To go along with the job thread | ADHD Information

How many different places have you worked in your life? since you've been of legal age to work.  I'm 42 and I have worked 29 different places. They range from working in a greenhouse to wearing a bear suit for Showbiz Pizza place.  Fired from 85% of them. 

Once I realized that 29 is a little excessive and is generally not the norm for non-ADD people I started considering that I might have ADD.  My psych agreed.

I'm 44 and I have worked at 8 different places, doing totally different things.

Have been in sales, a life-guard, a medical assistant, just to name a few. Going back to school now to become a Special Education teacher.

19 jobs, and that isn't counting the ones I quit at and then went back. If you add in all the times I filled more than one position (without getting paid more, of course), we are looking at 20 something in 20 to 25 yrs of actually working. Then of course there are several years when I got to be a SAHM.

No wonder one manager position I applied for was offered to me with the stipulation that I would sign a contract to stay for at least 5 years. LOL I didn't realize until that point that I had changed jobs that often. Of course, the idea of staying in one job for 5 yrs without being able to leave if I wanted to was totally unacceptable.

I was laid off once, not because I wasn't capable but because it was  a union position and the union decided you needed more education for the job after I had been doing it and getting a lot of positive comments on it. It was a position that was being implemented state wide at that point, so it wasn't aimed at me personally. I was laid off once after telling my boss off. The rest of the time, I quit because I was so bored and hated what I was doing.

Here it is:

1st job around 22 Computer Tech

2nd Job Married 24....He is 33    

3rd job - 1st child at 28 and 3rd at 32

4th job , it's 1998 and Y2K is up so I am back to work in IT at 36 

5th "job" and still at the same company but job changes 5 times

Now I am on Adderall...43 so we will see.  Just started med late Oct.

Jobs since college:

Movie theater concessionaire-- 1 summer Bank teller (not a good job for a non-detail-oriented person. I neglected to lock up about ,000 at the end of my shift. Three times.)-- 2 summers, 1 winter break Researcher for university fundraising organization-- 1 or 2 semesters Assistant for tax attorney-- summer and 2 semesters Assistant for tax preparer-- 1 semester and 1 summer Phone surveyor-- 2 semesters Phone surveyor (one day job) Consumer computer help desk operator-- 1 year Hazard mitigation planner (state government)-- 2 years Hazard mitigation planner (private sector)-- 4 years City planner (local government)-- almost 2 years

So far I haven't been fired, but my last 2 jobs have tried.

I can't make myself stop and count but a lot and fired a lot.

from my first job in the kitchen of a nursing home at 16, to trying to be self-employed as a plumbing/heating contractor @ 42 now, i have had maybe 30 jobs? (not counting all the separate contractors that no longer use me as a sub-contractor)

at 19 or 20, i looked into joining the navy.(another impulse not well thought out. think i was looking for stucture i could not provide for myself.) when the recruiter looked at my job history, that burgeoned well beyond the allotted space for it, he asked 'don't you think this is a lot of jobs?'. i listed probably a dozen then, 20 some yrs. ago, and i have had many since.

been fired several times, laid-off, quit from boredom, quit for better(?) jobs, and just plain walked off.

i'm honest, earnest, polite, amiable, bright, willing, and make a good effort.

i'm also apparently not the best employee. i can't keep a job. i don't make employers happy. i know cause they have all said so.

i'm having a 'my life really sucks' kind of day.

i have been trying to imagine what sort of thing i could do to make a living, to get ahead, to build a little financial security.

the answer keeps coming back- nothing.

it does not seem to matter how hard i try, how much i work on those weak points of mine, i still end up being flaky, unpredictable, and often incorrigible. i believe sometimes others view me as threatening because of my intensity, and my naturally angry looking face.

                          

at this point i really wish i could think of something i could get excited about. for more than a few hours or days. as it is, i mostly can't stand the life i've carved out.

i'm really tempted to chuck it all, tell everyone to f**k off, and be a street person.

my next job? panhandler or hermit.