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epitome of incomprehensibility
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I wish my boss B. wouldn't keep hitting two of my sore spots. One is time_management. The other is my (dis)ability to categorize things.
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I can cope with the time management lectures because I can squeeze useful tips out of the swirl of words. (He doesn't time-manage his lectures, the hypocrite.) But he gets some things right: yes, in a work team, it's generally good to stick to a time estimate. That builds trust, solidity.
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But the categorization issues! It stings whenever he brings them up, but I don't think he means to dig at my (dis)ability. He never says outright, "Kirsten, you have problems categorizing things." He doesn't seem to recognize that it's a skill-related thing at all. He thinks I'm just being stubborn.
Am I stubborn? Yes, somewhat. But that doesn't nearly cover all of my admin mistakes: sending the wrong email template, changing a font I wasn't supposed to change...
Okay, the examples are boring. The point is that he thinks I'm actively *deciding* to do stuff my own way instead of trusting him. But often when he berates me for "going outside the system," I've breached a boundary I didn't know existed. Or one that I just didn't notice at the time.
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But what's this "system" that I'm not following? It isn't a single thing, more like "How B. Wants the Administration To Be Run." Sometimes the "system" is written down. Sometimes it's in his head. Nowadays, more of it is written down, which makes things a easier, but I'm still awful at figuring out what *isn't* in the system.
It's a bit like defining negative space. I used to ask him, "How do I *know* what's outside 'the system'?" and he couldn't give me a clear answer. Maybe it isn't something you can give a clear answer to. Maybe it's like asking someone, "Define everything that isn't an apple tree." You can't give infinite examples!
But I want a method of knowing - besides always asking him. Sometimes questions annoy him. You should know that! he insists. You have all the tools there!
But I don't. Not in my brain. It just doesn't seem to work that way.
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I know I shouldn't let B. get to me. I should be thicker-skinned, more confident. Two weeks ago, David expressed concern that I kept feeling insecure. He told me I didn't need to feel "less than" (I'm paraphrasing).
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A person can't be good at everything: my rational mind accepts that. But it bothers me when I'm bad at something and people think I'm being deliberately difficult or disagreeable.
...Ooookay, if I'm honest with myself, it bothers me when I'm bad at something, full stop. But it bothers me more when people think I'm being bad in the ethical sense when I'm only being bad in the competence sense.
If that makes any sense!
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Take categorization. Earlier this month - without going into details - two of the writers here, in two different email conversations, seemed angry at me. I could see why: you thought I was deliberately going against something we'd agreed upon. I hadn't meant to do that at the time. For others, the category seemed clear. For me, it wasn't.
So at first I was surprised and, when one of asked, "Why do that?" I answered abruptly, somewhat angrily: "I didn't do that thing. I was explicitly trying not to do that thing, so how could you think I was doing that thing? Maybe you shouldn't expect me to do things that are not clearly defined, because I have a bad sense of categories, waaah!"
Okay, I didn't write "waaah." But I SOUNDED "waaah." And I also sounded defiant, combative. So I wouldn't blame anyone for reading that and thinking, "Oh, she's just being stubborn and wants to do things her own way."
So in the group conversation after, I tried to explain things in more detail. Partly I was hoping someone would write to me directly, saying something like, "It's okay, Kirsten, don't worry, I know you didn't mean to upset anyone or make the problem worse."
But then, why would anyone even think of writing that? I wasn't the main focus. The bigger problem was different. I probably came off as self-centred or at least irrelevant.
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Part of the reason I like blather is, admittedly, self-centred. And it involves irrelevant details. Specifically, that I can selfishly write irrelevant details.
With blather, I can write in a way that comes naturally to my brain. When I'm writing a blathe and I start branching off into a different topic, I can start a new blathe, cut and paste the not-quite-on-topic stuff, and then link them. E.g. when I wrote about my language class in Germany in immer_immersion and I got to something that didn't have to do as much with the class or with learning German, I'd start a new blathe and link it there. Sort of like putting in sidenodes, footnotes.
So I really like that about blather, and I also really like what other people are doing with it: their own ways of setting down descriptive vignettes, focused chronicles, poems, songs, memories of dreams and conversations.
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But what's with my ADHOC? Attention Deficit Hyperlink Order? And where did the "C" come from??
But yes, I suspect being bad at categorizing things is part of ADHD.
I'm extrapolating not just from experience, but also from some things I read for a past research paper. That was more focused on language and autism, but there are some similarities.
To (over)simplify:
-Autistic people tend to have problems understanding when there is an inference. It helps to explain things more directly.
-ADHD people tend to have trouble understanding where an inference goes. Again, it helps to explain things more directly.
(Maybe I said some of this in "indexicality"? Maybe I didn't? But it's late and I should go on.)
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Note that this doesn't mean we're hopeless or that we can't understand patterns. But there's certain kinds of patterns different brains might be better at recognizing.
Personally, I find that I'm good at finding patterns through lateral or parallel thinking, whatever you call it. Like analogies. I like analogies! There's something satisfying about drawing links across different categories like that.
But give me a riddle like "If a monkey, a squirrel, and a bird are racing to the top of a coconut tree, who will get the banana first?" and I will not notice that a coconut tree DOES NOT PRODUCE BANANAS until the fact is pointed out to me. (Or at least that's what happened today at the Dorval Celebrates craft_fair after someone from the library offered me a sheet of riddles.)
My mom found the above riddle very easy. She got it right away. The one she didn't get? "Paul is six feet tall, he's an assistant at a butcher's shop, and he wears size 9 shoes. What does he weigh?"
My thoughts: well, we can't know how much he weighs, so there must be some trick. Aha. The word "weigh." It can be used two ways. What does he weigh? He weighs the meat at the shop.
...So yes, I don't know whether those results are replicable or indicative, but it seems to me that I keep missing things other people find obvious. But now that I say it straight out, is that so bad? I'm good at other things, just as other people are good at things I'm not. This is just how things work, Kirsten; I can reassure myself.
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And, while I'm kinder to myself, I can also be fairer to people whose communication styles don't match mine. I was kind of mad last month when someone's request struck me as passive-aggressive; I thought, "This isn't a fair way to communicate! Write to me directly!" But the thing is, it only "struck" me as passive-aggressive; it was my imagination spinning it that way. People can be indirect without being passive-aggressive. So I'm sorry for being mentally and probably verbally unkind.
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