There is a particular flavour of work story that autistic and ADHD people tell each other. It goes like this: You joined a company. You were brilliant. You fixed things. You improved systems nobody asked you to improve because you couldn’t stand watching them be broken. You stayed late. You said what nobody else would say in the meeting. You delivered. And then someone else got promoted. Or your ideas got rebranded as theirs. Or you burned out so badly you had to start over completely. Again. If this is your story, I want you to understand something important: You were not unlucky. You were targeted. Not consciously, in most cases. But targeted all the same. The office culture corporate machine is not designed to reward the most competent person. It rewards the person who navigates the unwritten social game with the least friction. And for us, that game was built without our brain in mind. That’s not an excuse. That’s the terrain. Know it or keep losing to it. The Good Dog Problem Here...
Autism. ADHD. Writing my experiences.