Give me something to believe in!

I've written on this blog before about how ADD can actually make me BETTER at my job, but I've been thinking a lot lately on what makes a job better for me.  I've realized that whatever the task, if I don't see it's intrinsic worth or really believe in the people I'm working for then it won't be able to hold my attention.  At all.  This doesn't just apply to work, but to all aspects of my life.

I first noticed this when I was a music major at Shorter, though I'm sure that's not the first time it actually applied.  At the time I was trying to learn to sing various Italian arias selected by my voice teacher, and I just couldn't do it.  I didn't see the point in singing about some sun god.  The song had no meaning for me, it didn't apply to my life, and the idea of singing about a sun god went against everything I believed in.  I didn't understand it.  I love music, I thought in all forms.  I'd worked hard on music in various forms from piano to church choir from the time I was very little, so to be assigned a piece of such drivel seemed completely foreign to me.  It wasn't the language that troubled me, after all I'd sung in Italian, Latin, German, even Swahili.  And even though I've never been good at spoken languages, singing in them has never been a problem.  But the content, I was used to church music, music I could believe in.  This content didn't resonate with me, at all, it was against everything I believed in, and I was awful at it.

I've found this applies to other areas of my life as well.  My first job out of college was working for a software company co-founded by my best friend.  I didn't understand the software we were working on, or really even understand the need for it, at all.  But I believed in him, and so I learned to believe in the product.  I was able to QA and later support that product because I saw it's applications.  Oh, I knew it wasn't going to solve world hunger or anything, but I also saw that for what it did, it was a very good solution.  It didn't matter that I didn't know the product, I believed in the people behind it and so was able to learn to believe in the product.

Fast forward a few years and I worked on a product that was really quite simple and easy to use.  It did what it was supposed to, and with a little guidance most customers just got it, which was a good thing, because I had to force myself to support it.  You see, I've found that when I don't believe in the people behind a product then it's really hard for me to trust the product as well.  I trusted the people behind that first product.  I knew that when I found a bug, it would be fixed.  I knew that when a customer had a need, it would be met if at all possible.  But when I didn't trust my backup, every little hiccup became an insurmountable obstacle.

That's how it is with ADD.  It's not a lack of attention, it's a lack of regulation of attention.  If you feel something is unworthy of your time (and time is a big deal in ADD, more on that later) then it's incredibly difficult to get it to hold your attention, and if you can force yourself to do it, then it's even harder to do it well.  On the other hand, if you have a personal interest in it, then it's much easier to believe in what you're doing.

That personal interest is key for folks with ADD.  For years I kept hearing folks tell me how to go about weight loss.  They'd repeatedly tell me, "You have to do this for yourself, you can't let anyone else be your motivation."  That's exactly the WRONG way for the person with ADD to go about things.

You see, after years of difficulties and failures, almost all ADD adults have trouble with self worth.  We don't think we're worthy of being taken care of.  So to tell us to do something for our selves is pointless.  Instead you have to point out how taking care of ourselves benefits those we love.  I spent years struggling with my weight, and it wasn't until I realized the impact my being overweight would have on my daughter that I was able to lose 50 lbs in a year (now if I can just do that next year).  I can try all I want on my own, but it really doesn't do me any good.  I have to do things to help the ones I love, and only then am I motivated to help myself.

I'd love to have a career, now if only I could pick one

When you talk about ADD, the first thing I ever hear about is how it affects school, and I know it affected my school career, probably from day one.  Prior to school I didn't know I had a problem.  I wasn't hyper, and I didn't have discipline issues at home or in church, and there wasn't really that much expected of me.  So I think it caught my parents by surprise when I had trouble in school right off the bat.  And since I'd had no trouble prior to school, when I found out that I had ADD almost at the end of my scholastic career, I mistakenly thought, "Well, if I can just make it through this last semester or two it won't really matter anymore, and I've coped this far so I'm sure I can cope a bit longer."

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  My post-school career was affected by my ADD LONG before I was out of school.  You see, for some reason there's this silly practice of picking a major in college, and by picking a major you set your post-school career in motion.  It took me eight years from start to finish to make it through college, not because I couldn't do the work (though I'm sure ADD slowed me some) but because I kept switching majors.  I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with my life.  Did I want to teach biology or music?  Or would music performance be a better option, and if so voice or piano or some combination of the two?  Opera? Pop? Christain? Popera?  Or maybe I'd be a better painter?  Would I work better with oils or watercolors?  These are the questions I asked myself over and over.  I couldn't maintain an interest in one thing for a full week, much less long enough to achieve a degree.

So finally I dropped out of school.  Over the course of one year I worked 4 jobs, and then the next year I combined a fifth job with music performance on the side.  Even once I went back to school my goal was less about finding a major that suited me, than finding one that I could just get THROUGH!  It was during this time that my brothers testing for ADD led my mother to recognize that I had it, and while I didn't disagree with her assessment, I also figured I was so close to being DONE that didn't really bother to learn more or do anything about it.  After all, I figured once I was done with school it couldn't cause me any more problems.

I couldn't have been more wrong.  The longer I observe myself in daily life, and the more I learn about ADD, the more I am recognizing how it affects every aspect of my life.  Even now, almost exactly eight years after I left school, I wonder almost every day what I should REALLY be doing with my life.  What do I want to be when I grow up?  Oh, I have a job, one I've written about on this blog before, that is pretty well suited to my ADD.  I do it pretty well, or at least people keep paying me to do it, but none of my diverse interests have died down.  I still have bursts of interest in fashion design, music, various branches of science, oh, or maybe I should be a writer, but what genre to write?  SciFi?  Fantasy?  Romance?  or maybe not even fiction at all?

The longer I'm in the workplace the more I know that no matter what I do, I need diversity.  I can't do the same thing day in and day out.  I've found that I don't get that at larger companies.  The larger the company, the more specialized the position, and as a company grows and my niche becomes more well defined the more it chafes.  That happened at my last job.  I started out trying to write doc, help with QA, and support customers, but as the customer base grew so did the support related tasks, and eventually all other work was squeezed out.  So I'm switching to a smaller company again, one where I get to have a finger in every pie.

With fewer people comes more responsibility as well, and there's a part of me that wonders whether this is the real reason I'm changing.  You see, it's very stimulating to know that the buck stops with me.  And with ADD it's the stimulation that counts.  I know that in a small company I can't just pass all my problems up the chain of command.  If it's going to be done, I'm the one who will have to do it.  It's a frightening prospect to know that I can truly make a difference in the direction the company will take, but it's also empowering, and in a way that risk is also thrilling.

Another great thing about working for a small company is that we can be responsive to changes in the marketplace.  A behemoth can't be turned on a dime, which can be terribly frustrating for someone who recognizes the synergy that goes into making a successful product.  But when you can anticipate the direction a product needs to go and make those changes quickly, well, every little success can have huge effects.  I think that's part of what makes people with ADD such great inventors and entrepreneurs.  We can switch modes easily, or in computer speak (after all that's my industry) we have very low cost context switches.  

... This post hasn't really gone the direction I intended when I started, but the more I read and learn about ADD the more I see that it does come with some strengths.  After years of failures in school, to finally find that there is a place where I can use this to my advantage is a great lightening.  I've recently been reading Delivered From Distraction by Dr. Edward M. Hallowell.  He makes the point over and over that the most important part of treatment is not in minimizing the negatives, but in finding the positives.  He maintains that every person has strengths, and as I think this through I'm starting to find mine.  I haven't ARRIVED yet, but maybe I'm finally STARTING to treat my ADD.

I would argue with a sign post

I love a good argument, er, discussion.  There's a thrill to picking a viewpoint and defending it with every fact, every feeling, every bit of logic in your arsenal.  I remember growing up I would have regular discussions, usually with folks much older than me, and usually about fine points in Christianity.  Oh occasionally politics were brought into it, or what toothpaste was the best.  But I was raised in the church, went to Sunday school every Sunday, listened to Moody radio and Focus on the Family, so church was really what I knew enough about to have an opinion.  I would debate the merits of baptizing adults rather than infants, and immersion over sprinkling; a woman's place in the church; and I remember one mission trip in high school where I took on two pastors and the majority of the youth group over the topic of predestination.

It wasn't even really about being right.  Oh there have been some folks who took a hard line attitude and tried to back me into a corner, you just can't back down from something like that.  Mostly it's about the stimulation that allows me to focus all of my mental power around a point of view.  That kind of focus doesn't come easily for the person who has ADD, so these arguments gave me the opportunity to construct my own belief system and to really understand why I believe what I believe.  I get a thrill from listening to someone build a case point by point for an opposing view, and then taking each point and either knocking it down, or twisting it to show why it really fits my point of view better.

That kind of structure for organizing your thoughts doesn't come around every day.  When I was in high school I joined the debate team thinking I would really enjoy it.  I dropped out after one meeting.  I couldn't wrap my mind about researching one topic to death, and then being arbitrarily assigned which side of the topic I could take.  Oh, in most arguments I can see and understand both sides of the topic, but I can't really argue for something I don't believe.  That need to believe in the thing I'm doing has caused me trouble throughout my career, from needing to believe in the music I was singing, to needing to believe in the people I'm working for and the product I'm supporting.  Sometimes we end up having to do something we don't believe in, and I find I just never can do that as well.

The more I learn about ADD the more I realize that this desire to discuss... everything, isn't normal.  It's part of the un-regulation of focus.  I also need that thrill of proving my intellectual prowess.  Not that I have to beat you down, but after years of feeling slow and stupid I need that acknowledgement that I am your intellectual equal, that I am worthy of the debate.  One of the hardest things for me is to back down from a discussion, or to have someone unwilling to talk or listen to me.  It's akin to yet another person saying, "you're not worthy of my attention."

Keep that in mind when you deal with the ADD people in your life.

Chick-fil-A, don't'cha just love it?

I've been paying attention to all this Chick-fil-A controversy.  I have a long history with Chick-fil-A, so naturally I sit up and listen whenever I hear them mentioned in the news, or in conversation.  I've found that they are neither the paragon of virtue nor the bastion of evil that everyone seems to make them out to be, but like every company out there they have their good points and their bad points.  Which outweigh the others I don't know.

I started working at Chick-fil-A at the front counter when I was 16, and continued working there off and on as school allowed for a little over five years.  When I first started working there the operator of the store I worked at had two stores, but within a year of my starting he left the store I worked at and went on as operator to other stores.  His assistant manager became our new operator.  It's worth mentioning that the corporate office at Chick-fil-A likes to keep tabs on what's going on at their stores.  All stores are owned by Chick-fil-A, not somebody at the store, and Chick-fil-A has pretty stringent rules about who can become an operator (the equivalent of owner/manager at most franchises) of any store.  There may be a very small handful of independently owned stores still out there, but Chick-fil-A stopped granting such franchises years ago, and the few that remain were grandfathered in.

Our new operator held the store together through some really rough years.  Shortly after I started, the main anchor store in the shopping center closed.  And over the next few years anchor stores came and went, but were gone more than they were there.  We also had the unique benefit of being near where several corporate executives lived, so they would often stop by the store to "check up on us" quite frequently.  It was at this point that I came to recognize the misogynistic attitude of the corporate office at Chick-fil-A.  It's worth noting that a new operator was a divorced woman.  When I started working at this Chick-fil-A store it was the closest one to my house, but by the time I left I actually passed three Chick-fil-A's to get to this one.  As more stores opened up in the area they naturally cut into the business of the pre-existing store.


One store was within 3 miles of ours.  It is debatable whether so many stores in the immediate area would have been approved had the operator at our store held any regard or received any respect from the corporate office.  During this time the store was both remodeled and major construction was undertaken to install a new playground.  Instead of corporate recognizing that difficult situation, we were expected to grow revenues as if we were still located in a busy shopping center with little competition in the area.  Despite hard times remain profitable, even though we didn't achieve the revenue growth dictated by corporate.

Instead of recognizing the achievement of holding the store together in adverse circumstances, win a new super Wal-Mart opened in our shopping center the store was taken away from our operator and given to a new operator.  This demonstrates the utter lack of respect that the Chick-fil-A corporate office had for our operator.


Yes Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays, but it is far from the Christian work environment that you might think.  For one being closed on Sundays does nothing for orthodox Jews or Seventh Day Adventists.  Sure, I worked with plenty of youth pastors who enjoyed the freedom to work two jobs and the assurance that came from knowing that their schedules would never conflict.  But I also worked with those who were mentally unstable, had superiors who cursed like sailors, and others who displayed misogynistic behavior including leaving white flour hand prints in inappropriate places on the navy pants of female employees.  I had my butt pinched once (he got slapped) and was hit on repeatedly.  But with very few exceptions the customers were worse than my co-workers.

However, Chick-fil-A's not a den of iniquity from top to bottom.  It has it's redeeming qualities.  For starters I worked my way from front counter through pretty much every position in the store, and ended up marketing manager.  Chick-fil-A taught me about work ethic and team work, oh, and how to filet chicken.  We weren't located in the highest end neighborhood, so this particular Chick-fil-A gave opportunity to some pretty underprivileged folks, and a pretty diverse demographic.  I particularly admired one family that had escaped from some South American dictatorship, and all the women in the family worked at Chick-fil-A.  It certainly opened my eyes to a variety of circumstances and what can me accomplished with hard work.  Lots of folks have heard of Chick-fil-A's Winshape scholarships, but Chick-fil-A has a college scholarship program available to all employees who work a certain number of hours (I don't remember how many).  No, it didn't pay for an entire semester, but every little bit helps.

And let's not forget the best thing about Chick-fil-A.  I met my husband when we both worked there in high school, and we had our wedding catered by Chick-fil-A years later (by the same operator we both worked for).

Chick-fil-A's probably the only fast food place I could work at and still eat there.  In fact, up until a few years ago I still ate at Chick-fil-A at least once a week.  I eat there less now not because of any aversion, but simply because I eat out less than I used to.

So no matter what Dan Cathy says, his principles are not pervasive throughout Chick-fil-A, and what he does with his money is his own business.  That being said, Chick-fil-A is a privately held company, and I don't know what percentage Dan owns I don't know, but I'm sure its significant.  Some part of every dollar spent there is going to trickle up to him eventually.

Not to long ago I realized that in living in a capitalistic society one of the ways we vote is by what we buy.  It's a big part of why I drive the car I drive, and buy the frozen pizza that I buy, and Dan Cathy has the right to vote the way he wants as well.  It's up to you to decide whether a vote for scholarships and Sundays off outweighs a vote for Dan and misogyny.  Or if you just care about the chicken.

Take this job and... You can't pay me to do it anymore

I don't update my blog very often, or very well for that matter.  I've been busy and I thought it was about time I caught you up with why.

About a year ago the tiny little computer company I worked for was partially acquired by a huge computer company.  I was one of the acquisitions.  Unfortunately the new company looked at me and pretty much said, "We don't know what to do with you.  Why don't you train our people to do your job and then if you're lucky we'll give you a real job."  So I've spent most of the last year training myself out of a job. 

This is a very interesting position to be in.  On one hand, you have a job to do and if you do it well they might give you another job, but if you do it well that also means you're making yourself redundant, and they might not need you after all.  I've been asked by several folks how to handle this awkward situation.  The only answer I've come up with, and the think I work for is to handle it "With Grace."

I don't know that I've always managed the grace.  With this kind of situation comes a lot of bitterness.  It's demeaning to be told, "These three jobs you've been doing for the past several years, you're not qualified to do them for us, but you are qualified to train our folks to do them.  Forget that no one else in the world knows your products as well as you do.  Forget that you're going to be training 30 or so people to do what you, one person, do.  You just don't fit into our corporate structure and we're unable to bother ourselves enough to find or create a place where you fit.  It's nothing personal!"

No one person ever spoke these words to me, but this attitude is what I have been working with since last February.  All the folks I worked with directly loved me, thought I was fantastic, and if I had been willing to relocate they probably could have found me a job.  Not that they ever actually offered, but they often expressed their regret for the situation as they found it.  Forget that I've just bought a house and that my husband who works for the same company is told he has to be in the office and that relocating is not an option.  Forget that I'm perfectly willing to travel, that this company prides itself on being a global company, has offices worldwide as well as s huge number that work from home.  Forget that I'm willing to work all sorts of weird hours, and have done ever since I started working with customers.  Forget that my customers love me, have sent me cheese for Christmas, and many have my personal IM or cell number, just in case something happens when I'm not in the office.  I've been point of contact for every single support issue for so long that most customers don't even bother with their account manager when they know I can answer their questions with a few minutes on the phone.  So by getting rid of me and not allowing me to assist with a smooth transition of customers, you're alienating those customers.  That's OK, it shows how much you care.

Sorry for letting this turn into a rant, I didn't mean to.  I should probably go back and clean some of this up so I don't sound TO bitter.  After all, my husband works for the same company, and I don't want them to be biased against him.  He's great, and does a good job, and I'm sure he puts up with a lot of BS from them as well.

So I wanted to update you on where I've been.  I was traveling half of October, busy doing an excellent job of training myself out of a job.  While I was spending time in airports my brother-in-law was spending time in the hospital.  He almost died, but that's his story to tell.  I'll just say he's doing fantastically well, much better than I think any of us expected after multiple surgeries, and was back to work as soon as the doctors let him.  He got out of the hospital and I got back from work travel just in time to move into my new house November 1st. 

On a side note, my FANTASTIC mom stayed with us two days after we moved and organized our kitchen so we could make dinner the rest of the week.  It made me realize not only what a wonderful mom she is, but that you should never let anyone organize your kitchen without you there.  I spent the next month calling her asking where such and such was in the kitchen.  She answered me every time.

We managed to get the upstairs of the house organized before Thanksgiving, bought and rearranged furniture with the help of good friends, and had both our families over for Thanksgiving dinners.  I won't talk about the basement.  It's still not done, but at least we're making progress.  The TV is set up, and the treadmill, both of which have done a lovely job gathering dust since the move.

I had a bit of a break in December, except that I was sick.  I got the flu the day after Thanksgiving, and then had a cold for three weeks.  I went to the doctor and got antibiotics for a brief respite.  Then my mother-in-law and Grandpa went into different hospitals at almost the same time for pneumonia, the week before Christmas and stayed through Christmas.  I think they were racing to see who could get out of the hospital first.  My mother-in-law won, but then my Grandpa's 95 so I wouldn't want him to rush it anyway.

It snowed Christmas day.  I don't know that it's ever done that before in Georgia.  Someone told me the last time it did was in the 1800's.  It's only the second time in my memory that we've had snow that stuck before New Years.  My sister was in town for Christmas.  She used to live in Illinois but recently moved to Texas and confessed about a month before that she missed the snow.  I told her we brought it in just for her.  I discovered that even though she's older I still can't keep up with her.  We were on the go a LOT, and I drank entirely to much coffee (which I gave up several years back, but that's another story) so I didn't sleep well either. 

After my sister and her husband (we like him) left on vacation we were able to get together with my in-laws for Christmas.  It was low key, and my mother-in-law apologized for ruining Christmas (she really didn't), but it was a nice get-together. 

I thought things might calm down a bit, just in time to get my cold back.  Oh well, at least I had a respite from Christmas Eve to the day after New Years.  My contract at work was up at the end of the year, but no one seemed to be able to tell me how to complete it, or when I would have an exit interview.  So I went in Monday, dealt with a new support case, made sure I was organized for my last day, had a list of things to do, and then my e-mail access was cut off.  It would have been nice to have a bit of warning and to make sure someone was monitoring it in case any customers e-mailed, but I'm sure it was on some one's list of things to do.  I guess that's one way to tell me I don't work for you anymore.

Following the First Profession (no, it's not what you think)

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 1:26 (NIV)

I recently watched a video in which many people in places of leadership in many Christian organizations spoke out against what they called a great evil.  In this short three minute and eight second video "Radical Environmentalism" is credited as being the greatest spiritual battle we face today.  I sat in shock surprise and revulsion as I watched presidents and pastors and directors from organizations I normally respect.  These leaders, one from a denomination of which I am a member, spewed derogatory and judgemental names for people who's greatest crime is trying to take care of this earth that God has given us.  These associations, whose publications I read regularly and whose radio shows I listen to, used names like:
"tree hugger"
cult
"radical environmental agenda"
"own morbid, pessimistic fears"
"exaggeration, myths and outright lies"
"so-called global warming science"

They accused environmentalists of promoting humanism, and then went on to contradict their own statement by saying that environmentalists are "consigning the poorest people around the world to grinding poverty, to disease, to premature death."  Yet it is the humanist movement that works to raise the level of human condition.  Not only are these so-called Christians sitting in condemnation of some stereotypical environmental group, but they're contradicting themselves while they do it.

But my visceral reaction to this video didn't start when I read the article this morning.  This is something that I have spent the last several years studying and trying to understand.  How can so many Christians seem to have a complete and utter lack of compassion, and more personally what does God want me to do with my life. 

I have spent much time in my life wandering, looking for direction.  While my sister seemed to know exactly what she wanted to do from early high school, straight through he PhD, I took the eight year plan flitting through four majors before finally eking out a BS.  And even then I hadn't found my direction in life.  It was more a matter of wanting something to show for all the years I'd spent in college.  I often say I have the best liberal arts education you can receive from a technical school because that's just how convoluted my journey in life has been.  So I continue searching, and what better way to find the will of God than by reading the word he has given us. 

I'm holding it open right now, to the very beginning, day 6, the one where we're first mentioned.  Man, and the charge God first gave to us.  God said of man to "...let him rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  I've gone back to the very begging.  I can't find anything that takes precedence over this charge, to take care of the earth that got has made and it's animals.  Does God charge us to take care of the poor and diseased people on the earth?  NO!  Possibly because they did not exist yet.  After all, this predates the fall of man.  We didn't know that we were poor and naked yet, and I assume no one had caught the common cold. 

God goes on to reinforce the idea that we should care for his creation only two verses later.  "'Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'

Then God said, 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.'" Genesis 1:28-29 (NIV)  Here we're told to take care of not just the animals and the fish, but we're supposed to value the plants as well.  While I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is a direct order to go around hugging trees, I also thinks this is a strong indication that we are charged to take care of ALL of God's creation.

I want you do notice here that we're still on the sixth day.  This wasn't on the seventh day where God was resting.  No, this is the job that God has laid on mankind.  The first 9-5 task that God has ever given to people.  I take this to heart.  I accept the charge that God has laid on me and I still think that this is the most important job that we can do.  To care for God's creation is to show our reverence for God. 

This is reinforced in the second chapter of Genesis, "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." Genesis 2:15.  Here we have the first name given to the first profession.  We are to be gardeners, not yet farmers, there's a difference.  Farmers toil in the soil and eat what they grow.  Gardeners tend the living plants.  This makes it clear to me that it is my job not to re-shape the earth to fit whatever idea I have of it, but to tend it the way God has given it to me.  I am to preserve it, not to strip-log it and build condominiums. 

The Bible continues to honor those people who take car of Gods creation rather than resorting to violence.  The people of the bible understood farming.  Cain and Able learned it from their parents, and Jesus knew that it still applied to the people he was talking to when he told the parables of the Sower (Matthew 13:3-8) and the Tares Matthew (13:24-30). 

The all important job of caring for God's creation, of being God's constant gardener if you will, resonated with the people of the Bible.  They understood that we are so closely tied with nature, and that if we hurt it we are ultimately hurting ourselves.  Why does this seem to be so lost on people today?  Is it because we are so insulated from nature?  Most of us in a post-industrial society spend all of our time indoors, or on pavement moving from one roof to another.  We go days without actually touching a plant other than our house plants.  We're more likely to kill an animal as we run over it with our vehicle than to take into account the source of all that nicely pre-packaged meat in the grocery store.  Most new neighborhoods that are built start with clear cutting the trees and leveling the earth to the point where it becomes unrecognizable. 

We are very disconnected from our environment, but I don't think this is the actual cause of our misunderstanding of God's greatest calling.  I think our disassociation stems from something much more insidious, something more evil than the love of money (though one may cause the other and vice verse). 

Lack of compassion. 

I believe that lack of compassion in many of the most influential and out spoken Christians is the biggest stumbling blocks to people today.  Compassion is what makes us realize that when we over exploit the earth we're destroying it for those who come after us.  Compassion is what makes us aware of needless destruction.  And those of us that have compassion notice these things and hurt.  I hurt when I see a squirrel dead in the middle of the road.  I hurt when I drive by a sign for new development, and stretching behind it a bare scar of red Georgia clay.  I hurt when I hear one more self entitled prig's needlessly inflammatory remarks.  They lump together a diverse group of people and play the blame game.  What makes it worse?  They accuse the others, whoever the others are at the moment, of fear mongering, yet that's exactly what I hear when I listen to them. 

Is this one of the cases where it takes one to know one?  I'm a Christian, a devout one, but one with diverse beliefs.  I don't fit the stereotypical conservative, and I'm not really liberal.  I find that what I abhor most of all is extremism in either direction.  Extremism doesn't lead to understanding.  It leads to opposing sides screaming at the top of their lungs loud enough to make anyone undecided deaf.  It doesn't lead people to see wisdom, it blinds them to the true need.  I won't say I'm all that in touch with nature, and I definitely don't want spiders in my house.  But I also want children, I want them to see the gifts that God has given us, to value them; and to see that the first profession, the most worthy profession, is the one that God gave us on the sixth day. 

I am not the best at this profession, but like any career path I get better at it as I gain practice and knowledge.  Sometimes I think the extreme right is afraid of knowledge, they see it as humanism.  But I would remind you that God gave you that brain, and he expects you to use it.  Use it to think of ways to internalize compassion, and use it to find ways to care for the plants, animals, and world that God has given us.

Why Having ADD makes me Fantastic Support at a High Energy Software Company

ADD affects my life in so many ways, mostly negative, like when I go grocery shopping with my husband and completely zone out starring at the magazines in the check out line.  My husband is ofter flabbergasted at how gnat like my attention can be.  It's rare, very rare, EXTREMELY rare for ADD to affect my life in any positive way.  But lately I've found that in the software industry, and especially in the world of support, it can be an asset.

My life is a series of interruptions, one after the other, and most of support is one person asking how to do this, followed by a problem with that, with someone in sales asking for a demo of something else.  So as the job jumps from one thing to the next my attention is easily moved on to the next thing.  You jump and I'm already there.

That's the good part, but I suppose there's a down side to flitting from crisis to crisis.  There's rarely enough buffer between interruptions.  I'll get off the phone and start writing up a support case when the phone rings again, and while I'm explaining to that customer how to do whatever they're asking about I'll have three other e-mails come in that need a response or few so I trade e-mails for a while, and by the time that's done I've forgotten what I was doing with that window looking at that support case or more often it's hidden behind those e-mail windows and I don't find it again until I'm cleaning up my desktop at the end of the day.  Each day is one run on sentence after another.  By the end of the day I can forget about reporting on what I've done, I've probably forgotten more than half of what I've done that day, so I'm looking at my e-mail log just so I can figure out what I was doing six hours ago.

And then there are those dreaded slow days.  They happen, usually in pieces, an afternoon here, a couple hours there.  I get caught up, having told everybody what they need to know to do what they want to do for the time being, written up any support issues, waiting on logs or responses or whatever, and I'm supposed to be doing REAL work, probably writing documentation which really means I'm trying to take some bit of documentation and developing training documentation, usually a PowerPoint presentation.  This is where my ADD really hurts me, when I'm starring at a sentence on the screen and wondering how I can make this visual, really how can I keep folks from falling asleep starring at this slide.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE PowerPoint.  I love visual learning, and I love diagrams and tables and charts that get the point across.  But sometimes you don't want to show something.  Sometimes information can't broken down into pretty pictures, or graphs, or lists.  Sometimes you want to SAY something and PowerPoint doesn't lend itself to paragraphs or explanations.  So I find myself lost in thought as I stare at a paragraph wondering how I can break this down into something interesting. 

And now I'm already distracted from writing this post cause I'm watching Babylon 5 and want to go read the biography of Melissa Gilbert on IMDB.  Hey!  You're reading a blog about how ADD I am!  What did you expect, a conclusion?