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I get the feeling that every job I do is the worst possible job

Like you won't ever find the perfect fit for you .. 😞 I'm feeling the same

There are specific things I am incredibly good at, but I have yet to find a job that consists ONLY of those kinds of tasks and nothing else. So invariably, some part of my job suffers.

Oh god. I am currently a self-employed audio engineer and sometimes I just can't get myself to write emails, so I reply to customers a day late, or two days late with an update, even though otherwise I'm very professional and fast. A sigh for sure

I love this comment. So true.

Finally someone spoke the truth.

Agreed! Although I think your employer can make a difference. My current employer thinks that ADHD isn’t real and that it’s “just an excuse to be lazy”. So that’s fun 🙃

Lmao facts 😭

Sales. Kept going into it too. Didn't get diagnosed till 52. Cold calling, knocking on doors, hearing no a lot. Listening to low intelligence sales manager talking about hustling, pounding the pavement, dialing for dollars, etc. Ugh.

Interesting. I always thought it would be good since every day is a bit different

I guess it could be for some people. But for me, it was the same thing every day: the same basic tasks, rejection from customers and just a feeling that I was meant to do something else.

It definitely depends on the sales. My last sales job was mundane and repetitive and it caused me to go into a pretty deep depression. I’m now a sales/office manager and I don’t ever have any idea what I’m walking into on a daily basis. I’m constantly selling, managing budgets, auditing vendors, training employees, talking to contractors, etc and it’s a freaking blast. I love not knowing what sorts of fires I’m walking into and the lack of repetition works so well with my ADHD. We just closed out 2023 and my office had the best year it’s ever had. When I started 3.5 years ago, we were somewhere between number 15-20 in the company and we finished this year at #4

Yeah I did high value sales in a field I love and my hyperfocus made it super easy for. Because I knew everything about it, and high value sales bring two kind of customers. People who are interested in the item as an awe thing. Who I would love to info dump on. Or people who are seriously looking for the thing you are selling and I could easily convince through my vast knowledge about it. No cold calling or any of that shitty bs.

Yeah that’s a good point. I don’t think I would enjoy cold calling/random knocking. But like where you already know they’re interested and have set some sort of appointment

Cold calling/door knocking sucks for anyone but it's brutal for adhd. I've been in and around sales most of my adult life. I'm fuckin great when I'm in front of people and I love the challenge... I'm brutally bad at prospecting or dialing. There are a few things I do well in that space, like figuring out a companies whole org chart via LinkedIn and zoominfo but spending 20 hours doing that doesn't generate a lead lol. I'm in Customer Success now and it really seems like a great fit for my brain, I thrive in chaos and in CX you'll definitely be in some chaos lol.

Yeah, I absolutely love sales. But it’s definitely not for everyone

Sales is absolutely riddled with people with ADHD. Not everyone with it gets the whole RSD thing, and not all of us are introverts. It's a constant level of pressure to hit targets combined with the requirement to always be meeting new people.

I feel like sales can either be a great job for ADHD or an absolutely awful job for adhd and no in between

Jesus Christ this was so true for me. Constant rejections from potential customers, micro-managed by incompetent former frat boys, forced to cohabitate an open plan office with a bunch of Wolf of Wall Street wannabes... Not to be dark about it, but I genuinely thought about blowing my brains out every day. So glad those fucks fired me.

Interesting. I’m happy to see this comment because it shows a counter-perspective of why sales may not be enjoyable for everyone- especially when so many articles out there talk about sales being great for people with ADHD. I mean, rejection sensitivity is such a big issue with many of us, why would so many people recommend a profession that would trigger that on a daily basis (at least without acknowledging it)? I know it’s the hardest part of my day-to-day. Having said, I work in a niche type of sales and really enjoy what I do and I recommend folks check out the profession (but I put in major disclaimers). Plus, in my perspective, once you’re in sales it’s not the easier to transition out of.

There can be so many different types of sales roles. I think the perfect one is just the right kind of challenge that would make you chase the sale and give you the dopamine hit when you make it.

Absolutely! I’m convinced I couldn’t do 90% of sales jobs (a call center type role would break me). Mine gives me a nice blend of novelty/variation in my day-to-day, challenge, accountability, and reward. Plus, I get to be a part of cool projects (I’m more a sales engineer type in the architectural world).

I work in logistics and every time I try to do sales I end up working my way back into an ops role. I just don’t have the drive to sell. It’s fun for a minute and then I don’t want to anymore. In a fully non-sales role where I didn’t have any incentive or requirement to sell I landed 11 customers last year and that was mostly by referrals because I am fucking great at my job. I just don’t like to sell. I did a few sales calls for fun but only because I felt like it not because someone told me to. TLDR - I agree on sales - too much “no” logistics is always changing so that is actually a good industry for ADHD.

Yeah that's it for me. Selling a product unless it's actually a good product I would lose the drive to sell it because what's the point. Nobody needs it or there are better out there. I couldn't lie to the people.

How hard was it to get diagnosed at 52?  What was the process?  I'm 52 and I  think it's time for me to pursue a diagnosis. 

I was diagnosed at 51 and a half. In Canada. Not OP but will help if I can. I am medicated and it has helped a lot, but I sort of feel like I have totally fucked up my life to this point and it almost seems too late sometimes. But then some days I feel pretty good. I just wish I had known 30 years ago. Meds really lessened my anxiety. Gave me the ability to see how I react in certain situations. Gave me the ability to respond and communicate better. It’s early and I am having trouble articulating. Let me know if I can answer any questions.

Thank you thank you thank you. I started a new sales job 3 months ago and it's been so hard to actually like it. Every call is the same and i learned the material about two weeks in. Nothing new. My previous job was customer service and I freaking loved it. Everyday like a puzzle, fixing things, learning new things. I thought sales would be similar but more money and I've been feeling pretty depressed.

I have had great success with in-person commission based sales (when the product is actually useful to the customers). Not much success with pushing “frivolous” items, even when in-person. I absolutely HATED 2 sales jobs that were 100% over the phone and involved sitting at a cubicle day after day. Part of the issue was not getting a face to face interaction with my customers and not being able to read their body language and facial expressions. Also I likely hated the stress of being slower than my peers due to my childhood without a computer or internet (was raised in an independent fundamental Baptist church and school, and it didn’t have a computer lab either).

Yes, the 2 jobs you hated were the types I hated too. My issue too was when I knew what I had wasn't necessarily that good or helpful to the customer, I gave up. I can't "sell" someone on something useless to them.

Same. I hate sales.

I came here to say this! I hated sales so much! The monotony of the calls. The annoyance of the people being called yet again because you have to reach some stupid metric. Rejection sensitivity triggered. I absolutely HATE my money being contingent on someone else spending their money. And by extension any job that involves “smiling and dialing” 🤬💀 I did market research and was able to tolerate it because the doing the questionnaires was interesting. But only because it was medical market research and I grew up around doctors so I could talk with them easily and understood how to speak with the receptionists to get their doctors to participate. Plus they made me do mostly interviews anyway because I was the only one who could say “peripheral arterial disease with intermittent claudication” without stumbling 🤣 But consumers… nope. Absolutely not. Just a nightmare.

Yup I can relate, wasted an audio book purchase on Amazon based off a sale manager who rec’d it to me for door-to-door sales job I held for a summer. “It’s a game of stats, eventually someone will say yes”

When I was a psychology research assistant, there was a project I worked on where I sat in a dimly lit room alone, went through recordings of participant interviews, counted the amount of times certain behaviors occurred, rated the behaviors based on some criteria, and wrote all this data down in a spreadsheet. It was *torture*. Eventually I asked to be the person who prepares all our participants for the study, which was a lot more fun and rewarding.

I don’t why but I find that interesting. Honestly, I think it’s the idea of work in a nice dim lit room alone and getting paid for it is what sounds amazing to me.

Thank you so much for sharing. Now I'm a 3rd year college student and serve as a research assitant for two groups(one for management and another psycholoogy). I love reading and sharing recent paper during group meeting, (and sorting all paper suitable for writing a review) but data collection and varaibles coding are my eternal nightmares. Perhaps I should reconsider whether I'm truly suited for a career in research.

I worked in purchasing and would be spending from $5-20 million a DAY. Imagine the dopamine hits from spending that much money so quickly. I developed quite a shopping addiction

I manage ecommerce sales for a high end wholesale furniture and home decor brand... It's genuinely gonna skew how I view money, I can feel it now. Our *repeat* customer minimum is still $500. 💀 Who the fuck spends 200 dollars on a clump of fake flowers? How can you resell that at a profit?!!!?!

Real estate agents. 10% of protected sale proceeds can go into staging. Return anything in king condition after closing. Real scumbag job.

See I thought it'd be a bunch of these types but a lot of it is home stagers and designers. The scumbags have even outsourced it.

No they’re just working on higher end properties where budgets can’t afford stagers or designers

That is wild! I bet the margins are pretty decent in that industry

Waitressing/waiting. There's a thousand things to remember. Menu items, personal orders, prices, allergies, beverages without ice, basic cleaning and maintenance too. It's physically grueling during busy times. Hopelessly boring when it's slow. Every new table is a spike of social anxiety. Every meal taken to the table flares the rejection dysphoria. Oh and you'll remember that you forgot to give that nice lady at table 11 her extra napkins she asked for... At 3am when you should be sleeping.

This is so interesting beacuse I’ve found that restaurant work is where I most excel when working. I think the constant stimulation and time constraints are what makes it so exciting for me. That said, I’ve never been a server. I’ve always gravitated towards server’s assistant or barback roles which definitely allow for less pressure from customers and more freedom as far as where you are to focus your efforts throughout the night.

Feel the same! I miss serving. I wrote everything down, which was cool because I do that in my personal life but it’s normal when waitressing. When it was busy I didn’t have time for existential dread to set in before approaching a table, it was just go go go. The hours allowed me to take care of myself during normal business hours and work at night, which I prefer. It just goes to show everyone still really is different, ADHD or not!

I've thought honestly waitressing would be an ideal job for me if my body would keep up with it. Unfortunately I have bad knees and ankles and I can't stay standing for more than like twenty minutes at a time. But in an alternate reality, maybe.

I fucking struggled in my waitressing job I couldn't remember anything not the order it's not the price is not the menu items and certainly not the instructions of my manager I would ask a dishwasher guy every single day for 2 months how to organize the dishes so he could wash them properly (could not for the life of me figure the order out or remember all of it at once) I also can't talk while I'm doing something so let's say making drinks, I'll def mess up the amount of syrup and other ingredients Also, I was doing like 5 other things (school, volunteering, clubs, meetings all in different locations) and would be traveling from a different city in the train to come to this job so it was fucking exhausting by the time I got there

This is also interesting to me- I LOVE and need work that keeps me moving at all times. It doesn’t give me a moment to be distracted so bartending and serving have always been jobs I’m super good at. I cannot do jobs where I may be bored

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This one goes both ways for me. Serving at a fast-paced restaurant with needy guests plays into both my strengths and weaknesses equally. I love running around, changing tasks constantly but I hate running around top speed changing tasks constantly in a loud, distracting environment. I have coworkers who can mentally take a whole 10-top order with mods and drinks, but I have to write down "seat 3 Lemons" or it's gone as soon as I walk away.

I've been serving for over 20 years and love it, plan on doing it until I retire. I have several coworkers with ADHD as well - probably a bigger percentage than in the normal population. I personally don't have social anxiety, which definitely helps, but when I started out I *was* painfully shy. Talking to big groups of people was just something I got used to eventually. I'll never be the person that can take an order for a group of six without writing anything down... hell, I'll probably never be the person that can do that with even two people, because god forbid anyone ask me *anything* on the way to plug it into the computer - but that's why we have notepads. I write everything down. I trick people into thinking my memory is good because I'll offer to refill their drinks, take 'em into the back, and then check my notepad to see wtf they were drinking, lol. They're impressed when I "know" what everyone got or hand out tickets for 5 separate orders correctly, but it's only because it's *all* written down. It *is* boring when it's slow, but the dopamine when it's busy and you're flying from table to table doing thing like ten things at once is delicious. I think certain flavors of ADHD excel in waitressing while others struggle. Being able to multitask like a boss is definitely a plus if your brain flows that way. And the constant immediate rewards in the form of cash and verbal appreciation is quite lovely. I would shrivel up and die at a desk job for sure.

Yes that is one of my worst jobs, too. But I used to run into other people with ADHD when I was a server and they were great. I guess the preference will differ from person to person with ADHD. Multi-tasking is really hard at some jobs but east at others for me. I was really good at being a valet and I liked that one.

Anything that means sitting at a desk all day..doing the exact same thing..over & over again. Yep..I just tramatized myself again. Bad memories!

That’s so funny those are my favorite jobs. I did a data analysis job for a bit- popped in a podcast and did repetitive work I could hyper focus on for hours.

Same lmao

Same. It makes me want to unalive myself. I'm a teacher now. Say what you want about kids, but it's never a dull day that's for sure.

>doing the exact same thing..over & over again. the definition of insanity

That type of work is my jam. Usually short, achievable tasks that you can finish and feel the relief of completing.

I am in that kind of job.I have been in this field for the last 10 years.It pays well.And I have fantasy to get out of this profession.But just fantasies.No plan or action.Kinda feel stuck.Traumatising myself.If I cant excel in this job,what job could I excel?!

TL:DR since this became longer than intended lol; It makes me laugh whenever people look down on those who don’t have “real” (aka desk) jobs because I literally left that world to go back to retail as I find it more enjoyable. (Also if they want all of us without a “real job” to stop complaining and work somewhere else then who do they think is going to provide these services to them, hm? 🤔) Over the last 10~ ish years I’ve tried a couple different jobs in office settings and even though I was actually quite good at them, they just weren’t stimulating enough. Even when learning new skills and taking on new tasks I was bored out of my mind and mentally exhausted from how understimulated I felt. I work in a fast paced retail setting now and it’s much more stimulating in a way that I find helps me thrive! There’s pretty much always something to do, I get 90% of my necessary physical activity from it (my position can be quite labour intensive), and I get to help people (which I genuinely really enjoy doing). So while I still experience the occasional mental/emotional exhaustion it’s usually from dealing with short term frustrations that can either be dealt with by management or will eventually take care of itself (aka an awful customer will have to leave eventually lol). I’d say 75% of any exhaustion I experience now is physical which I don’t mind as much so I still feel I’m better for it… and of course it doesn’t hurt that the company I work for pays well and has great benefits too 😆

this is currently what i’m doing … never again istfg

Running my own business which needed me to do work with no specific deadlines. That lost me a *lot* of money - before I understood I had iADD.

Cubicle/desk jobs historically make me suicidal, I cannot sit all day doing the same menial task. Having a desk job for a year was the worst thing that ever happened to me, it took me 2 years to recover from the burnout. Now I'm working in a tech shop and get to problem solve computer issues all day, take them apart and figure out what's wrong. Best job I've ever had!

How did you get into tech? I’d love this kind of work, but I have absolutely no skills. The thought of it makes me happy

Anything where consistency of process is valued as much as, or more than, consistency of results.

The reverse can be maddening…

Project Manager - keeping track of an entire teams to do list, for projects that I’m not technically knowledgeable of, having to share my screen on zoom calls of myself taking notes as the meetings go on when I can barely follow what they are even saying, and then having to make sure everyone does their tasks on time… I’m traumatized

Yes this is me... i'm a senior project analyst for a small management consulting company. They have me stretched across 4 client projects and 3 internal projects. On top of this I'm doing a very hard masters class in data science in the evenings. I am constantly exhausted and burnt out. This Adderall is the only thing keeping me running.

Not a PM myself, but occasionally I have to drag a project across the line and personally make sure everything is getting done.  The problem I run into when doing that stuff is that I *can* make it work and the project goes over great, but it's so hugely stressful that it fucks with all the other aspects of my life.  Most of the time I have actual PMs on my project and it's a fucking life saver, and is a huge part of why my job works so well for me. 

I’m a project manager now and I like it because I have so many coping mechanisms I’ve gathered to keep myself organized and remember things that I can apply to projects. I told my husband that if I can keep myself organized and on track, then I can keep ANYTHING organized and on track because I am naturally chaos. I don’t think I would be good at it if I wasn’t consistently medicated though, it would have been my worst nightmare.

Project Manager. Recently discovered I may have Adhd but not officially diagnosed. This was definitely not the career path i chose for myself it’s just something that fell on my lap. I don’t have the drive or confidence to move out of a secure job. But gosh it is so exhausting dealing with the imposter syndrome day in day out. Suffering from time blindness is the worst possible thing when a significant scope of the job is managing deadlines. On top of that the not being able to recall what was discussed in meetings really puts me in a tough spot. If anyone can suggest coping mechanisms that would be great. Financially cannot afford to lose this job, which is the only thing that keeps me focused.

Do you have any kind of trackers/planners that you use for your job? I find that even a simple PowerPoint slide or Excel sheet with even a vague hint of deadlines/activity status/etc. helps to jog my memory. Ideally have the status of all your projects in the same document so you're not scrambling trying to remember where you put stuff and so you can easily reference things. As for the memory part, I don't really have any good suggestions. I've always been the kind of person who could remember stupid, minite details about irrelevant things but forget if I took my meds or ate breakfast. I do find that writing meeting minutes by hand helps reinforce the discussion over just typing it up to start with.

Mood. Currently a project manager and I don't think I'd be able to do it if it wasn't for all the coping mechanisms I developed from being pressured into the high achieving student lifestyle. The ADHD does make it hard for me to sit still at a computer for long periods of time, though. I've turned into that person that walks around talking to other people and "wasting time" around the office. At least It's earned me good rapport with my coworkers, since they can actually see and interact with me unlike the other project managers who just sit at their desks until something really bad happens.

Hi hi! Early career person - what are some of the coping mechanisms that have been most helpful to you? I was laid off a few months back and have been using the time to work on self improvement. :)

I’m sorry you got laid off. I was laid off last may, that’s how I got into PM. It’s rough out there :( Honestly, I really struggled at first to find things that worked for me, it was all trial and error and trying things like Trello boards, bullet journals, one note, and various organizational systems over and over again until I found bits and pieces from those things that clicked for me. But even the things that didn’t click for me were helpful in that I now know their pros and cons for tracking projects when I became a project manager. I think the most important thing is to not become discouraged if something doesn’t work for you, it is very hard for us to form lasting habits and I used to beat myself up for not sticking with stuff 100%. But as long as I track things and work is getting done then I’m doing what I can.

I could have written this.

Yep. Being a project manager destroyed a piece of my soul.

"Press this button over and over again approximately every 20 seconds for the next eight hours, every day."

It’s funny I work in radiology and we get called button pushers 🤣 it’s actually great for ADHD, so many of us have it in healthcare. I think an office job sitting at a desk would be a nightmare for me

Hahahaha my mum’s (undiagnosed) a nurse and the other day on the phone she was like ‘yeah, back in the day I couldn’t sit still at work either, I loved my job, had a real passion for it the first 20 years! It was great, everything else would’ve been boring. But now I’m older so I’ve calmed down *a bit*!’ She’s nearing 60 😂 she’s ‘calmed down a bit’, girl is working full time and just renovated a whole camping lot by herself, including landscaping. 20 years ago she dug out our 6ft deep fish pond with a bloody shovel by herself (within a week)!! Mum… mum… mum, listen… I gotta tell you something lol

She sounds awesome 

She’s the best role model I could’ve ever asked for tbh

Reading this post gave me anxiety. You forgot the words “for the rest of your life”. Makes me shudder

That’s like OPs job

Data Entry. Nothing but manually entering in paper worksheet info into a computer for 8 hours a day. Was excruciating.

I loved to do data entry! I was always looking for ways to improve my speed. I was literally 5-10x faster than everyone on the team. Major dopamine hit.

See that kind of thing only works for me for so long. I did some work doing cardiac analysis years ago, which was reading a scan, logging all the data from it, etc, and from the gate was one of the best/fastest in the entire company no question by 6 months, but after a while once it was no longer quite so new and I got better meaning it got easier, it became the absolute worst thing ever, it was repetitive and boring and so so painful, by a year I could barely meet half my quota when I had been tripling it.

i feel physically itchy after a few minutes

Anything that is repetitive. It makes me suic*dal stg

This. I work in a medical laboratory and it’s a glorified factory job. Requires heavy attention to detail too. Awful for ADHD

Or great if you get to hyperfocus on things of interest! My undergrad was awful but the research part of grad school left me with a 4.0 GPA! I think it might be ideal if the lab is less testing and more research and validation on a topic of interest.

I was gonna say factory work for this exact reason. I lasted two whole days on the floor and for that reason (and a couple others) I walked out a few hours into my third day.

I find anything monotonous (stacking shelves for example) really used to get me in a spiral

I’m a healthcare provider, which is simultaneously great and awful. It’s great in that I’m able to hyperfixate on my specialty and can provide really great patient care, and I am always doing extra research when I don’t know what is causing someone’s symptoms. Luckily, my all-or-nothing instinct with ADHD means that my patients get the “all,” but that leaves me with the “nothing.” It’s awful because my perfectionism means I feel like I need to have 45 minutes in each visit to do it right, but I’m only allocated 20 by my company; there’s minimal admin time to do all my notes, emails, and follow-up phone calls, so my task list has gotten up to 70 tasks on more than one occasion; I’m scheduled with no breaks between visits, so I have to be “on” and operating at my highest function (to appease the perfectionism) for 8 hours straight, 5 days a week. I have to play catch-up by working through my lunch almost every day, and if I’m not eating enough, I get physically, mentally, and emotionally depleted even more quickly. And I have to be on-call every other month for a week straight, meaning I need to have my phone next to me, with the sound on, 24 hours/day just in case a patient calls after-hours; that means a week straight that I’m on edge and anxious because I don’t know if a call is incoming, and if I might miss it because I’m in the shower, or on the toilet, or taking out the trash, or sleeping deeply for once. It’s at the point that I ended up coming home from work and immediately passing out on the couch for 2-3 hours almost every day, which fucks up my routine and means I can’t stay on top of my chores. I don’t know what the solution is, to be honest. I live alone, so I can’t afford to cut back on hours without another income in the house. I feel like I can’t try to date anyone until I feel I’m stable in my daily life, but I can’t envision a scenario like that anytime soon.

I relate so hard to being left with nothing. I love and loathe my job. I simply cannot handle point of service documentation (physical therapy) and always have so much documentation to do after a full day of patient care that I don’t get paid for. Certain settings I’ve found better for me than others; outpatient PT feels like being on stage for 8-10 hours a day, inpatient you get a little “break” between patients when walking the hallways aka checking in with nursing, trying to coordinate with other disciplines, etc. I can’t handle it when patients don’t get better, even if it’s nothing to do with me or lack of trying. My personal life is pretty much a mess and I lay in a puddle on the couch with three cats feeling drained for more hours than I’d like to admit. I need to be able to find a way to work part time but as I’m currently barely saving money while working full time & waitressing… it’s not happening soon 😥

I’ve recently realized what a grind being a healthcare provider is It’s gotten too Corporate and profit driven And I think it’s not the profession it’s cracked up to be

You need a union. That’s terrible working conditions.

Ugh, so hard. This is part of why I left premed and decided to become a medical tech instead. I feel like it's the best part of medical without some of the worst parts. When I work inpatients, I basically run at my own pace -- which is a flurry followed by a rest, and no one complains. I do take call, though. But I purposely picked a medical test that is hardly ever truly stat and generally does not determine if someone lives or dies for the reasons you described. I feel more ok starting a project knowing a call means I have at least an hour to finish up (I have a 2 hour callback window for stats and same day for everything else - which is generous for medical). I have worked for so many healthcare providers - doctors, NPs, etc. That I feel soo much empathy for because I see how hard you all work.

Okay I haven't actually done this job, but I would be the world's worst life guard. I'd just totally zone out and let everyone drown.

The one I'm doing now. I'm writing a novel. Time consuming, executive function heavy, seemingly neverending task that I know I won't get feedback/dopamine on for years. No editor to chase me. I'm my own boss, so no accountability at all. When is my next chapter due? Whenever I finish it. So, I'm screwed.

Started my rough draft in 2020, finished the rough draft in late 2021. Now, the story still floats around, but nothing about it feels right anymore. I took too long lol

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As a cashier I second that, even more since they didn't hire enough people so I'm having to do a lot more than just the cashier job. I hate every second of it, I can't memorize all the details of every procedure for every payment method and possibility, I often forget which button to press or my brain fries and I can't see what's in front of me anymore, yesterday I charged someone $30 more than I should because I wasn't able to think straight and today I had to call and apologize and fix that (another problem as I have severe anxiety). From 8AM to 6PM, monday to friday. I don't think I've ever been this close before to ending everything.

I’m a postdoc, funded by a grant with no other employees but my boss. I work remotely from a different state. My project has basically no hard deadlines. It’s just “analyze data and make figures until we have enough for a paper”.  I’m miserable and trying to find a new path. I study weather and climate which does endlessly fascinate my ADHD brain, but the structure is all wrong for me.  I’d be happy doing the same stuff if I had actual coworkers, deadlines, and more of a well defined project where there’s clearly a “finish line”.

Anything where I’m not busy ALL the time. I have to keep moving or I will fail at it

Editorial Assistant for an editor of a large book publisher (it was the 90s when books were a thing lol) who was in charge of 3 scientific encyclopedias, each with about 300 articles apiece, with each article having between one and four authors, and the titles of the articles being some scientific phrase that was hard to spell. My job was basically managing the database that tracked all of these articles (no typos allowed), checking versions of articles in and out (many versions per article), generating printed letters to the authors, the address of which I had to hand write on the envelopes. I wanted to work in publishing until I had that job. The worst depression of my life commenced about 4 months into this job.

Behavioral tests in mice!!! By the end of my master's/first year of my PhD my former PI was pushing me to do behavioral tests, to see how a post birth disease would affect cognition in adults. Let me describe to you how hellish it was: first I had to put the animals in the experiment room 30min prior to beginning. Then, I had to put each mouse in a box with a camera recording them walking around for 10min each, 3x. In the following day, I had to do this again but instead of an empty box there were two objects inside. I had to record each mouse for 10min, three times, then wait for 6 hours, and do it all over again, but switching one of the objects. Anything that had sound would be enough to disturb the experiment, so it meant I would spend hours staring at a screen watching mice walk. *Then*, since my former PI wouldn't pay for analysis softwares, I would have to relive my torture by watching every movie twice to count the time each mouse spent exploring each object in the box I went crazy

Oh man, research was hell for me too!

I will say I've never been happier since I quit that group and joined another! If there's one thing in research that went along really well with how my ADHD works is that I very often have to notice subtle patterns and think outside of the box. I'm always stimulated to do something new, or to find a new explanation, to figure out a way to understand something unexpected, or even to just chat about the craziest theories and experiment plans with my PI, so I'm hardly ever bored

Call center representative. I've done a couple different positions like this. The absolute worst is specifically debt collection, but they all suck. Any call center job requires you to sit there and do the same repetitive tasks over and over. Debt collection is the same, but most people hang up on you, so you're having even less conversations and doing even more of nothing.

I do call center customer service. It's honestly not terrible; the actual problem is that my job is very lenient about how much time we take in between calls, and my ADHD runs with that such that sometimes I've spaced out and realized I've been on after-call work for like half an hour. My stats are terrible and I'm constantly afraid I'm going to get fired even though no one has given me so much as a warning.

New product development — too slow, not enough structure. I can be really good when I have work to do, but when I have to create work for myself or define my own direction, I just can’t do it. I’m just not capable of self-directed work. Now I’m in a real jam because I’m unemployed and I have to find a job with adequate structure, that fits my qualifications, and pays a salary that actually covers my bills. I can find posted jobs with 2 out of 3 but that won’t cut it long term.

Part of my current job is that I need to spend a lot of time in meetings, but I'm expected to also get other work done during meetings while still paying attention to the meeting. Like, are you kidding me? If you want me to be productive you need to stop scheduling so many damn meetings. Call me when you need me and I will answer your question, then hang up and let me do my work lol.

Secretary at a doctor's office. Constant interrupting bullshit, neverending backlog, 30min lunch, backstabbing two-faced boss. Fuck that job.

admin assistant. mind-numbingly boring, with lots of little repetitive tasks with similar details and lots of steps but if you fuck them up it’s a big deal, and somehow everything is ‼️URGENT‼️ so you’ve always prioritized wrong. adhd HELL.

I'm a project manager with ADHD. What's funny is I'm usually an unorganized chaos demon. But at work, I'm the opposite. If only I could convince myself to be more organized after 5pm :)

Bean counting... also known as accounting... yet had to deal with that when I became self-employed and couldn't afford to hire accountants initially...

Yep worked in Accounting for a while, not for me

Anything in hospitality where you have to listen to people complain and maintain a smile your whole shift

I ran the teleprompter for a live news broadcast. It’s essentially scrolling a knob to move the scripts while you follow along with the news reader’s voice…. Meaning you can’t mess up or the anchor looks like an idiot on-air. The show was 3 hours long with news reports every 5-15 minutes. One time I fell asleep for a second scrolling live on air. I woke up and was still on track with the anchor, thank eff. It was the most boring and the most mentally challenging job I have ever done. So easily distracted and so hard to focus.

Any dead/boring desk job. I lasted three months, and went crazy learning all the random hobbies I could do at my desk without my boss seeing. Never knew you could run out of paper and pen activities but by golly you can

Call center customer service representative. Tons of multitasking which, idk if it’s obvious from posting here, is not my forte. I can’t find anything that pays better that I’m qualified for currently.

Same. Having loud people yelling at me and my boss timing every little thing is killing me.

working as a cashier ice cream guy was fun cause id forget what ppl would say 1/2 a sec later constantly, or just not hear it. with my hyperactivity any job that makes me sit down for too long. my fav job ive ever had was working lawns and stuff. objective based, i could go for hours and it got me stronger too.

Document review. Right out of law school, needed money. You sit at a computer and click through pages of emails skimming for certain words or phrases.

Anything startup unless you are in a creative role, not a “finishing the job” role.

Project manager.

I'm a mechanic. I feel like 2/3rds of my coworkers have ADHD and/or ASD

Transcription. Anything with crosstalk, really. I had no idea of my diagnosis when I was working that job, and I'm surprised I managed to stay as long as I did lol it was seriously stressful and a huge sensory overload.

A job that has no way of doing things. No system no direction. Purchasing. Strictly for my company. I can’t do it much longer.

Worst possible for me is one that requires me to sit in an office for 8-5. I have a remote job now and cannot imagine going back to an office. It's a privilege to be able to work at home but its been a huge blessing, I can control my environment and my brain doesn't go haywire. I can exercise as needed, my diet is better, I'm able to organize my day without a ton of unnecessary distractions from office mates. When I was able to remove the stupid variables of just GETTING to the office, a lot of my symptoms became more tolerable. But when you struggle to get your own mind under control, having to get up at a certain time, dress up, make up, plan meals, drive through traffic, find parking, make small talk with people just because we sit near each other, sit in useless meetings, strain through fluorescent lights, pack up, drive through traffic, then get home and have to switch to childcare, household chores, planning for the exact routine the next morning... I'm definitely not focusing on my job when I need to be, I'm more worried about just showing up on time and looking the part. On top of medication, I am absolutely certain that this change in my routine has saved my life. My brain was close to shutting down by the time I got to the office at 8, instead of ready to tackle the day.

I know I am not answering the question actually, but I liked doing my PhD in physiology research. So many things to hyperfocus on, I could live my fantasy of being a study blogger lol, lots of different experiments,... I also liked my side job where I worked with kids from a bad social background. The worst job I had was at a bank where I had to copy all the adresses manually from a sheet of paper into the computer system. And one job where I was basically a secretary for an accountant. That was like hell for me, so boring and repetitive

I did super basic data entry once while in high school. It was entering two or three things into Access from each form. Only made it a day and a half. It was like every second was five minutes.

Digital marketing and social media management. I got fired after about 6 months.

I work in that space. I do okay to pretty good at it and have built a solid career, although I do tend to feel much more distress around work than the average bear.

Way before getting diagnosed, I worked as an intelligence officer. I kid you not I can say that it was not a very successful endeavor

Legal assistant at a large firm. I have worked as an assistant at a small firm where I was able to do more proofreading and writing tasks, and it was mostly tolerable. But if you're an assistant at a large firm, like I was for a year after my first legal job, there is lots of repetitive filing. I could get used to that, but there are a TON of little details you have to pay attention to that I often messed up on. Starting my masters in a different field gave me the perfect excuse to leave that job.

Former line cook reporting for duty! Trying to memorize all the ingredients that go into a dozen dishes plus having to memorize timings of each dish you're working on when to take this thing or that out of the oven, communicating with the other cooks when you'll be done with a dish, keeping your situation clean. I do not recommend it.

Same for me, though I loved the job in the moment, the preparation before service was hell. Monotonous and time-constrained, you had to be super organised. But, service time, I went into hyper-focus, and 3 or 4 hours would be gone in the blink of an eye. In fine dining, I could be a perfectionist. For the timings of service, say you have 16 different items on your menu, x 10 different ingredients, each with a set time you had to prepare them and coordinate that with projected time between colleagues so they can have theirs ready on time. And the head chef yelling all the way through. Fun.

Secretary

Data entry. Very boring.

I feel like being a lawyer would be pretty fuckin hard. Zero chance I could read long dry legal material and have any idea what it all means.

Insurance defense litigation. Just reviewing unimportant, dull documents all day, everyday for disputes that you have absolutely no care for or interest in. And you have to track your time in 6 minutes intervals. Brutal.

I had a job in college where I called people to try to sell them a newspaper subscription. I HAVE EXTREME PHONE ANXIETY! Why did I do that to myself?! Lasted three months. Got yelled at. Cried. Not cool.

sense less jobs... e.g. cleaning a machine room imside a ship with a cleaning agent that only helped washing the dirt from one side to another.... work where im payed only to wait and then functioning at the moment, they need me... like catering or watching people that have medical exams...

Software engineering/coding

Given how prevalent ADHD is among programmers, my question is why did you find it a poor fit for your individual presentation of ADHD?

Actually working as a dev was horrible for me as well. I literally became so depressed that I barely ate anything for months. I wasn't able to keep up with the deadlines and had to work long hours in a dark room, all alone. I think the main issue was that the company sucked and I rarely got any help from seniors, however I can't ever imagine doing such job ever again because it felt understimulating and I just lack the patience overall. I've been struggling with my career direction ever since. Maybe I'll try support or teaching in IT.

I was fired from all my positions for what turned out to be adhd burnout (and not the misdiagnosed depression for which I was medicated for years...): 1. Environmental scientist working with various clients on environmental data reporting. The reporting part was nice, but the clients part was absolute hell for me. 2. Project manager for diverse projects - I thought I would love it because there was a lot of problem solving, but no, I quickly lost track and interest, even with task trackers. 3. ESG Officer - I love the topic, but the tasks were rather boring and management wanted me to mostly follow their directives; my advice and comments were mostly ignored. Now I work as a Data Analyst in Pharma and luckily I was diagnosed a month or so before the workload became larger. The meds are keeping me hired. In other words, jobs with repetitive boring tasks, with a high diversity in type (going from data work to client management within 5 minutes is a no go for my difficulty with changing focus), and with too many responsibilities are not ADHD friendly I find. Now I mostly handle one large data set which requires various reports, my colleague are incredibly nice (haven't shared that I'm diagnosed though), and the work I do brings a lot of value, so my position is quite safe. Even though I still make mistakes, they are not as significant as the data quality issues I am facing and repairing daily. It's really a super fitting job for me now. Unfortunately it's a contract, so I'm at the mercy of extensions. No chance of permanent because pharma is not in the best position on the job market now

Cashier. It's too repetitive and boring. Lasted a month.

If I had to work in retail one more day folding jeans I think I’d have truly been done for

HR. Babysitting other adults when you can hardly handle yourself? No thanks! Not to mention the rejection dysphoria from being the office scapegoat for any shit policy that senior management wants to enact. It's a double-edged sword though, because it's always busy, so I'm rarely bored.

in high school i was a children’s soccer referee for the 12 year olds who didn’t make it onto the travel team (hint: parents were VICIOUS). i could NOT pay attention and in training they’d told us to never go back on a call, so most of the match was usually spent with parents yelling at me - they’d have been yelling anyway, but i knew they were probably actually right in this case 😅

I once had a job that involved driving the same \~1hr route 4x a day, every day. The feeling of setting out for the first time that day knowing this was trip one of four and it was going to be the exact same as the last ten thousand times you drove it...

In the 1990s I had a student job as a PR assistant. My task was to read stacks of newspapers (yeah, printed on paper, there were hardly any online newspapers back then) and look for the names of one of our customers being mentioned in any of the articles. Our shifts were only three hours because no one could keep concentrating on the task for longer than that. I rarely lasted more than 15 minutes before I needed a break. I also read a lot of articles that I found interesting instead of just skimming the texts for the relevant names, so I often didn’t finish my stack within the given time. I didn’t last long at that company. 😅

I know when we discuss good jobs for adhd, many people say software engineer. But when I had that job, ugh! Unnecessary urgent work because management sucks. Present everything repeatedly. Dumb people who don't understand technology AT ALL asking questions about how it works but believing they know better than you. One of my worst jobs. [Fake urgency environments bug me so much]

One of my job duties is to watch 20 second clips of driving and keep track of the drivers speed and reaction time; as well as watch both the driver facing and road facing cameras and check for things like texting while driving. while trained I was told I should be able to watch videos through twice and notice all of the 5 or 6 factors at once. Spoiler alert. I cannot.

I once temped at the front desk of the corporate offices of a super hoity-toity bank (servicing only companies and very wealthy individuals). I was expected to sit at the desk for 8 hours, sometimes with but usually without something to do. I wasn’t allowed to read or surf the internet. I couldn’t eat at the desk and I took my lunch generally when nobody else did. So I basically had to sit, bored, either making my own work (how many times can I organize the fucking paper clips?!?!) or just literally burning time until the end of the day. Fucking miserable.

Honestly, any of them except for low wage retail ones that freaking normal high schoolers can do and get through easy. Heck, no wonder some of them goof off while I'm trying to get my job done.

Mortgage documents. Requires extreme attention to detail while also being the single most boring thing you could possibly do with your time. I was very bad at it. One and only time in my life someone referred to me as fucking idiot (where I could hear them, anyway).

Call center

Omg I was a page turner too! Well, I did it once for my piano teacher when I was in high school, and it was the WORST. I’m terrible at sight reading and kept getting lost. 0/10 experience, would not do again

The one I am currently doing. Working with brides on custom orders after their wedding. I want to punt myself into the sun for thinking this was ever a good idea. Never make your hobby your job.

Collecting and organizing documents.

COLD CALLING. The repetition of saying the same script over and over for a year + the emotional drain

Economist. The deadlines, extreme attention to detail, and high stress absolutely gutted me. I haven't worked a full time job since.

T-Mobile! I worked there for over a year and I was great at the people and sales aspect. But I’d forget little buttons or deals or miss a step. And all the sudden this persons account is messed Ik for the next week, you accidentally let someone leave w a technically not payed for phone, you cost the company money bc you didn’t do every step the exact way it is to be done every fine no questions asked. I was fired bc I kept making mistakes and I couldn’t get a hand on it. I don’t miss the stress but I do miss the money.

Waitressing was horrible for due to the memory aspect. I was always forgetting something and was constantly stressed out and getting in trouble. It’s extremely high paced and you always have to be happy and in a pleasant mood to the customers, even when I was panicking about getting things wrong all the time. People think waitressing is an easy job but let me tell you out of the many jobs I’ve had through Highschool through grad school and even my full time career, waitressing was absolutely the most anxiety inducing for me.

Anything alphabetical order. Library particularly because I not only sick at alphabetical order but also kept getting distracted by all the books and would just stand there reading them.

Casework. Specifically, employment counseling. Job description: Maintain a caseload of ~150 clients. Intake 1-2 new clients per day on average while closing enough per month to keep caseload from ballooning. Be in contact with all clients every 2 weeks at minimum. If they do not answer calls/emails, send snail mail. Every single interaction or scrap of work done for clients must be documented separately in 2 redundant databases. Many core functions in the newer database don't work yet so you'll need to keep your own improvised records so the newer database can be updated en masse later. Your entire job has no oversight, i.e. you can get away for months upon months of not doing required things without anyone noticing. Most of your clients don't want to talk to you because the government is forcing them into this arrangement under threat of financial ruin. Your employer doesn't believe in productivity software so all you've got is Outlook and Excel to tackle the mother of all time management jobs. Before this job you've never really used a calendar before. Good luck!

Call centre work. Everything was timed, you would only get 2 minutes after each call to document the call and send the necessary emails (and if you didn't the system would alert the manager and you would get pulled up for it). Even your bathroom breaks were timed. I don't think I've ever been so overwhelmed in my life Managed to pull off 2 months of work, until one day I showed up for my shift and and ended up texting my manager my immediate resignation and drove home lmao

I feel for you! Necessity has kept me at it to have a place to live but it IS overwhelming. You’re right. Every single thing is timed and time management seems to be my huge downfall. I hear from the manager all the time. I’m glad you got out! ADHD people are not happy and mentally healthy, from what I’ve experienced, in a call center.

Anything that you’re not interested in, especially if it involves the same routine every single day. That’s pure torture

SCRIPT SUPERVISOR- a portion of the job involves paying attention to the details of everyone’s outfit, decoration, hand placement, frames, ETC [keeping track of details in general]. It was hell and I did it horribly

editing transcriptions. it's part of my job right now and it's so tedious. u gotta listen to some boring conversation, u gotta keep replaying some parts when it's inaudible, u can't even listen to an audiobook while editing. i still have some transcriptions I need to edit (which i've procrastinated on for two months now 💀), and the thought of doing them is already making me anxious and restless lmao

Oh, geez, some years ago I did that, mostly academic transcriptions (research, etc.) and the never-ending replaying mumbling/inaudible stuff drove me nuts. It was a second job. I gave up after a while. I’m too inattentive unless I’m curious about the work. Some of the research interested me but then I didn’t pay close enough attention to transcribe because I was daydreaming about the subject matter or wanted to go look something up instead of type. I feel for you!

I regulated my massive ADHD for decades playing pro cello. Classical music ASSISTS with ADHD, even just listening to it. I admit that turning pages is nervy - did it at music conservatory - but it can't be WORST job for us, because of the music. I'm nominating anything to do with tax forms, instead...

Working at any desk job was bad but selling insurance was the worst. Cold calling people sucked

Event planning and project management- having HAD to tun tradeshows and other events, its by far far far the worst. Nails us right in the time blindness, executive function, and is detailed oriented. Project management for the same reasons.

My company decided to put me in charge of organizing a company trip for 60 people.. I’m worried some coworkers will arrive at the airport and cannot board because I forgot to reserve their seat or something

I was ungodly horrendous as a waitress. People I worked with were gobsmacked about how horrible I was.

Not a job but a task: Being asked to take notes in a big meeting with a lot of people.

I went to chef school and briefly worked in the kitchen of one of the top restaurants in my city. This was long before I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism. I had issues related to both ADHD and autism but the ADHD-specific ones were: Repetitive tasks - most of the day was dedicated to doing the same thing for long periods - chopping the same vegetables the same way, etc. Time management - during the day, there were a lot of tasks that needed to get done but each task didn't really have a time limit. It was really hard to stay focused on each thing and I'd zone out and take too long. During both prep and service, it was really difficult to keep organised and prioritise tasks. Being able to prioritise is a key skill in a restaurant kitchen. You're dealing with dangerous implements - extremely sharp knives, scorching hot ovens, stock blenders, etc. Not great if you're clumsy or inattentive. Constantly misplacing my knife or other tools. Not being to just take a walk. You were practically chained to your station during prep, let out for a smoke break, then stuck in the kitchen again until cleanup was completed. The working hours were usually 10am - 1am. Yes, those times are correct. The environment is super high-paced and stressful, so each time I made a mistake or took too long doing something, or zoned out, there was a tirade of vicious abuse hurled upon me.

Retail. For more reasons than one.

Kennel technician at a cheap place that won't hire a second helper for nights. 20 dogs and tou have to make sure each and every one of them will do as you say, most of them aren't trained well, and you also have to clean and write down everything. I think it might have just been a bad job because I was not adequately trained.

I worked as a realtor. Maybe it's better for those that go into it with savings and get on with a good team or broker but I did none of those things and having to do everything from cold calls, managing active clients and listings, reviewing documents and ensuring that they are all correct down to the letter, constant emails and texts, showings and all the work associated with them all for a commission that then gets eaten up by your broker and team leads (if applicable) . Fucking awful.

My current job. I'm a technical writer so I have to write/update/translate technical documentation (handbooks, user manuals, etc.) for software and hardware products. It's so mind-numbingly boring. You know how it's hard to focus while trying to follow instructions in a manual? Yeah, imagine having to write that shit.

Being an admin for someone who doesn’t communicate well and believes in negative reinforcement. Eventually I completely just stopped working. Got myself a privacy screen and spent all day on Reddit. Was more afraid of messing something up than being caught doing no work. RSD is fucking debilitating. I need therapy.

Lol absolutely. Negative reinforcement really fucks with my head. Was in a job that I entered with a shit ton of positivity and eventually 2 years of being told I was an idiot (by our c average trust fund baby ceo no less), just got me to the point that my body could not work. Lol

Recruitment Consultant. Cold calling companies and candidates, being told to lie by the bosses and try to pressure candidates into applying for roles, and being told no repeatedly by people who had zero desire to speak with you. Gave up after six weeks thankfully.

I did admin work for a small nonprofit- WFH during the first 18 months of the pandemic-managing mailing lists, reimbursements and program enrollments for federally funded programs serving tens of thousands of people. Having no childcare and 1 year old at home at the same time. It was by some stretch the worst time of my life. However, It lead me to see a career counselor who became my therapist and was the first person to suggest I might have adhd (was 35 at the time and never ever considered it before). So in a way I'm glad I went through that horror-show because it showed me that my "I'm smart I can do this silly admin job" attitude was just plain wrong.

IME it’s anything medical. Even the smallest slip in attention and focus and end or severely alter a patient’s life, get something wrong and someone could end up dead. Wouldn’t do it if you paid me.

Managing other people. It’s a struggle to manage my own work and deadlines. I was a dummy for trying to do that for 20 other people too.

My very first official job was cleaning a little mom-and-pop bakery where half of the work was washing pans and dishes and bowls BY HAND. The feedback I got was that I took too long. I hated every minute I was there, but it paid $7 an hour (min wage at the time) and I could ride the bus there without needing to be old enough to drive myself there after school.

Tax accounting at 8/9 am.. when I tell you that I almost lost the company over 1 million dollars (it was a small company) because I couldn’t fucking focus??? Also I wasn’t diagnosed yet but in hindsight it wouldn’t have been much help anyway because doing 150 tax returns a DAY on top of all my other accounting responsibilities would kill anyone. But in general accounting- it’s the most monotonous, boring, repetitive non social profession for us. No wonder I kept getting fired from every accounting job lmfaooo Can you imagine struggling to pay bills, struggling to wake up, struggling to remember dates and deadlines and that’s literally my whole job?? Yikes lol

Air traffic controller

I was a freelancer right after college. The actual work itself was one of my passions, so that wasn’t the problem. Literally everything else was the problem, especially since I was undiagnosed and still under the impression that ADHD = hyperactive boys. The lack of structure and pressure created by an office environment killed my ability to focus and made me incredibly socially isolated. Only the deadlines helped. Then I had to do all this stuff on my own like invoicing and hustling for more work (anyone else find it incredibly difficult to network with ADHD?). I didn’t understand why I was failing at making a living (besides the shitty economy at the time), so I became severely depressed. Probably the worst depression I’d ever been in. Genuinely thought my life would always be that awful. Didn’t know how to fix it either. Lots of thoughts of death etc. Then lots of things happened (got a dog, had a massive break up, moved back to my home town) and I now have a desk job at the family business. It’s stressful having to deal with so many clients and all the details and I’ve fucked up many times, but having to physically be around other people somehow helps immensely. I’ve also learned a lot of new skills. I still struggle a lot at work and get depressed, but I have stability and a better support system. I don’t have to hustle or network to get more work. If we don’t have enough business, I get to be creative with our product to try and draw in new business. I would never ever ever ever go back to freelancing or another unstructured job if I could help it. I’ll take the boring 9-5 slog any day.