I was a model employee for many years. Every review was, “you’re one of our brightest, keep doing what you’re doing”. Then I requested some accommodations for my chronic migraines, and they put me under a microscope. Suddenly I was still getting the most complex work because I was the only person they trusted to do it, but now it was an issue that I didn’t churn through change requests as fast as other employees who only do simple bug fixes.
When I got diagnosed with ADHD I thought it would give me some breathing room if I told them. That just made it worse. Now I had to be on a management plan. Now every review was laser focused in churn rate, and completely ignored all my above-and-beyond contributions.
I think their long term plan was to either make me give up accommodations or leave, because they didn’t want anyone else thinking they could get “special treatment”.
Yup. I’m glad I had this cool as Caribbean co-worker who now and again would “teach me the facts of the world” when I first entered the workforce
The world ain’t fair, you gotta play the game. It saved me so much learning through failure - sometimes you gotta slow down so you have room to pull a miracle out of your ass. Sometimes you gotta play it close to the vest. Manage their expectations and they’ll be grateful, give them your all and they’ll only ask for more
It’s so very true. I add at least an hour, if not a day, before I commit something - unless it’s an emergency. Then I pull out the stops and drink a pot of coffee, and they worry about losing me, because my normal pace is enough that they get new features and when the chips are down and they’re losing money I’ll find fix it today, if not tomorrow morning
You have to know when to drag your feet, when to pull out the stops, and what you need to keep to yourself. They don’t care that I keep my mornings for myself, don’t come to meetings, and occasionally can’t be reached for a day… To then I’m a miracle worker, not a workhorse. They’re happy with my output, because I balk at anything that takes more than 5 minutes and under promise, then over deliver. But when they’re panicking, I tell them I’ll make it work no matter what it takes. And I still wait an hour if it didn’t take me all night
People beat workhorses to make them go faster, they fear losing a magician. Magicians are eccentric. They’re allowed to demand accommodations - but you have to keep up the mistique. Otherwise you’re just a flawed workhorse, because people are kinda stupid, managers and owners especially so
A workhorse seems replaceable, even if they’re better than the magician
It’s a learned skill… I’ve fucked it up in the past and broke the illusion by coming through too quickly once it became an emergency. But if you have knowledge they don’t, they don’t know what takes how long anything takes, even technical people. You have to play it up, because once the magic is broken for any reason, you’re now a lazy workhorse
Humans are fucking dumb. Manage expectations properly and reality is secondary, optics are everything.
It was pretty good before all that happened. I’ve moved on now though, because it wasn’t going to improve and the culture was generally going in the wrong direction.
That bloody confirmation bias.
I was a model employee for many years. Every review was, “you’re one of our brightest, keep doing what you’re doing”. Then I requested some accommodations for my chronic migraines, and they put me under a microscope. Suddenly I was still getting the most complex work because I was the only person they trusted to do it, but now it was an issue that I didn’t churn through change requests as fast as other employees who only do simple bug fixes.
When I got diagnosed with ADHD I thought it would give me some breathing room if I told them. That just made it worse. Now I had to be on a management plan. Now every review was laser focused in churn rate, and completely ignored all my above-and-beyond contributions.
I think their long term plan was to either make me give up accommodations or leave, because they didn’t want anyone else thinking they could get “special treatment”.
Yup. I’m glad I had this cool as Caribbean co-worker who now and again would “teach me the facts of the world” when I first entered the workforce
The world ain’t fair, you gotta play the game. It saved me so much learning through failure - sometimes you gotta slow down so you have room to pull a miracle out of your ass. Sometimes you gotta play it close to the vest. Manage their expectations and they’ll be grateful, give them your all and they’ll only ask for more
It’s so very true. I add at least an hour, if not a day, before I commit something - unless it’s an emergency. Then I pull out the stops and drink a pot of coffee, and they worry about losing me, because my normal pace is enough that they get new features and when the chips are down and they’re losing money I’ll find fix it today, if not tomorrow morning
You have to know when to drag your feet, when to pull out the stops, and what you need to keep to yourself. They don’t care that I keep my mornings for myself, don’t come to meetings, and occasionally can’t be reached for a day… To then I’m a miracle worker, not a workhorse. They’re happy with my output, because I balk at anything that takes more than 5 minutes and under promise, then over deliver. But when they’re panicking, I tell them I’ll make it work no matter what it takes. And I still wait an hour if it didn’t take me all night
People beat workhorses to make them go faster, they fear losing a magician. Magicians are eccentric. They’re allowed to demand accommodations - but you have to keep up the mistique. Otherwise you’re just a flawed workhorse, because people are kinda stupid, managers and owners especially so
A workhorse seems replaceable, even if they’re better than the magician
It’s a learned skill… I’ve fucked it up in the past and broke the illusion by coming through too quickly once it became an emergency. But if you have knowledge they don’t, they don’t know what takes how long anything takes, even technical people. You have to play it up, because once the magic is broken for any reason, you’re now a lazy workhorse
Humans are fucking dumb. Manage expectations properly and reality is secondary, optics are everything.
Sounds like a shit place to work for. Hopefully, you found somewhere better.
It was pretty good before all that happened. I’ve moved on now though, because it wasn’t going to improve and the culture was generally going in the wrong direction.