theres an interesting assumption that if ur super competent at one thing then you'll be super competent at everything.
I was told I wowed during my interview, i was applying for a dental lab tech job bc i had worked at one previously for a year and it's art (adjacent) so when I showed the ceo and hiring manager my work, they were super excited to hire me! Oh look at how skillfully he sculpted that snake! Surely he will be our star employee!
I just had my first day and a lady genuinely asked me if i had ever done this kind of work before.
Truth is i had. With how long i was at my previous job i should have had a super easy day pouring dental stone into impressions, my trainer even joked how it's never this slow and i came in on a good day. Gentle reader, It was not a good day for me.
I have autism and adhd. I floundered and bumbled through each increasingly idiot-proof task i was given, my trainer slowly realizing like that leopard seal attempting to feed increasingly feeble penguins to the NatGeo photographer. I was a useless predator in her ocean and would not survive. I struggled to comprehend simple instructions given in plain english, i couldn't make the connections in my head. I did things impulsively and I put things down where they got mixed up and accidentally carved into what should have been spared. It was humiliating. I should be better at this, they saw how well i drew those lines, why couldn't I multitask these simple orders?
Its moments like these when the full scale of what is genuinely a disabling mental disorder is laid most bare to me. I could feel the parts in my head where the rusty gears refused to turn like a physical presence over my shoulder that then sat with me in the car at the end of the day, mocking me. I haven't been able to maintain stable employment past a year in over a decade because of it. I've been "that guy" at work for as long as i remember, the one whose name is immediately followed by a chorus of "oh my goddddddd"
don't they know i paint bird real well?
