The Cost of Being Invisible: Dis-Inclusion's Toll on Neurodivergent Employees | Hacker News Reader

The Cost of Being Invisible: Dis-Inclusion's Toll on Neurodivergent Employees

workdesign.com

23 pointsMilnerRoute11 comments

Ive got a pretty intense ADHD. This article is vaguely offputting to me. I think it makes it out to be that neurodivergent people need to be baby’d in some way.

From my perspective, I think neurodivergent people can’t stand doing things without purpose. A lot of jobs are truly meaningless, dull, uninteresting, especially in the office space. People with ADHD and ASD should not be doing these jobs. You need to find your strengths and interests and work towards that. You should never work a job that you deep down think is bullshit as a ND individual, this is the equivalent of a death sentence. Find something you are passionate about and you can do better work then any normie no matter how loud or fluorescent the office is.

> neurodivergent people don't need to be babied

> neurodivergent people need to be given work that they like, unlike normies who should just suck it up

hmmmm

Let's not pretend normies don't come with their own demands.

The thing is probably just that neurodivergent people dislike different things differently, this can be bad or good, you just need to find the right task for the right person. But you need to do that anyways if you want to get things done well.

That is something I say as someone with an assistant who has ADHS.

> hmmmm

neurodivergent people need to DO work they like. Not sure how you misunderstood my comment to that extent

> A lot of jobs are truly meaningless, dull, uninteresting, especially in the office space.

If AI lives up to the hype, it will kill most jobs that aren't "meaningless, dull, uninteresting." Shareholders will realize more value if the engaging and creative work is done by mindless AI, and minded humans are relegated to boring monitoring tasks requiring extreme attention and vigilance.

Nobody wants to do dull, uninteresting, bullshit work. Assuming a fix quantity of dull work at any given moment, are you saying that non-neurodivergent people should do more of it so ADHD people can get less of it? Because it doesn't sound fair to me.

I am saying that all people, including neurodivergent people, have personal agency in what kind of work they choose to do. If you work a job that is primarily meaningless work, that’s your choice. My original comment was to say that you have a choice to not work dull jobs, and it is imperative as a nd person to not do it as you will lose. If instead you take a little personal responsibility for your life’s direction, and do work that plays to your strengths, work is easy. Probably true for all people, but absolutely essential for thriving as a neurodivergent person.

Thank you, Kelly (author of the article), for putting all of this into words. I know I don’t owe my employer an explanation why my ASD requires remote work, but those words describe my problems better than I could have said so myself. I wish more companies in my country were fitted for neurodivergent people.

I can’t change jobs because I find IT job interviews terrifying.

Spot on article. A bit of a whinge. Have "worked" continuously for thirty+ years in IT because I am wired for it. It has never been about the paycheck. But I have yet to see a company that is neurodivergent friendly in all those countries I have worked before. If they say they are, most times it's just tokenism. Worst culprits are Asian companies, HR and upper management. So I quit, get kicked out or forced to move on. These environments are always never designed for someone different. And when you stand alone, you become an easy target. p.s never tell your colleagues that you have never "worked" a day in your entire life because they will misinterpret it as being a miscreant and not because you love what you do.

What do you mean by Asian companies? Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai companies have very different cultures. As far as as I known East Asian cultures are less expressive than the US. Being blending in and not drawing too much attention to oneself is often seen as a virtue, whereas in the U.S., standing out and asserting oneself is more encouraged. Indians are different though.

Ps. Most people will take your words at face value and dismiss them.

Burnout in neurodivergent individuals doesn’t just look like fatigue; it often manifests as heightened anxiety, panic attacks, or an inability to function at work. Worse, it’s frequently dismissed as a personal failing rather than a systemic one, leaving employees to bear the weight of both their struggles and the stigma of being seen as “difficult” or “high maintenance.”

this is spot on for me. it also applies to my personal and family life.

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