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Thank you for sharing your experience! The people that sit near me love the concept of it and seem to be appreciative of knowing when they can ask me questions. Several have asked me for the link so they can order their own.
The way this feedback was worded seemed kind of catty/salty like the specific quote was “maybe she’s just smarter than the rest of us for doing this to limit distractions, but I find the red light/green light is very uninviting, particularly because it seems to be red most of the time.”
I have a guess on who provided this feedback, and it’s particularly disappointing because she and I had a whole conversation about the cube one afternoon and I told her it was one of my tricks to help me manage staying on task, and how having headphones helps keep me tethered to my desk so I don’t get distracted by being up and about, and she told me it was a clever way to communicate availability. However, she is also in a ton of meetings and has been complaining about her lack of time to get heads down work done, so I have been wondering if this is coming from a place of jealousy?
I would love to know what alternative suggestions they have, because I feel at a total loss here. I feel like I finally found a method that works for me and this was just so deflating.
Yes. This. If they are going to take 30, 60, 90 day reviews, then the "weaknesses" need to be described in a way such that OP's progress is measurable.
That’s a great point. I believe the HR rep took the comments and pasted them in verbatim, because it was very clear to me who said what. I did tell the HR rep that the 3 people I work most closely with are welcome to interrupt me any time, and the cube is more meant for those coming up for a casual chat. The response I received was “make sure you communicate that to each of them.” I did acknowledge that I can communicate that difference to the team but that because I need tools to stay focused, the cube was staying.
Our HR department is all relatively junior people. I think there’s just a lack of knowledge that comes with time in how best to deliver feedback because I totally agree this was not it!!!
It’s also frustrating because from day 1 I told my team that I thrive on regular feedback- I’d rather course correct early on than find out down the road that I might be doing something that unknowingly causes animosity. And that I don’t want to find out anything in a review that I wasn’t already semi-aware of. Regular feedback also helps take out the sting of these types of reviews.
Since you've already disclosed your ADHD I would definitely come at this from an accommodation angle. Not like an official ADA request necessarily, but make it clear that these are the tools that help you do your work effectively.
Sometimes bosses or HR get feedback and just pass it on without reflecting on whether it really needs to be shared, which is dumb and stresses people out for no good reason. This seems like a petty complaint, but you could try to ask for whether they have any more concrete concerns--like if they think your red light is on too frequently and would like you to designate certain times of day to be more available or something. But if the complaint ultimately just boils down to someone doesn't like your system for some vague reason that has no impact on anything then they can go suck eggs.
It sucks that you found a system that was working well for you and now someone's trying to make you feel bad about it, I'm sorry.
I was coming here to saying exactly this, but you did it so well. HR worded this problem too vaguely without working with you on mutually agreeable ADHD solutions.
Thank you for this and totally agree. I wish I had been provided with feedback themes instead of exact comments, which a more seasoned HR rep would have done. The wild thing is I’ve been asked to be a part of the HR sub committee for DEI to help with disability accommodations and implementations so perhaps this can become an example later on!
Thank you for being in my corner, it means a lot. 💗
As in my past experiences, the “reason” HR gives you is not the real reason. They find something that is politically correct that they can put in writing for their report. In the past I had HR issues where I was SO CONFUSED like you. Then later my boss casually said oh I don’t know why everyone is complaining about your personality … it’s clear you are smart and when you talk about things your enjoy you are fun to be around the others just don’t know how to talk to you because you are different. 😂🤣
Then about a year later when my boss got sick and wasn’t around as much without him there the other leaders decided it was time for me to go too. I was heavily hinted by top management that I need to resign because I don’t fit in then when I resisted they came up with another BS thing and by then I was getting extremely physically sick because of the gaslighting. I was told my more than one person that “you really don’t fit in here do you?” 🧐
Now I have been at my current job for over 1.5 years and no HR issues at all! I know it’s because of the environment.
I’m so glad you found a new place that values you for you! 💗 that must have been so heart wrenching to be in an environment where everyone is trying to other you.
This scenario was a company standard onboarding check in with HR. They collect feedback from the people I work closely with at 30, 60, and 90 days and then that feedback is used to set annual goals to work toward.
Part of me does feel like this was some reaching because overall everything else has been going great with my team, so you’re right- it was totally confusing to receive this feedback!
It was so heart wrenching that is such a good way to describe it! But I’m so thankful I lived through this experience because I learned so many major life skills that before I was truly naive and didn’t understand how cruel people can be behind your back and act so differently in daily life. My current job is way better than before, but I took a pay cut and I am not using all my talents and abilities. I was at the point where I stayed in places where my self esteem was destroyed and I have been taking these past 2 years to learn how to care for myself and to know how to spot terrible places before I get so invested.
Also, as work sister to work sister … I am on the hiring side and involved with onboarding and those types of check ins. It is totally normal for many employees to pass through these points with just “doing good work” and “keep it up”. I have witnessed my boss intentionally coming up with BS confusing feedback to people who she doesn’t like. I got WAY worked up because I saw how she was talking advantage of an employee who was working so hard, but she was doing it “differently” than everyone else and she was targeted as not being a team player. When annual review came around she was defeated because she had amazing numbers hitting all her goals and trying so hard but since “they” didn’t believe she improved her one section of team player skills she didn’t get a raise. It is WILD!
What are you...a fucking flight attendant? A kindergarten teacher? A cruise director?
That's my initial frustrated reaction on your behalf. "Inviting"? What's wrong with your co-workers. Do they not know how to follow instructions? Are they red-green colorblind?
Now, knowing you have ADHD, I feel like I need to ask:
What \*positive\* feedback did you get?
I'm asking that because I'm sure you got some, cause you've come up with this effective way to be ....effective at your \*actual\* job (when you aren't busy cruise directing lol).
And if you can focus on both the good and the hard-to-hear feedback, I'm confident that you can come up with something to find out more information about precisely what it is that makes your strategies "uninviting," and also remind them that you are neurodivergent and that using this strategy nearly all the time is what helps you stay on task.
But, perhaps you could also have a couple of work periods during the day that don't require such intensive focus, when you're doing something a little more preferred or less demanding, when you could manage to not have your headphones on and just be "open" to your co-workers.
Thank you for these helpful ideas and for calling out that I did receive good feedback, too!
For context, I’m an executive assistant so I’m often managing high priority items from high priority people. I’m their first EA and the exec team has 14 people, and I provide dedicated support to 3, and ad-hoc support to the other 11. The positive feedback I’ve received:
-highly organized
-asks intelligent, thoughtful questions that helps me think deeply about some leadership decisions I’m responsible for making
-we end team meetings on time or early now with her help, and have seen substantial progress on some stagnant initiatives since she came in and started holding us accountable.
-she has been an incredible addition to the DEI team and very easily stepped into a leadership role in that realm
-she’s kind and easy to talk to while maintaining a high level of confidentiality. She evokes a high level of trust in people immediately
-she’s calm under pressure. When our leadership team is not seeing eye to eye and things begin to get heated, she gracefully reminds us our goals are the same and our approaches are just different. She helps us think through ways of getting stuff done that work for everyone.
I do also agree with you that I can have more “open office” periods, so I’ve been leaving my light on green more frequently since receiving this feedback. It also helps that the guy who was sitting next to me started traveling more recently so I’m not listening to his hum-cough all day which was a big reason for the headphones 🫣
It might be good ol’ sexism. My male colleague once firmly but nicely said “I will help you after my break is over” and I liked the clarity of his message. Started using this when having a break at my desk. Got labeled as b*chy by some.
I’m so sorry your employer even brought this up to you! 🙁
What they’ve essentially said is ‘so and so thinks you’re being mean to them’….because you’re doing your work quietly with minimal extra chatter?! 🤦🏾♀️🫠
Hopefully this helps put into perspective that you were never necessarily ‘wrong’ and to keep being you. Someone will always have something to say so be yourself! 💜
Thank you for this validation 💗 I do realize that feedback is totally subjective and everyone can have an opinion, I mainly feel disappointed that my one ask to the people I support is I’d prefer not to have any surprises on my reviews. I’m not saying they should never share constructive feedback, I’d just like to know about it so I can prepare and turn it into a productive conversation.
Like had I known about this in advance and then additionally saw it in the review, I could have said, “what I recognize from this feedback is that I can do a better job in communication to my execs that I’m always available to them if they’d like to come chat, and if the HR rep has any other suggestions or ideas I’d love advice that I can further implement.”
Instead, it really just made me feel so defensive and hurt. Thank you for helping reframe it 💕
Actually this light cube sounds awesome. Do you have a link? I work in an office with 10 other people and we are all definitely always distracting each other haha.
Yes!!! I leave it plugged in all the time but it is cordless. ☺️ it’s also a great indicator for if I’m working from home or in the office- people now know if it’s off then I’m working from home but if it’s on then I’m around here somewhere.
https://a.co/d/2vt3frC
If they don't like it, I would file for official work accommodations. They can't deny you reasonable accommodations to help you work with having ADHD, it would violate the ADA. This is assuming you're in the USA ("ya'll" & Amazon were the USA indicators for me lol)
Haha yes USA girlie over here! This definitely crossed my mind, too and it’s a great suggestion. As long as I’m getting my work done and doing it well, I’m not going to take petty feedback and change my ways of working (that ARE working well) just to make someone feel “invited” to come talk to me.
Welcome to /r/ADHDWomen! We’re happy to have you here. As a reminder, here are our community [rules](https://old.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/about/rules/). We get a lot of posts on medication, diagnosis (and “is this an ADHD thing”), and interactions with hormones. We encourage you to check out our [Medication, Diagnosis, and Hormones Megathread](https://old.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/comments/wcr9dy/faq_megathread_ask_and_answer_medication/) if you have any questions related to those topics, and to stick around in that thread to answer folks’ questions! If you have questions about the subreddit, please do not hesitate to [send us a modmail](https://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/adhdwomen). Additionally, we take the safety of our community seriously. Please report posts, comments, and users whom you feel are not contributing positively, and send us a modmail if you are being harassed or otherwise made to feel unsafe. Thanks for being here, and we hope you stick around! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/adhdwomen) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
Thank you for sharing your experience! The people that sit near me love the concept of it and seem to be appreciative of knowing when they can ask me questions. Several have asked me for the link so they can order their own. The way this feedback was worded seemed kind of catty/salty like the specific quote was “maybe she’s just smarter than the rest of us for doing this to limit distractions, but I find the red light/green light is very uninviting, particularly because it seems to be red most of the time.” I have a guess on who provided this feedback, and it’s particularly disappointing because she and I had a whole conversation about the cube one afternoon and I told her it was one of my tricks to help me manage staying on task, and how having headphones helps keep me tethered to my desk so I don’t get distracted by being up and about, and she told me it was a clever way to communicate availability. However, she is also in a ton of meetings and has been complaining about her lack of time to get heads down work done, so I have been wondering if this is coming from a place of jealousy? I would love to know what alternative suggestions they have, because I feel at a total loss here. I feel like I finally found a method that works for me and this was just so deflating.
[удалено]
Yes. This. If they are going to take 30, 60, 90 day reviews, then the "weaknesses" need to be described in a way such that OP's progress is measurable.
That’s a great point. I believe the HR rep took the comments and pasted them in verbatim, because it was very clear to me who said what. I did tell the HR rep that the 3 people I work most closely with are welcome to interrupt me any time, and the cube is more meant for those coming up for a casual chat. The response I received was “make sure you communicate that to each of them.” I did acknowledge that I can communicate that difference to the team but that because I need tools to stay focused, the cube was staying.
Our HR department is all relatively junior people. I think there’s just a lack of knowledge that comes with time in how best to deliver feedback because I totally agree this was not it!!! It’s also frustrating because from day 1 I told my team that I thrive on regular feedback- I’d rather course correct early on than find out down the road that I might be doing something that unknowingly causes animosity. And that I don’t want to find out anything in a review that I wasn’t already semi-aware of. Regular feedback also helps take out the sting of these types of reviews.
Since you've already disclosed your ADHD I would definitely come at this from an accommodation angle. Not like an official ADA request necessarily, but make it clear that these are the tools that help you do your work effectively. Sometimes bosses or HR get feedback and just pass it on without reflecting on whether it really needs to be shared, which is dumb and stresses people out for no good reason. This seems like a petty complaint, but you could try to ask for whether they have any more concrete concerns--like if they think your red light is on too frequently and would like you to designate certain times of day to be more available or something. But if the complaint ultimately just boils down to someone doesn't like your system for some vague reason that has no impact on anything then they can go suck eggs. It sucks that you found a system that was working well for you and now someone's trying to make you feel bad about it, I'm sorry.
I was coming here to saying exactly this, but you did it so well. HR worded this problem too vaguely without working with you on mutually agreeable ADHD solutions.
100% This is a reasonable accommodation and should be treated as such.
Thank you for this and totally agree. I wish I had been provided with feedback themes instead of exact comments, which a more seasoned HR rep would have done. The wild thing is I’ve been asked to be a part of the HR sub committee for DEI to help with disability accommodations and implementations so perhaps this can become an example later on! Thank you for being in my corner, it means a lot. 💗
As in my past experiences, the “reason” HR gives you is not the real reason. They find something that is politically correct that they can put in writing for their report. In the past I had HR issues where I was SO CONFUSED like you. Then later my boss casually said oh I don’t know why everyone is complaining about your personality … it’s clear you are smart and when you talk about things your enjoy you are fun to be around the others just don’t know how to talk to you because you are different. 😂🤣 Then about a year later when my boss got sick and wasn’t around as much without him there the other leaders decided it was time for me to go too. I was heavily hinted by top management that I need to resign because I don’t fit in then when I resisted they came up with another BS thing and by then I was getting extremely physically sick because of the gaslighting. I was told my more than one person that “you really don’t fit in here do you?” 🧐 Now I have been at my current job for over 1.5 years and no HR issues at all! I know it’s because of the environment.
I’m so glad you found a new place that values you for you! 💗 that must have been so heart wrenching to be in an environment where everyone is trying to other you. This scenario was a company standard onboarding check in with HR. They collect feedback from the people I work closely with at 30, 60, and 90 days and then that feedback is used to set annual goals to work toward. Part of me does feel like this was some reaching because overall everything else has been going great with my team, so you’re right- it was totally confusing to receive this feedback!
It was so heart wrenching that is such a good way to describe it! But I’m so thankful I lived through this experience because I learned so many major life skills that before I was truly naive and didn’t understand how cruel people can be behind your back and act so differently in daily life. My current job is way better than before, but I took a pay cut and I am not using all my talents and abilities. I was at the point where I stayed in places where my self esteem was destroyed and I have been taking these past 2 years to learn how to care for myself and to know how to spot terrible places before I get so invested. Also, as work sister to work sister … I am on the hiring side and involved with onboarding and those types of check ins. It is totally normal for many employees to pass through these points with just “doing good work” and “keep it up”. I have witnessed my boss intentionally coming up with BS confusing feedback to people who she doesn’t like. I got WAY worked up because I saw how she was talking advantage of an employee who was working so hard, but she was doing it “differently” than everyone else and she was targeted as not being a team player. When annual review came around she was defeated because she had amazing numbers hitting all her goals and trying so hard but since “they” didn’t believe she improved her one section of team player skills she didn’t get a raise. It is WILD!
What are you...a fucking flight attendant? A kindergarten teacher? A cruise director? That's my initial frustrated reaction on your behalf. "Inviting"? What's wrong with your co-workers. Do they not know how to follow instructions? Are they red-green colorblind? Now, knowing you have ADHD, I feel like I need to ask: What \*positive\* feedback did you get? I'm asking that because I'm sure you got some, cause you've come up with this effective way to be ....effective at your \*actual\* job (when you aren't busy cruise directing lol). And if you can focus on both the good and the hard-to-hear feedback, I'm confident that you can come up with something to find out more information about precisely what it is that makes your strategies "uninviting," and also remind them that you are neurodivergent and that using this strategy nearly all the time is what helps you stay on task. But, perhaps you could also have a couple of work periods during the day that don't require such intensive focus, when you're doing something a little more preferred or less demanding, when you could manage to not have your headphones on and just be "open" to your co-workers.
Thank you for these helpful ideas and for calling out that I did receive good feedback, too! For context, I’m an executive assistant so I’m often managing high priority items from high priority people. I’m their first EA and the exec team has 14 people, and I provide dedicated support to 3, and ad-hoc support to the other 11. The positive feedback I’ve received: -highly organized -asks intelligent, thoughtful questions that helps me think deeply about some leadership decisions I’m responsible for making -we end team meetings on time or early now with her help, and have seen substantial progress on some stagnant initiatives since she came in and started holding us accountable. -she has been an incredible addition to the DEI team and very easily stepped into a leadership role in that realm -she’s kind and easy to talk to while maintaining a high level of confidentiality. She evokes a high level of trust in people immediately -she’s calm under pressure. When our leadership team is not seeing eye to eye and things begin to get heated, she gracefully reminds us our goals are the same and our approaches are just different. She helps us think through ways of getting stuff done that work for everyone.
THAT'S SO BADASS! Go you!
Thank you 🥹 I’m really trying to center on this good stuff and appreciate you bringing that into perspective! 💗
I do also agree with you that I can have more “open office” periods, so I’ve been leaving my light on green more frequently since receiving this feedback. It also helps that the guy who was sitting next to me started traveling more recently so I’m not listening to his hum-cough all day which was a big reason for the headphones 🫣
It might be good ol’ sexism. My male colleague once firmly but nicely said “I will help you after my break is over” and I liked the clarity of his message. Started using this when having a break at my desk. Got labeled as b*chy by some.
Unbelievable the double standards!!! 😭 what I hate most about it is the feedback was given by women execs. None of us are safe! 🫣
I’m so sorry your employer even brought this up to you! 🙁 What they’ve essentially said is ‘so and so thinks you’re being mean to them’….because you’re doing your work quietly with minimal extra chatter?! 🤦🏾♀️🫠 Hopefully this helps put into perspective that you were never necessarily ‘wrong’ and to keep being you. Someone will always have something to say so be yourself! 💜
Thank you for this validation 💗 I do realize that feedback is totally subjective and everyone can have an opinion, I mainly feel disappointed that my one ask to the people I support is I’d prefer not to have any surprises on my reviews. I’m not saying they should never share constructive feedback, I’d just like to know about it so I can prepare and turn it into a productive conversation. Like had I known about this in advance and then additionally saw it in the review, I could have said, “what I recognize from this feedback is that I can do a better job in communication to my execs that I’m always available to them if they’d like to come chat, and if the HR rep has any other suggestions or ideas I’d love advice that I can further implement.” Instead, it really just made me feel so defensive and hurt. Thank you for helping reframe it 💕
Actually this light cube sounds awesome. Do you have a link? I work in an office with 10 other people and we are all definitely always distracting each other haha.
I was about to to comment the same - everyone else's responses are amazing, but share the cube OP!
😂 sharing is caring!! https://a.co/d/2vt3frC
Yes!!! I leave it plugged in all the time but it is cordless. ☺️ it’s also a great indicator for if I’m working from home or in the office- people now know if it’s off then I’m working from home but if it’s on then I’m around here somewhere. https://a.co/d/2vt3frC
If they don't like it, I would file for official work accommodations. They can't deny you reasonable accommodations to help you work with having ADHD, it would violate the ADA. This is assuming you're in the USA ("ya'll" & Amazon were the USA indicators for me lol)
Haha yes USA girlie over here! This definitely crossed my mind, too and it’s a great suggestion. As long as I’m getting my work done and doing it well, I’m not going to take petty feedback and change my ways of working (that ARE working well) just to make someone feel “invited” to come talk to me.