Today I am officially unemployed. I just voluntarily left my office job. It’s the second job I’ve left in the space of 5 years. I’m sharing my thoughts on why I will not be looking back.
Neurotypical workplaces — are they built with neurodiversity in mind?
I can’t speak for all companies and workplaces, but these are just my thoughts from my observations and research.
1. Lack of neurodiversity awareness
There is a severe lack of understanding of neurodiversity. When diversity is discussed, neurodiverse people are often left behind in these discussions. This lack of understanding and focus means that everything from interviewing, on-boarding, managerial training, etc. does not even factor in any considerations for the neurodiverse person. If policies and procedures don’t factor in the differences in learning, speed of processing language or any other learning differences, then it could be quite challenging for someone who thinks or behaves differently to the majority of the workforce to be seen, heard, or even achieve their potential.
2. Lack of adjustments
Similar to how someone with dyslexia gets 25% extra times on exams, there should be adjustments put in place at work. Unfortunately because of the stigma surrounding learning “disabilities”, neurodiverse workers often hide it and managers normally do not know how to support neurodiverse workers. The hiding and masking can contribute to mental health issues such as anxiety.
3. Consistency in performance
The lack of flexibility of work roles makes it difficult for people to explore their strengths and weaknesses. Often when you apply for jobs, you are expected to know the strengths and have this aligned with the job description. However, things are changing and for neurodiverse people, the environment, the team, or even the lighting in the office can contribute to differences in performance. The focus on specialization means that there is really no room for flexibility and you are expected to show consistency.
4. The value of specialization and de-valuing of creativity
This may be specific to ADHD, but I often found the pressure to specialize was limiting. How the working world is set up, specialization is prized. However, for neurodiverse people, we are creative and often would like to explore and try other roles. The politics and bureaucracy of workplaces make it difficult to move around internally and explore different job roles. Workplaces are meant to be places where new ideas are celebrated but looking for work beyond your daily job role is frown upon.
Why am I not looking back?
1. Valuing my creativity
I found that I had new ideas all the time. Whether that was because a really mundane process was annoying me or certain ways of how companies did things felt so backward. I knew that my brain was always looking to ask questions that disrupted the status quo. I am now valuing my creativity more and focusing on projects that I feel like I can make a difference using my creativity
2. Recognising that the world of work is narrow
What I mean by this is that initially working can seem like the world is very big. But once you work in the company and start to specialize, your world can become smaller in that your time is dictated by your job role. Everything you do or read needs to help you with your work. The world becomes narrow. Once I started using my time to explore the world outside of work, I started to realize how big it was. There were many causes and passions I cared about. There were so many different types of people I can engage with. My world feels bigger now that I spend more of my time exploring what I want to explore.
3. Defining what success means to me
I’ve realized that at academic institutions and at work, success was defined by neurotypicals. So I no longer use that to measure how well I am doing. My definition of success is whether I have used my time to focus on projects and causes that I am passionate about.
Success isn’t defined by how much money I earn, whether I can buy a house or if I have a fancy title on my LinkedIn profile. I don’t care about any of that.
I care about using my time to make an impact on people. If I can achieve that then I am being successful.
I am privileged
Last thoughts… I am lucky to be in a position where I can walk away from an office job. My greatest fear in life had been not to have stability. My parents’ lives have been defined by instability and for me to walk away from what is perceived as stable is a privilege. I reconcile my feelings by being grateful for the choices I am allowed to have and hope that my time can be used to help others.
