I took the summer off while waiting for my board exam results and did one very long day of work at a horse vet clinic I had volunteered at the summer before. They weren't hiring as they are a small clinic but needed extra help for the 4 surgeries a specialist was coming in from New York to do that day. It was long and tiring (an 18hr day) but it was with horses so it was fun.
I then still felt not sure if this was what I wanted to do and ended up missing out on another horse vet opportunity at a race track. There are not many horse clinics around here and most are not hiring. I decided to upgrade and practice my small animal skills and volunteered at a small animal clinic where a teacher of mine from the vet assistant program worked as a tech. I volunteered there for about half a month before they hired me because they needed another tech.
This is where everything turned into a nightmare with lots of stress and anxiety. This job was pulling out all of the ADD things in my life that I guess I never either learned to cope with or had to cope with before or was triggering these things in different ways because the job wasn't really that structured. I also believe that since I never told anyone about the ADD that that didn't help either because some of those traits were pet peeves of my boss and some coworkers.
Stress and anxiety caused my learning to slow down and it just spiraled from there. I almost quit twice and was about to start looking for a new job when many changes started happening around the clinic with people coming and going and even with the building having some changes being done. In the middle of these changes and restructuring of the clinic I ended up getting laid off and am currently looking for a Job again. This time something less stressful preferably.
While I was going through all of this I thought the world was ending and everything was a complete disaster. It turns out that being laid off was the best thing that happened to me. I have been able to reflect back on things that happened at work and pick out bits and pieces of what went wrong for me with my ADD here and there and am trying to learn from it. I am also currently trying to learn more about ADD in general as well myself.
Things I know I did that I need to work on.
- Dealing with change and transition - in general and in high stress and emergency situations where I tend to just blank
- When people tell me I am making excuses and I don't believe I am (I believe I am giving a reason for why something happened) I must realize there was something possibly in there that might have or have not done that I could have fixed.
- Trying even harder then I already am to not interrupt people
- Lists and writing everything said to me down definitely helped a lot - must remember this
- Get better at dealing with people in general especially difficult people
- Try not to be overly emotionally sensitive to criticism (this has always been hard for me and often affects my whole day and mood)
- Try not to always talk so much all the time
- try not to always be so shy right off the bat
- believe in myself
I want to in someways help other people with ADD but first I decided the best way I could help them is to educate other people about it first. That being friends and family to start.
I honestly think that by not telling your employer about your ADD in advance that it likely did have an impact on your employment there. It's not something easy to bring up - but at the same time, there are advantages and disadvantages to your issues and a good employer will take that into account and (hopefully) try to put you in positions that will use the strengths you have, while hopefully still challenging your weaknesses in a positive way.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those questions that is often asked at the interview stage: what are your weaknesses and what are your strengths? By informing your employer in advance, that gives them time to prepare for what challenges lie ahead (if any). And if, after informing your prospective employer, they don't do anything to help then it might not be worth working for them ;).
First of all I didn't ever have an interview at this place because I started out volunteering. I handed in my resume after I was already hired. Up until starting this blog only very close family and very close select group of friends ever knew I had ADD and up until recently I liked it that way.
ReplyDeleteWith this job there were way more issues going on then just my ADD stuff which did however play a big role. I do not want to talk about these other issues with the job however in a public place like this as it would not be appropriate.
Working in an animal clinic as an AHT means you are basically a nurse for animals they cant move you around to more appropriate positions in order to take in weaknesses or strengths especially when the clinic is very very small with I think at one point max staff of 7 people and me being one of two techs.
In this case I do not think having let my employer know that I had ADD would have been beneficial at all. It wouldn't have changed her opinions or her points of view or made anything really better because that is the way she is.
I used to have an issue with interrupting people too - I think I was overly worried that I would never have a chance to be heard or I would forget what I wanted to say if I didn't get it out quickly...then I took a support group training course to learn how to lead groups of kids and a huge part of that training was reflective listening.
ReplyDeleteDuring our exercises, we literally weren't allowed to say ANYTHING original. We had to nod, say, "Uh-huh", rephrase what we'd heard for clarification or we could ask a short clarifying question. It was really hard to learn but it made a huge difference in my life.
I'm not sure if learning more about reflective listening would help or not but I thought I would mention it in case the idea interests you.
That sounds interesting. Some days I am terrible about interrupting, other days I am aware I am about to do it and try sooo very hard to hold in the thought until a spot opens up. I always feel like I am going to burst when I do that. At least I do know I do it which is better then not knowing it at all.
ReplyDeleteTrue. Sometimes I cross my fingers to remember a thought - it helps usually; other times I just feel like an idiot with crossed fingers :)
ReplyDelete