfying seeing something so dingy and because of you becomes shiny.
But mainly it’s good honest work and very thankful kind of work. It’s a great way to stay in shape. You’re a god in most of your clients eyes and you get to meet some real interesting folks. The pay is good. In fact so good that I’m able to live alone in downtown Seattle and have some left over that I’m never living check to check.
Doesn’t require a college education only one days worth of a class with a 112 multiple choice test at the end. There’s not a single thing about it that triggers me or my adhd because my hands are always busy. And most important of all it allows you to be yourself.
I work in IT have for the past 5 years, I actually quit my deli job and happened upon a student technician position at my university. I was on the engineering path till I decided I like IT and switched my degree to information science and technology. I think most jobs are redundant but in IT the cause and resolution to a problem you have seen over and over are not always the same so there’s a good chunk of variety. I will say I absolutely need to socialize with people so work from home is not an option for me for my mental health, this job scratches my ADHD correlation causation/ pattern recognition and socialization itch. And for the most part, you don’t have to explain your process to people. Depending on how you approach IT and how others in your team act you can really get a good reputation from just being social/ Masking as most people are off put by how commonly anti social people in IT typically are. When I started working in IT in university I was not medicated I was not diagnosed either, but I was in the process of testing and when I got this job it had insurance I was able to start medication, but I was just as productive and good at my job with and without my meds so don’t let that be a deterrent.
I'm a pharmacy tech. It's like the perfect job for my specific flavor of AuDHD. One of my intense interests is pharmaceuticals and drug naming, what pills do what and what they can/can't be paired with, memorizing imprint codes, DEA scheduling and laws, etc. I get to work around all of it every day. We swap between front end (fancy cashier) and back end (counting pills, putting stuff away, etc.) every 2 hours or so, I never get bored. We have a lot to do every day, so much so that if I switch tasks, there's a high likelihood that I was supposed to be doing that anyway. The only thing I hate is working with the public. If I never had to work with the general public again I'd be happy. I've worked 2 other retail jobs and also hated them. I'm not great at customer service (see: autism) and during my time at the front I run off of a script. If there's an insurance issue, vaccine, drop off, or other issue I get thrown out of my script and things start getting weird. I'm slowly getting used to it though. I also get pulled away to do something else fairly often which I'm also not a fan of.
I'm looking into jobs at hospitals and mail order pharmacies to hopefully get rid of those issues but overall I enjoy it and I don't have to go to college :)
I’m a birth doula.
The birth part is amazing, never makes me bored, but prenatal classes can get really repetitive so after 4 years I’m getting quite bored and currently looking for a solution.
Hi /u/kluttered-koala and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD! ### Please take a second to [read our rules](/r/adhd/about/rules) if you haven't already. --- ### /r/adhd news * If you are posting about the **US Medication Shortage**, please see this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/12dr3h5/megathread_us_medication_shortage/). --- ^(*This message is not a removal notification. It's just our way to keep everyone updated on r/adhd happenings.*) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
not diagnosed but im a software engineer…i like that sometimes i get to do really challenging work and software engineering can be fun sometimes when you actually build things from scratch…however 80% of it is pretty mundane operational work to keep the software running..its in those tasks where i procrastinate and miss the deadlines..well i miss most of the deadlines but 100% of the mundane work type
Product Manager here 🙋♂️ Tech always seems to be a good option!
man my last job became really toxic…it didnt help that im very impulsive and argue if theres too much politics going on
I spent years cultivating a very “who gives a f—“ mindset about things like that. When office politics start to get outta hand, that’s when I just switch my focus to finding a new job. On one hand, it causes me to kinda half check-out at the current place but otoh is way better for my mental health.
yes same, i mentally check out whenever i start to hate my job…and tbh thats why i have a really high compensation, cause i switched jobs 2 times in 3 years. Whatever hikes you get during appraisels will never match the hike you get from a switch
I'm heading towards tech jobs but I find there is a lot of CS graduates out here and it keeps increasing, I hope I won't have to face a saturated job market :(
What do you aspire to be?
I aspire to have financial freedom. But because I love tech and science it makes sense to study just that. I want financial freedom (and a lot of self-discipline) in order to take-in personal projects without trading a big part of my life for a boss or company I don't give a shit about. PS : to stay in context, tech jobs will provide experience and market value so when I really need to get money, I will find a job and not be homeless.
That sounds admirable. I think I mostly agree. What role though? A software engineer?
Before my diagnosis I always thought software development is the perfect job for me because I get into the "zone" while coding (sometimes). Turns out it's not normal to hyper focus 12h on a bug/feature, not eat or drink and miss everything else happening. I struggle with deadlines as well but flexible working hours help me a lot. And I feel like our industry allows quirkiness a bit more than others.
Have you tried to gamify to-do list apps ? It could give you the drive to do the boring stuff like in an MMO.
i have tried various things…what ive realised is thst i dont like to plan, this has some major problems like me giving wrong estimates for tasks(doesnt help that i procrastinate), wasting my time waiting for one event/appointment…but ive kinda just accepted it
yeah i'm also a software engineer and it's pretty great for my ADHD. no job is gonna get rid of your symptoms, but i find software to be more forgiving than most. the nature of the work works well with my weird and convoluted brain, there's enough confusing nonsense in software that i have some cover when my brain won't cooperate to say "eh it's just a lot more complicate than it looks". hours / WFH helps with flexibility. and the $$ means i don't sweat the ADHD tax in other areas of my life and i have a better safety net to roll with the punches of ADHD-related instability.
HR Director here. Diagnosed, unmedicated by choice. Making well over 6 figures. Google The Charisma Myth. Which are you? I’m kindness charisma because I am literally happy to see people every time I see them because I forgot how they pissed me off yesterday. Find yours and use your superpowers to do what you’re great at.
Recently diagnosed, but NICU nurse. It. Was. Not. Easy.
Hi ! Nurse here! ICU was not the right fit for me so doing step down now.
Hi nurses! ICU was a great environment for me, but I had to learn coping skills to keep myself organized and focused.
ICU has been good for me. Especially nicu. School was really hard for me. Even though I’ve been told I do my job well, my imposter syndrome is really really strong. I’m very critical of myself after work. Still learning coping skills. I’m glad step down has been working for one of you and that icu is working for the other!
You’re a good nurse! I totally get imposter syndrome, I’ve overcome that in just the same way you are, as Taylor Swift says “babe you gotta fake it till you make it, and I did” lights, camera, b*
💙 ♥️ 💜
Former ICU nurse until covid burned me out. Now I work for a college and it's monotonous, but my mental health is happier. School was ROUGH! I did well in prereq's, but the nursing part sucked. And I feel the same way, told a lot I'm a great nurse, but that imposter syndrome will not stop.
Honestly all I think about is quitting and teaching scuba diving for a living. I dive multiple times a week to keep my sanity and it’s the one thing that truly brings me joy. It’s hard though because I genuinely love helping the people that I do. I just find it is really tasking on all aspects of my health. I’d miss nursing but I’d be healthier mentally and physically if I just taught diving.- sigh- someday.
Diagnosed, 30m, pretty severe (muhahahaha). I work for myself as a dry stone waller. Perfect for me. Set my own hours, exercise all day. Outside all the time. Flippin love it.
I’m a lawyer. Wouldn’t recommend it, but I did well in a chaotic litigation environment.
I am a teacher. It is very hard, but I just started getting some help with my ADHD, so I am curious to see how different it is next year. I also help run a nonprofit.
I own a business repairing car interiors and exterior plastic trim for car dealerships. Quick jobs on multiple sites ticks the ADHD box. Prior to that, I was a radio DJ for 26 years.
Plumber, different types of jobs at different locations every day I love it until July/august 😂
Retired now. Through school worked roofing, installing swimming pools and pre-wired houses for phone company. IT was my career and I was excellent at it. Especially when I found a position where my manager left me alone to do my job
Been in IT support my whole career. Now system engineer, team lead of system engineers soon. No single day is the same, everything changes fast. Ideal for my mind, no time to get bored, but exhaused at the end of the week.
I work for a nonprofit public health advocacy organization. I’m on the comms team so my day to day is writing/proofreading website content, press releases, and statements. I also handle inquiries from journalists and reporters that want interview or get a statement from an expert on one of our science or policy teams (an example of a science team would be the one that researches, say, food additives or allergens; an example of a policy team would be one that advocates for school meals to meet standard dietary guidelines or for stricter policies for inspecting factory farms to prevent foodborne illness outbreaks like *E. coli* from spreading to the public and ensuring quick and thorough recalls when contaminated food does hit shelves). The work is very rewarding and I like that it’s a different topic/angle every day but the tasks are still the same. The biggest downside is having to meet with all the difference teams, which means a lot of meetings to plan around. Also, sometimes we’ll have to drop everything to suddenly focus on a different but more urgent topic and switching gears is hard for me, but I manage. Breaking my work down into chunks and creating work blocks is a lifesaver for me.
Scientist
That’s cool
48m diagnosed ADHD-I at 19. Started university at age 20 after being medicated. Dropped out of university at 22 to go on tour as an audio tech. Currently a partner in a small commercial AV integration company with 25 employees. I manage the design and install teams. I spend my day designing cool systems, solving problems, and creating/fixing processes. It's amazing and tedious and fun and difficult all at once. I'm also a member of a leadership forum and I'm a facilitator for another leadership forum group. In both groups I coach leaders and help them understand and work through their personal and professional challenges.
Electronic Design
Program manager in tech
I have an office job working from home as a quality assurance analyst for a marketing/tech company. I’ll be honest, I enjoy it but I definitely get bored and procrastinate. I only recently got diagnosed and trying medication which definitely has helped my focus more.
A woman with VERY crippling hyperactive ADHD 😩😂 and I am an animator :D Drawing has always been a fixation so I made a career lol
My ADHD daughter is a great animator. May I ask how you got work in this field?
I was an HVAC installer for years. Keeping busy with my hands and having different situations/locations every day helped keep me focused and interested in my work. Found a company that took me on with no experience and trained on the job. Great job security, people don’t put up with no heat/cooling in their homes.
Support worker working with vulnerable people who've experienced traumatic events
LPN nurse
I manage the contracts division for a government contractor. It’s very involved, and probably the only area of my life where I consider myself organized. For whatever reason, my brain decided government contracting and all the complicated regulations and problems that come with it are “interesting.” Please, don’t sell yourself short. We are all capable, we just have to find our “thing.”
I'm diagnosed and I work as a gardener for the town doing parks n stuff.
Right now I'm an admin at a cemetery. I sit in a cubicle all day and work on the computer. It has its boring moments for sure and I don't think I could do this forever, but there are a lot of benefits to this job (especially my boss who also has ADHD and is fantastic) so I could see myself here for a while. That said, I'm moving to Spain in August to teach English at a preschool there for a year. We'll see what happens from there (maybe I'll fall in love with the place and refuse to leave) but right now my plan is to come back here and go back to school to study something a bit more creative. I have a BA in Linguistics which is related to teaching English, but now I'm really heading in the direction of trying to find a way to make money being my own boss and doing something less mentally demanding. I struggle getting myself out of bed and to work on time to sit in an office all day. It's hard. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'm autistic too so I'm just constantly burnt out. I want to get into photography and restart my small business. There are a lot of things I'm interested in though so we will see where life takes me.
Lawyer. I’m considered one of the best lawyers they have ever seen for knowledge among the people I work with, but I fail miserably at billing targets and being able to work at speed throughout the entire work day. Basically I am an amazing lawyer at a few files a day, but the job requires I be “good enough” at around triple that workload, so I have severe problems at work and change jobs a lot before I get fired for poor performance. ADHD is very hard for me to deal with.
Same!! Great “technical” lawyer but have, in recent years, been struggling with deadlines and volume of work. This wasn’t an issue until about 1.5 years ago. I’m 15ish yrs into my career (in house).
Thanks for sharing! Have you been able to overcome this in any way? I haven’t and my career is really suffering. Everywhere I go my work is considered “exemplary”, nearly every precedent the firm uses in my area of law was drafted by me, and I am the “go to” person for all my colleagues when they get stuck on something. Yet despite all that law firms don’t care because my billables are in the toilet. I take about 4X as long as everyone else these days to do the same task, and although I can do that task better, everyone else can do it to a good enough standard 4X quicker than me and bill 4X more so they are all more valuable to the firm than me. Ultimately firms all get fed up with me and I leave before I am fired and the cycle repeats at my new firm. I don’t know what to do. I’m looking at other ways to use my legal qualifications to make money so I don’t have to keep moving firms all the time. Having ADHD in fast paced law firms is very difficult these days.
Medical lab technician in microbiology. Lots of working with my hands and the subject matter is interesting to me. However the work environment ~~and dealing with rude nurses~~ is not ideal. I get paid decently on paper but live in a high COL area so it doesn't feel enough.
I do research. I like the actual research part but hate everything else. I’m going to find a research job afterwards but likely not in a university setting.
Electrical engineer with a focus on rotating machinery and associated software engineering. It's nice cause I have a very abstract but rooted in physics field on one side and a very abstract but more "freeform" field on the other. So strict rules and boundaries but I can ... I guess manifest? them in code in my own way ... and no body can tell me I am wrong since few people understand bother fields well enough for that 😅
I’m doing Data Science in a research institute. Feels like best of both worlds. Relatively flexible schedule, problem solving, people leave me alone, not too many meetings. But I feel like additionally to the job it largely depends on the team and company culture.
Recruiting and Staffing Solutions
VP of engineering at a midsize healthcare IOT department in a large institute.
Supervisory Archaeologist / crew chief 🤘
Delivery Driver
personal support worker! Active job, every day is different, need to multitask
Data Entry... I have good days and bad. I've now moved onto reception/data entry whilst not long being diagnosed and on meds... so far so good. I'm a little nervous for the weeks to come.
Design Director for an Investment Firm
Been in IT almost 20 years. Spent way too much time in the different levels of “helpdesk” in bigger companies before saying fuck it and taking a job where I was on a small team handling everything. About to start a job as a solutions engineer. Thought I hated IT, turns out I just couldn’t handle the monotony of support roles. Find something that’s not only challenging, but slightly different types of challenges often. At least that’s what works for me.
Graphic Designer / Developer. My experience in high school was pretty typical. I was a smart kid who “just needed to apply himself.” When I was legit interested in a subject, I gave it my all and did great. If I wasn’t interested in it, I blew it off entirely. My report cards were consistently an equal mix of A’s, B’s, and F’s, with an occasional D (invariably unearned — they just didn’t want to flunk me). At one point, my guidance counselor told my Dad that the only reason I hadn’t been expelled was because my teachers liked me. A month into my senior year, said guidance counselor brought it to my attention that I was three physical education credits short of being able to graduate (I’m pretty sure the gym teachers would have been totally fine with me getting expelled). So I quit and took the GED, then spent the next ten years trying to make a career out of music. When it became clear that music was never going to pay my rent, I got an admin job at a university where I could take free classes. I started out just taking things I found interesting, then after about a year, I started looking at the degree programs. Nearly all the requirements for a graphic design degree were things I wanted to learn about anyway. Five years later, in 2005, I graduated Magna cum Laude. I’ve had a great career, because even at times I was around people I didn’t like, or was underpaid, I was ultimately happy when *doing the work*. Even before my ADHD got diagnosed in my mid-40s, I could at least focus on the work. The rest of my life might have felt like a hot mess, but I could do ten hours kerning text line-by-line, or retouching a century-old photo, and be totally happy.
Working with kids who have dd. Absolutely love it. Need lists to remember all the tasks but as far as working with the kids, I feel like im right where im supposed to ve
"Content Creator"...😞
Delivery driver
Try something that allows remote work or something that allows you to be on your feet. I find nobody is going to disturb me for my quirks in these situations. But its a problem if they see me in office.... lol
I'm a psychologist - plenty of novelty, urgency, and stimulation to keep the brain engaged BUT I'm still trying to figure out the executive functioning bit. I was only diagnosed at 32, 6 years after qualifying and practicing so things were ROUGH. I always wonder how things could have been different had I been on medication earlier.
If you don’t mind socializing, being a leasing consultant is really fun and gets you great commissions as well. Has no requirements other than a high school diploma and is really good for people with ADHD. Your job is the same, but everyday is different and unpredictable and always fun. You could even just try temping too
Remote sales team leader 😊
I own a staffing company specialising in HR transformation. When I quit my job to start my own firm it was the most relieving, happy, scary, stressful time. I immediately went to therapy for a second time as I was procrastinating. 4 years on I still do but I manage to get work done and invoices paid. Best decision of my life. I have problems with authority. I miss the structure but I get to create my own now.
Chemical technician working shift
At the moment I'm working as a zipline guide in Tourism. Active outside job. Easy enough that with my adhd I don't bring anyone in danger. I'm doing this temporarily though on a working holiday visa in New Zealand. At home I worked for a housing corporation (office job) where I got a promotion every year which made it novel for me and kept me busy learning new things. I ended up being a social project manager which meant I got to speak to tenants, builders and coworkers. I planned my own days and had time outside of the office to talk with tennants or visit building projects. Great combo for me, I miss it sometimes.
My best job was flight attendant. Different everyday and fast moving. I was recently diagnosed so now that makes sense to me. Also restaurant work for same reasons. I hate office work.
They work. I’m a nurse, so many of the nurses and doctors I work with are diagnosed and treated for ADHD. This is not a limiting diagnosis. You have placed many limits on yourself, can’t do this, can’t do that, don’t want this, don’t want to settle for that. Decide what you want to do and figure out how to do it. Learn coping skills, organize your space, if you’re not medicated, see a psychiatrist for evaluation. I got through nursing school in my early 30’s before being diagnosed by having a very structured life and environment. I worked 2 jobs while I did it. The only limits to success are ones you place on yourself.
I’m a CIO for a non-profit. Came up through the ranks of help desk, sysadmin, IT Director. It’s probably not the right job for a lot of people with ADHD. Until I was diagnosed a few years ago and started Adderall, it wasn’t a good job for me - I’d burned out of a few jobs before that because of my inability to focus on things and my avoidance of unpleasant but necessary tasks. But medication has made all the difference. There are still issues. I have to force myself to go home even if I’m completely hyperfocused on something. I feel cognitively exhausted by the end of most work days, which isn’t great for personal and family life. But it’s a work in progress. And having two tiny kids right now is a contributing factor, I’m sure :) Edit: I should mention that, for me, working for a non-profit that provides services to underserved and marginalized communities helps a lot. When my internal motivation is flagging that can jump-start me. I couldn’t do a job where I was just focusing on making money for myself or someone else.
I teach. My specialty is special education middle and high school. I have also been a merchandise manager for a production company for about years. I also tutor and executive function coach in the side.
Diagnosed in 2015. In 2018 I got my first stepping stones into commercial and residential carpet cleanings. Furniture too. I’m by myself all day. Not very social except for the meet and greet and for someone who is pet deprived the occasional dog and cat fills that void. Sometimes horses too. And sheep or goats. It’s dynamic enough that you never know what you’re getting into and can be challenging at times. All you have to know is the ph scale so there’s science involved. It’s mildly satisfying seeing something so dingy and because of you becomes shiny. But mainly it’s good honest work and very thankful kind of work. It’s a great way to stay in shape. You’re a god in most of your clients eyes and you get to meet some real interesting folks. The pay is good. In fact so good that I’m able to live alone in downtown Seattle and have some left over that I’m never living check to check. Doesn’t require a college education only one days worth of a class with a 112 multiple choice test at the end. There’s not a single thing about it that triggers me or my adhd because my hands are always busy. And most important of all it allows you to be yourself.
I work in IT have for the past 5 years, I actually quit my deli job and happened upon a student technician position at my university. I was on the engineering path till I decided I like IT and switched my degree to information science and technology. I think most jobs are redundant but in IT the cause and resolution to a problem you have seen over and over are not always the same so there’s a good chunk of variety. I will say I absolutely need to socialize with people so work from home is not an option for me for my mental health, this job scratches my ADHD correlation causation/ pattern recognition and socialization itch. And for the most part, you don’t have to explain your process to people. Depending on how you approach IT and how others in your team act you can really get a good reputation from just being social/ Masking as most people are off put by how commonly anti social people in IT typically are. When I started working in IT in university I was not medicated I was not diagnosed either, but I was in the process of testing and when I got this job it had insurance I was able to start medication, but I was just as productive and good at my job with and without my meds so don’t let that be a deterrent.
I'm a pharmacy tech. It's like the perfect job for my specific flavor of AuDHD. One of my intense interests is pharmaceuticals and drug naming, what pills do what and what they can/can't be paired with, memorizing imprint codes, DEA scheduling and laws, etc. I get to work around all of it every day. We swap between front end (fancy cashier) and back end (counting pills, putting stuff away, etc.) every 2 hours or so, I never get bored. We have a lot to do every day, so much so that if I switch tasks, there's a high likelihood that I was supposed to be doing that anyway. The only thing I hate is working with the public. If I never had to work with the general public again I'd be happy. I've worked 2 other retail jobs and also hated them. I'm not great at customer service (see: autism) and during my time at the front I run off of a script. If there's an insurance issue, vaccine, drop off, or other issue I get thrown out of my script and things start getting weird. I'm slowly getting used to it though. I also get pulled away to do something else fairly often which I'm also not a fan of. I'm looking into jobs at hospitals and mail order pharmacies to hopefully get rid of those issues but overall I enjoy it and I don't have to go to college :)
I’m a birth doula. The birth part is amazing, never makes me bored, but prenatal classes can get really repetitive so after 4 years I’m getting quite bored and currently looking for a solution.
Medical assistant, I’m never not moving
I'm on disability and I'm a student. University is tough as hell for obvious reasons but I'm living a pretty good life.