Being in The Working World With NLD

Today, we will discuss being in the working world with NLD. The article I’m going to quote from is “The Quest: Seeking Employment With NVLD.” Catlin describes some tricks she has used to get jobs that might help other individuals. He has a job working at a department store and is a Project Social Ambassador for The NVLD Project.

“Getting a job is one of the most exciting things that can happen to anyone, but finding the ideal job, especially when you have a learning disability such as NLD, can sometimes seem daunting. Through my personal experience, I have found that it has been difficult to find work that suits my abilities and meets my employment needs. Hopefully, the advice I have found can help you find a job with colleagues and leaders who understand your little quirks and will take the time to help you work through any difficult situations you may encounter.” (https://nvld.org/seeking-employment-nvld/)

I can relate to Catlin because I had some challenges working at my first job that was outside of working for my parents. This was where I was a teacher's aide and helped take care of babies, toddlers, and kindergarteners. I didn’t like this job because I never felt like it was a good fit. I never felt like most of the places I would help out appreciated my assistance because of my slow pace. They didn’t squawk about me having NLD. One of the places that had commented on my slow pace was right after I had gotten the flu shot, and I wasn’t feeling very good because of getting it. I wish they had told me in person instead of sharing it with my supervisor, so I could have fixed it and improved on my own instead of being sent to a new place.

The next job I did was working as an ABA therapist for children from 16 months to 18 years old who had ASD. I liked this one because I felt like I could relate to my clients because of having a brain that isn’t wired “normally.” But it ended up being difficult because I couldn’t improve on my work with updating the charts and hands-on work with the children on some of the more complicated programs. They gave me a month to improve, but I couldn’t do it sufficiently enough with that time. 

The third was similar to the second one, but instead of working with children with ASD, I was working with adults. I liked this one more because of being able to relate to my clients more since they were closer to my age. This one I quit because I didn’t feel like I was able to ever work full time, with many of my clients canceling on me last minute. This made it hard for the company to find a replacement for me. Also, it was annoying because one of my parents was consistently having me give her more help than I could give her and was taking advantage of me. She also pretended like she didn’t know English when she did know it. I didn’t appreciate what she was doing because I understood her son needed my help the most out of my clients. But unfortunately, she was going about it the wrong way. She would forget what I had told her, which meant my supervisor had to tell her the same thing repeatedly. This was very frustrating. 

I’m not telling these experiences to feel bad for myself or my employers. But I’m telling you so you hopefully have something to relate to out of them. And can learn from my mistakes, so you know what to do when you face challenges in your work world or life. Unfortunately, with all these jobs, I wasn’t able to keep them for that long because I made too many mistakes, found they weren’t the right fit for me, and my supervisors didn’t know I had NLD. In the last two, I had to make my schedule, and if someone canceled on me, it was very hard and unlikely that I would find a replacement for that time slot. I also had to drive to every single appointment, which put a lot of wear and tear on my vehicle. This was inconvenient. 

The job I have now started at the end of 2019, is the perfect job since I’m working with my parents. With this job, I don’t have to worry about NLD getting in the way as much as I would in my previous ones. Since my parents are very knowledgeable about NLD, they can help me in any way that is needed and give me specific feedback that will help me improve. I love this job because it gives me room to grow and learn new skills that I wouldn’t have been able to do with other jobs. For example, I have been able to do more with technology, website design, marketing, communication, admin work, and social media than I have ever done previously in my life. I have also developed a critical eye for developing social media posts, which I hadn’t had to do before this job. I learned how to answer the phone and write emails to coworkers better, also. In addition, I learned how to communicate with my coworkers better. I’m glad that I can take any kind of feedback. And I ask for it often because I want to improve in any way that I can. When you ask for constructive feedback, it shows that you care because you’re demonstrating that you see there’s room for improvement, and you’re acknowledging it, which could be hard to do. 

I’ve found out that having NLD is handy with my job because I can do some tasks more easily than others. For example, I can notice small details that no one else would see, which is sometimes required by my boss, meaning my mom. Also, sometimes my boss wants me to research something, which means I could watch a video about it. This makes it easier for me to remember because of my good auditory memory. Since I have been working for my parents for half of my life, I know they're nonprofit like the back of my hand. This is good because then I’m able to answer questions more easily than someone who would only have been working there for a shorter period. I also enjoy being a COVID-19 hygienist because I get to learn how to keep the building sanitized and clean for whatever events we have. I clean it every Sunday, vacuum the carpet every Thursday, and mop the tile floors monthly. I also clean and dust the hard surfaces monthly. I empty the trash cans weekly. And I think I do this job pretty well because I do it better than the people who we had done it with previously. Since I have NLD, I can notice some details that others wouldn’t notice. 

Another job that kind of went wrong was the first job I had out of college, and that was before the previous jobs that I mentioned earlier. This one was at a summer camp in New York. And the reason it didn’t go so well was that my supervisor was very close-minded whenever I gave a simple tip on how she could do something differently. She also tried to micromanage her employees well. My job was to be on the cooking team there. I do have quite a bit of cooking experience from cooking for the co-ops in college. I would cook for 140 students there. I wanted to help her, but she wasn’t open to my suggestions. She would turn all of them down. After she kept doing this, I stopped giving her any of my suggestions and just kept my mouth shut. And did what she told me to do. They didn’t know I had NLD either, which might have impacted it a little. Since I was away from my parents for the whole summer, I started overeating to absorb my emotions because I was homesick. That probably impacted my pace because I gained 40 pounds, unfortunately. Looking back at this, I’m ashamed it happened, but I’m glad that when I got home, I was able to lose it. It took a while to achieve this, but I did in about two years because I wasn’t working at it consistently. 

I think my next job would be with a nonprofit that helps people with NLD in some way, like The NVLD Project. The other two jobs I have an interest in doing are Park Ranger or working with Girls Inc. I like The NVLD Project, but I know when you volunteer there, you don’t get paid, so that would probably be something I would do on the side. Unless somehow I got a paid job there. But I also might create my own business that does some things for NVLDers. It would offer more resources to NVLDers that they don’t have easy access to, like a financial, life, academic, job, or personal fitness coach. I would help connect NVLDers to these coaches who would be able to help them out. It would help NVLDers and their families. I hope that this can become a reality someday, and maybe you can help me with it in some way. Maybe you know people who have these jobs, or you have that career yourself. 

So whether it’s trying to apply to jobs, find the one that is the best fit for you, or doesn’t present many challenges in your life, and others who have NLD still have these issues today. As I wrap up, I would like for you to think about your past job experiences, the challenges you had in them, and how you had to improve to minimize those difficulties in them. Maybe you did similar things as I did by asking for constructive feedback, listening to videos, or talking to your colleagues about how to improve.