Terminated from job
I wrote this about two weeks ago, right after it actually happened. Posted it on arr ADHD but it was removed with no explanation and no one answers modmail. Someone told me that they remove posts a lot and I should just post it here.
For full context: 33M, diagnosed with high-functioning autism but wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until 2024. I take Concerta and Guanfacine, have noticed some reduction in "low frustration tolerance" but still feel pretty inattentive.
Anyway, had been at this job about ten months. I work in a pretty specific field, I don't want to give too many details away and identify myself. But let's just say that I work in "research," and my job was basically finding things that most people can't find. And on this front, I excelled. I've gotten many kudos for that work.
However, the job had become increasingly consumed by data entry. In months past, my boss would straight up tell me "Don't worry too much about that stuff, I need you for your brain." But it's a pretty small team, I guess some stuff ramped up quicker than expected, and they needed me to do more and more of the data entry stuff. And, while data entry is "easy" in the sense that you don't really need formal training for it, it just gives me brain fog if I try to do it for more than a couple hours, and I definitely made mistakes.
I'm mainly just reeling because, despite these mistakes, the termination felt like it came out of nowhere. March 31st was the first time I was informed there were concerns about my performance, and I was let go April 27. 27 days, that just doesn't seem like a ton of warning. And last week they gave me money to go and buy a new laptop just for the job, which seems like an obvious indication that they intended my employment to continue.
I could probably divulge more, but this is probably already getting too long. I've been laid off before, and had issues with bosses before, but in the latter case I've always been able to either turn things around or find another job when things got toxic.
I've never actually been terminated for performance reasons before, and it feels especially gutting because: 1. it happened so quickly 2. From my POV, I had every reason to believe the job would continue at least into the near future 3. this job was a lot closer to what I actually want to do with my life than previous jobs and 4. It feels like proof that ADHD meds aren't really doing anything for me. Thanks for reading.