How did you choose your occpuation for people who didn"t just follow thier passion
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I took the first job I could get, and then when I was tired of that I took the next first job I could get.
This was me. New job every year, eventually stretching to every two years. Bonus is getting a pay rise each time.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
I picked it because I was good at it, and there were multiple facets to expand to. I fell into a niche for a few years and then promoted to a generalist position where I am basically half department head and half principal engineer. I basically quit jobs every 2 years, and had a high track record of being hired back to the same teams I quit when I ran out of money.
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Well, i knew how to build a computer relatively early in life. I was advised to go for a specific cert (security+), got it, got hired into a service desk role just about immediately (DoD), and I just kinda went from there i guess?
IT has a pretty simple pipeline that can be a lot more granular than a degree program. Early certs are not too difficult and their courses are much shorter than college or other programs. The tricky part is that getting past the "Hello, this is IT. Im here because you broke something" phase, without burning out. You really need to specialize or market yourself as a subject matter expert, the path becomes much more (and less) defined by certs.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
Dropped out of college. Parents said DO SOMETHING OR MOVE OUT. I needed the whip cracked in all fairness. Went to school to become a stengroapher. Burned through the program, been doing it for 17 years now.
I was more concerned about AI before AI really showed up, and now I'm okay.
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IT has a pretty simple pipeline that can be a lot more granular than a degree program. Early certs are not too difficult and their courses are much shorter than college or other programs. The tricky part is that getting past the "Hello, this is IT. Im here because you broke something" phase, without burning out. You really need to specialize or market yourself as a subject matter expert, the path becomes much more (and less) defined by certs.
Yup, its pretty straightforward. Biggest thing holding me back IMO is lack of foundational knowledge of both scripting logic and networking. I can do CLI interaction just fine but trying to write out a cohesive script I just fall flat on my face. In my last job everyone could (and did) script circles around me.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Job hopped until I settled into something I finally enjoy.
I highly recommend making a good impression and being a team player. About half of my jobs came from recommendations from people I had worked with at other jobs.
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Yup, its pretty straightforward. Biggest thing holding me back IMO is lack of foundational knowledge of both scripting logic and networking. I can do CLI interaction just fine but trying to write out a cohesive script I just fall flat on my face. In my last job everyone could (and did) script circles around me.
The advice I have on the scripting practice is to just do home lab stuff. A bucket of pis or a few VMs to get something working where your not afraid to break things. (Im not good at it either, but practice is the key takeaway).
As for the networking, they got certs for that, and said home lab will make applying your new skills easier until you find them relavent for an employer.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
I guess I kind of got lucky.
I always liked computers, and I like solving problems. Got hired as a database administrator for a small research center in a large university.
I've changed jobs a couple times over the years (decades, actually). As it turns out, computer nerds who like to solve problems are valuable, and I've been generally left alone to solve problems ever since.
Current leadership team doesn't want to solve problems or work more efficiently now because if you depend on one person to make the team more efficient, and that one person leaves, you'll have to hire someone to replace him.
So instead, you just hire 10 people for the same pay to do the extra work they have to do when you don't have someone making everything easier.
Oh well.
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Dropped out of college. Parents said DO SOMETHING OR MOVE OUT. I needed the whip cracked in all fairness. Went to school to become a stengroapher. Burned through the program, been doing it for 17 years now.
I was more concerned about AI before AI really showed up, and now I'm okay.
I was more concerned about AI before AI really showed up, and now I'm okay.
HA!
"Oh no! AI is gonna replace us!"
"Here's the AI."
"Um... Ok, never mind. I'm fine."
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
Mostly due to necessity but my wife told me I should consider psychology so I'm now in training to work in the field. I think I'm a natural at talk-therapy, at least compared to most other things I've tried, lol, so I can only thank her for the recommendation and support. It was either that or philosophy, but I couldn't properly think on how to monetize it.
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Dropped out of college. Parents said DO SOMETHING OR MOVE OUT. I needed the whip cracked in all fairness. Went to school to become a stengroapher. Burned through the program, been doing it for 17 years now.
I was more concerned about AI before AI really showed up, and now I'm okay.
Where do you live? Even 20 years ago we used digital recordings when I worked for a provincial court here in Canada.
Stenographers aren't really a thing here anymore.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
I've always enjoyed computers. Said I didn't want to do it for work, because it would make it less fun.
I was actively looking at becoming a paramedic when I got a job working with IT because it came easy and natural to me. I've been doing it for years now. I don't find it nearly as entertaining as I used to, but I'll admit that's not because of work. I'd rather just work on cars all day as a hobby instead. Or sewing or embroidery.
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Where do you live? Even 20 years ago we used digital recordings when I worked for a provincial court here in Canada.
Stenographers aren't really a thing here anymore.
I live in New Jersey, and there is tons of work available. There are certain courts, like municipal court, that use recordings, and mainly because 99% of the time nobody will ever go back to see what was said. Majority of my work is pretrial depositions, some EUOs, and I also do land use boards (which frequently end up in court). NJ loves court.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
Took apart a computer that I didnât own⌠said âoh shit, I gotta put this back together and make sure it works!â. Put it back together, it worked. 30+ years later⌠I work in the computer industry.
Separate what makes you money and your ability to support yourself from what makes your life worth living. Two massively different concepts!
Good luck!!
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stay focused
Yeah, you know. Theyâre very intelligent, they just need to apply themselves.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
I was very lucky. I got my diagnosis at age 44, right when I started figuring out I was good at identifying and resolving process gaps. With meds, I found out I was really good at it, as well as rapidly understanding very complex processes, and being able to explain them to different parties. Suddenly I oversee a bunch of data architects and software engineers who do file ingestion and data analysis. And without me, they function like a squabbling kindergarten, if they function at all.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
I just always followed my passion: IT. But I really don't work well in groups or with someone above me so I rarely did that. So basically I retired somewhere in my 20s, which already was over 20yrs ago. Since then I live ny passion at home, tinkering with my servers, smart home and just general coding. Rest of the time I enjoy with wifey and travel. Guess I'm one of the luckier ones.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
My adhd was mostly untreated til about a couple years ago, and I was tryna get into film or TV production, but indecision paralysis hindered me 6 ways til Sunday, and being diabetic was also a major hurdle cause I needed good insurance. Thankfully my dad was a union electrician so I got into that easily. But I couldn't handle construction and quit after 3 months. Then I went into something more residential, but injured my wrist. Luckily they let me do dispatch and other desk job stuff there and I just kinda stayed, cause going to one location and staying there really worked out for me.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
I needed a stable job so. And it was the easiest way to get it.
After I chose to follow my passion and started working on that, which is my current job. Just to find out that not because you work in your passion your job is going to be fun.
Then I realized than a job is a job. And most jobs are shitty. So I focused on working as little hours as possible and just enjoy my hobbies.
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As some with ADHD, my interest fluantuats wildly. How does an average person choose a job thats suppose to be for life and not worry about loss of interest, let alone some with ADHD.
Tried to become a philosophy professor but couldn't get funding for my PhD - needed another 5% on my grades to get a distinction at MSc level to achieve that.
While studying philosophy I'd got interested in FOSS and Linux so I was vaguely aware that I found computers interesting. It turned out there was Scottish government funding for doing a MSc in Computing without needing to have done a relevant undergrad (Computer Science would have required a related UG degree).
Became a dev after doing the MSc Computing. Was a junior for 1 year then left that company and moved to another one at mid-level, where I realised I enjoyed the data related tasks. Promoted to senior after 3 years there. Also became aware Data Engineers got paid more than regular engineers.
Moved to my current company as a mid-level Data Engineer and recently became a Senior Data Engineer. Not 100% sure how it all happened given I've never been particularly good at maths however philosophy has a lot of problem solving/discrete mathematics type puzzles involved so that probably helped.
