Dissapointment

Dissapointment 9-3-15

I don’t like my job. It isn’t that it’s a bad job necessarily, but I’ve just been doing it too long and rather than getting new responsibilities and more influence in the company my position has slid backwards due to the work I once did being taken over by Corporate. It all makes sense on paper, but in the end I have a shrinking job and everything I’ve tried (not that I’ve tried everything) has fallen on deaf ears. Recently the opportunity to move to a different division within the company into a position that carried more responsibility, and was a logical stepping stone for my career path. From the onset it seemed almost as if the position was developed with me in mind. I applied for the job and was chosen for an interview. I was one of six candidates. One candidate was a co-worker who was under qualified for the position and was eliminated pretty quickly. Two others were from outside the company. The hiring manager didn’t seem very interested in them. They didn’t have a good handle on what Bosch was and weren’t up to his expectations in terms of marketing skills. The final two were from Germany. I have no idea how qualified they were, but During my interview the hiring manager made it pretty clear that he wasn’t thrilled about the potential of hiring outside of the country for a 2 year assignment. He seemed to understand that it would take quite a while to get up to speed and then shortly after would have to leave.

My interview went really well, We seemed to have good chemistry, and he seemed to think I was qualified enough and yet had some room to grow into the position which according to him was a good thing. Maybe some of my answers in the interview could have been better, but what interview have you ever been in where you hit every question perfectly? Anyway, It seemed as though this was likely to happen. Carol and I were pretty excited about the thought of a better position, working for a better crew, and moving to a nicer area. Our planets were all lining up for once. I was told in the interview that it would be a couple of weeks before I heard anything. After two weeks I wrote to the HR Manager to ask what was up. I was told that travel schedules had delayed the process. Two more weeks went by and Carol and I were getting anxious. I wrote again and this time I was told that I did not get the job and that it went to another internal candidate.

I have been fired once and laid off twice. This felt a lot like that. I have been flushed out of a few other jobs I had interviewed for, but it always felt like it made some sense, and I would move on pretty quickly. This didn’t feel like that at all. I felt like I had been fired for something I didn’t do. I was sad, upset and felt wronged. I felt and still feel like the German candidates were pushed on the hiring manager by the GM of the division, or by a higher up in Germany. This didn’t feel right to me at all. My feelings since then have swayed quite a bit. I’m not dwelling on it, but it comes around pretty regularly. When it does I feel pretty depressed. I am having a hard time actually working at my job and feel like just saying fuck it and walking out. If Carol were working and/or Archer wasn’t here I might. The whole thing just feels so helpless. I mean there isn’t anything I could have done better, or anything I can do at this point. Someone else has my job, and at some point I’m going to have to play nice with them and I hate it.

Now I’m not happy and I have to get back into the job hunt. I let it go a bit when I thought the job was a sure thing. The truth is I have a hard time believing that I’m good enough for many of the jobs out there that would get me to where I want to be. It’s so dumb though because I have years of experience, a lot of common sense, good intuition, and a master’s degree. I’m very qualified. I think my hold up is that I’m not as tech savvy as I should be. The other part of it is I still suffer from being who I am, which is to say, a person who wasn’t told he was awesome very often. That really sucks the life out of you after a while. I need to get over what people did to me when I was younger.

Degree of Change - New blog direction

Degree of Change

Degree of change is a new direction for the blog formerly knows as the ADHD Experience. The new direction will be a deeper probe into why i am the person I am and how I can go from this person to something better. I think this will be a more therapeutic use of my time and heck, it might even be interesting. Stay tuned, more will come.

Distracted

ADHD vs Narcolepsy/hypersomnia

So, I have both ADHD and hypersomnia. I've been treating the hypersomnia for a while now, and not treating the ADHD. I don't do well with the drugs used to treat ADHD. I am taking 150mg of NuVigil for the hypersomnia, and it works well and more importantly works well with my system. I'm much more present during the day on NuVigil, but life isn't perfect. I have found that I am getting overly focused on some things, but still go about things in a clusterfucked sort of way.

Its like knowing you want to get from point A to point B and being so focused on point B you block out almost everything else to the point of being detrimental to your life and relationships. I also find that even though I've always been a messy person, I am more messy than ever. I think it's still better than where I was before, but still not perfect.

Changing course

So, I had an appointment with a neurologist a while back and we are looking at a new possible diagnosis, or co-morbid diagnosis. The neurologist seems to think that a large part of my problems may be narcoleptic in nature with some side helpings of a few other possible add on issues. It was an interesting appointment. As we went through the symptoms things seemed to be pretty dead on.

My next step will be to have a series of tests including a sleep study. These are pretty damn expensive so I'm waiting for my new benefit year to begin testing. I should know more by the end of April.

Who knows, I may have to change the name of my blog?

Checking in

So, it's been a while since I put up a post. I have decided for the time being not to seek medical attention for my ADHD. Not because I don't want a cure, but because I lost faith in my doctor's ability to treat me.

We had tried several medications none of which worked for me. I had bad reactions to all of the stimulants and the nonstimulant meds just didn't work at all.

It got to the point where he was suggesting I try this or that, but only because he didn't know what to do, he had little faith that anything was going to work for me. The last straw was he wanted to try some really expensive meds and send me for a sleep evaluation. The cost of the evaluation was well into the thousands, and it seemed to me it would be unlikely to turn anything up anyway.

So, since the early spring I haven't been on drugs. I manage things better now than I did before I knew about my condition. If I have a bad day I take a caffeine pill, or drink a coke. It seems to work out most of the time, and is gentle on my system.

Update April

I've been on Concerta for a while now. I was on 3 18mg pills per day, but it was a bit too much for me. I felt a bit too hyper for my own comfort. I am now taking 2 per day and I feel pretty good except if I have a large amount of sweets or caffeine in which case I get really hyper and it become a negative rather than positive for me.

If I watch my diet, I feel pretty good with my use of the product. I have been better about keeping myself going on projects and I can see that I am a better employee. I have also noticed I don't self medicate with caffeine or sugar products. I may have even lost a pound or two.

I am going to continue with the product, but I am sickened by the cost (about $500 per month). I have high deductible insurance so it hurts until I hit my deductible.

Have a great day.

More news

So, I've been taking Concerta for a month now. 18mg x 2 for about a month. I like it well enough. I was getting decent results, but felt a bit hyper at times. Talked to the doc and he decided to up the dose to 18mg x 3 per day to see if it helps. Today is the first day of the higher dose and I felt a bit jumpy for my tastes. On the plus side, I've been getting a lot of work done.

I got my original prescription with a coupon that gave me 42 pills for free. This latest scrip I had to run through insurance. I asked the pharmacist how much it was without insurance and it was over $500 for 120 pills. I don't know how people afford this stuff at $500 per month! It's not like this is cancer medication!

Another side bar, I have to go get an EKG and Lipid test because sudden cardiac death is a potential side effect for this drug. Oh great, now my heart is going to explode.

Apparently I am on the borderline as far as my age is concerned as to if I needed to get the EKG or not. I'm not terribly concerned, I have a great heart with the exception of a slightly irregular beat from time to time.