> people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway

Of course, that applies to everybody who achieves a stable career at all.

Exceedingly few people (if anyone) are competent and capable at everything, even when you're just talking about basic skills that are handy for common, everyday work.

Your doctor may be a incorrigibly terrible driver, your bus driver may pass out at the sight of blood, your Michelin chef might have been never made sense of geometry, your mechanic may need deep focus just to read through a manual, your bricklayer might go into a panic if they need to stand in front of a crowd, your bartender may never have experienced a clear thought before 11am.

Struggling with some things, even deeply struggling, is normal if not universal. But once you age past the gauntlet of general education that specifically tests all these things, the hope is that you can just sort of flow like water into a valuable enough community role that you can take care of yourself and help some people.

A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture stirs up an idea that there must be something unusual about you if you find this thing or that thing difficult, when the reality is that everybody has a few things that they struggle with quite a lot, and that the people who seem like they don't have just succeeded at avoiding, delegating, or hiding whatever it is that's hard for them.

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qazxcvbnmlp an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Well put.

> A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture

Theres also a pernicious way of identifying with the struggle. Instead of I have trouble focusing in certain situations, so maybe I should find ways to spend my time (careers, hobbies) that work well with that. We instead go to 'I have ADHD' and my 'job' should make special accommodations for me.

Regardless of whether a job should or should not make accommodations. It's not a very helpful construct to think they should. It removes agency from the person experiencing the struggle. Which in turn puts them farther from finding a place that they would fit in well.

For the vast majority of behaviors (ADHD, attachment issues, autism, etc) they exist on a continuum and are adaptive/helpful in certain situations. By pathologizing them, we(society) loose touch for what they mean in our life. It also makes discourse hard because the (this is causing me to truly not be able to function) gets mixed in with the (this is a way that my brain behaves, but I can mostly live a life).

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barchar 28 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I don't see how you spending time in ways that work well with your challenges is different from your job providing accomodations, except that if your employer is willing to work with you then you don't have to randomly roll the dice until you come up with an employer where things happen to work in whatever way you wanted.

It's not like one of the accomodations on the table is "not doing your job"

	▲	swatcoder 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The difference reduces to: 1. The career I would like to have, and the life I desire to live, is my free choice. Once I've made that choice, the community's responsibility is to give me whatever I need so that I can apply myself to that career and live the life I imagine for myself. vs 2. I have certain capabilities and limitations. The community has certain needs. If there's any way for me to do so, it's my responsibility to figure out how my capabilities can service the community's needs, respecting my limitations, and it's the community's reciprocal responsibility to make sure my contribution is fairly acknowledged so that I can live a secure and constructive life. I'll figure out the rest from there.

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paulpauper an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Being diagnosed with a learning disability or other type of neuro-divergency does not automatically entitle someone to special treatment. The vast majority of that 38% are likely just "diagnosed" people who are asking for no special treatment at all.

Hmm ..the irony is that jobs that require the least amount of credentials have the least accommodations. White collar jobs, especially in tech, seem to have so many accommodations or delays and extra time. Think how often employees come in late or delay work. HR exists to accommodate these requests. College, and school in general, has far fewer accommodations and flexibility than seen in most work environments, save for low-skilled jobs where puantiality is necessary.

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Hizonner 20 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> But once you age past the gauntlet of general education that specifically tests all these things, the hope is that you can just sort of flow like water into a valuable enough community role that you can take care of yourself and help some people.

... provided that that gauntlet hasn't stuck a label on you that makes everybody think you're unsuitable for any role, and provided that it's bothered to develop the abilities you do have, and provided that other people aren't being unnecessarily rigid about what roles they'll allow to exist.

Sure, maybe it's stupid to frame it as "THIS counts as being disabled and THAT doesn't"... but we have a world where many systems have decided to do that, and may act slightly less insanely inflexible if they've put you in the "disabled" bucket.

If everybody has some limitations, maybe everybody should get some accommodations. You know, so that they can actually contribute using their strengths. But I'm not holding my breath.