ADHD Storytime - Work Week

This is a quick fictional story made up to represent the real struggles I experience as a person with ADHD. Hope you enjoy! If you relate, welcome to the club!

"Okay heck, I totally forgot about my 10am, thank goodness for these 10 minute reminders!" I begin to do something else, a quick 5 minute ticket update. Huh, why would they put a comment in the ticket like this? What department is the person from? Oh, the customer service department... interesting I didn't realize the department was that big. Anyway, back to the ticket. I guess I need to formulate a response here, addressing all the different pieces of the single question. Okay, wait... does this even make sense? No, I went on a tangent -

Slack pings, notification pops up - "Hey, you coming to this call?"

Crap, crap, 4 minutes late, let me hop on real quick. Alright on the call, respond to the ping. Okay, time to scan the room... man that guy has like 30 guitars. I wonder what type of music they play. No no, focus. His beard too, wow. STOP IT! Focus. Alright so this lady is talking about what now... what's the subject of this meeting? Oh heck, it just says "Quick Conversation About The Product" and they didn't even put a description. Great, I have no idea what we're doing. I don't even know half the people on the call.

"Now that we have you here, what do you think about this?" Uh... are they talking to me? Am I supposed to answer? Dang it, I haven't paid attention to anything and it's still silent. I hear my name called.

"Um, can you repeat the question? Sorry I was in the middle of something else, I am listening now." Phew okay, honest and quick. Rip the band-aid off. Listening... okay so they are changing the way they are implementing this specific product, and my team is going to handle the install, so now she's talking about the settings. Okay, I need to take notes... but which app? I have like 3. I'll open a doc. Crap, I missed some of it. Wait, did she just say a setting where? That's going to be a lot of work for my team. Who's bright idea was it to put a setting in -

"You got that? What do you think?" - Ugh, I got caught up on that setting so much that I didn't hear anything else about the setup. You know what, I'll just pretend to sound smart and ask a question.

"So about this setting, I am confused as to why y'all put it where you did... that's a ton of extra work on my team." Good good, man her hair is awfully blonde. I can use that to remember her - specifically blonde hair girl is Jessica. Got it.

Slack pings - "I just got this request in for this client and it's quite urgent, I would appreciate it if your team could escalate this." What the heck... again? This same dude every single time. Sad thing is, it's always legit. This company has got to do something about the crisis culture. I have some ideas I should probably get across to my boss. No no, later, back to the escalation.

Pings back - "Yeah, I see it. I'll make sure to get it over to an engineer." Management... delegation. Yeah, makes my life easier... I think. Kind of sucks though, this work is kind of fun. Maybe I should do it myself. Let's at least open the ticket and see what it's about. Oh crap, there's that ticket from before, but I put it off because of the... MEETING! I got tune back in... dang it, where's the tab?!

Okay, back in the meeting. At this point, I have no idea what we're talking about, I'll just figure it out myself later.

"All sounds good, thanks Jessica." Conversation continues. Emails start coming in... no no no! Close everything. Meeting time. Put slack on silent. Okay, now paying attention.

Wait a second... where are we at? Crap, I was daydreaming again. It's okay, tune back in. Okay, we're talking about the settings again, a restart is needed, okay okay, task list made, someone needs to test this. As a manager, I've got to make a ticket for this. Action item. Coolio. I am all good, tuning out the rest of the meeting.

Different slack notification, meeting in 10 mins. Sigh... at least this one is a 1x1 with my boss. I know who I am talking to and I know how he thinks.

"Hey boss"

"Crazy meeting, I can't believe they want all this done by next week. Stupid emergency situations all the time." - WAIT WHAT? Where did I miss that major detail? Dang it, paying again for the company not being able to fix it's issues. No matter, meeting time, everything is closed. This time I can't tune out or day dream... maybe if I talk more, I can stay engaged.

Okay we're 20 minutes in and I've talked about nothing except my hobbies, personal life, and situations I can't control and how I've overanalyzed them. No wonder everything thinks I am so friendly, I just spill my life story every time I talk.

"Yeah... that's neat. Well don't forget about that training due Friday, and remind your team about it. It's super important that we meet the compliance deadline." Okay, add it to the things I need to not forget.

Sigh of relief... not more meetings for an hour. I need a break. Maybe I'll pick up my guitar. I am on fire today! Oh man, an office hours meeting for my team. You know... I think I'll just play guitar and keep my camera off.

Office hours is going good, and this guitar riff is killer. Eh, this doesn't concern me, I need to focus on making this riff into a song. You know, it would help to record if I had a template. Let's spin around to my personal computer for a minute...

Looks over at work laptop, everyone left... except me. Well whatever. I guess it didn't matter anyway. Can't change the past.

Friday comes along. It's 9:30am. Okay, let's see what's on the docket today...

Slack pings - "Hey, just checking in on my escalation" - Crap I never handed that off. I never even looked at the ticket.

Slack pings - "I am still showing half your team hasn't finished that training, you included. Let's make sure to get that done today" - Ugh WHY?!

Slack pings - "Have you made a plan for the product rollout yet? A guide?" - DANG. IT. I never even made the ticket.

Slack pings - "Just wanted to touch base on a ticket I put in real quick" - O.M.G. I never actually responded to that ticket.

Crap. Crap. Crap. I am going to have a garbage day. No, all this is simple, let's just knock it out. I'll start with the -

Slack pings - "Hey buddy, you know we have that meeting right now yeah?" Again? How in the world does this keep happening?

Later in a 1x1 with my boss again. "You are doing a great job. You're always on top of things and you're always there. That automation you built for the customer service team, they love it. I know it was extra, but we really appreciate it." Great. I can't even be crappy at my job. I practically kill myself to keep up, and somehow people think I am amazing? I don't get it. I did that stupid automation because I hated that dumb process, and everything else on my plate either sucked or a couldn't remember any of it. I am backed up to hell and back, and now I get recognition.

Slams fist on desk.

I think... maybe I don't need to do this anymore... I do need to do this work though, I need a paycheck. Stares at the ticket that needs a response.

You can do this. It's just a paragraph in a ticket. It'll take you about 5 minutes, you can mark off the box and get a nice little jolt of joy. I just can't though. I am staring at this ticket for... crap, it's been 20 minutes. I can't lock up like this, just switch gears. I can passively do the training, but then I have to log in. Stares at the login screen. Come on now. You got this. Put the training video on and move on. Why won't my fingers move? Why is this... notices the time, 40 minutes has gone by.

You know, maybe I just need a lunch break. I know it's early but I am stuck. Making myself a sandwich. I need some sunlight, going to go for a walk. Now it's almost time to go back, but... what if I just fire up that new album I wanted to listen to. Oh look there's some lore behind the album, this is real neat!

Oh gosh. I've been on lunch for two and half hours. I missed a meeting. Ugh, and I still have all this crap to do.

4pm, man up against the wire. Knocks everything out in 30 minutes. So... why in the world couldn't I do this 8 hours ago? No matter, end of week. Restart this garbage process on Monday.

The End. Thanks for reading!