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The two longest jobs (6 and 10 years) I had were in large organizations. In both cases, I started off with a basic job description, was placed in an office and was left alone to figure out my role.

This turned out ideal for me as I was able to do what I was best at and work with others doing what they were best at. Typically, I ended up being the technical lead, the organizer, the long term planner, the documenter, the problem solver. The co-workers generally were more than happy to take on the other roles and appreciated me helping them with the work they found difficult.

Unfortunately, in the last place, new management came in and only understood how to deal with everyone doing the same work as everyone else. As one of the new clones, I found some of the work almost impossible to do. It was not like I felt it was boring, but more like constantly forgeting bit and pieces and having to start over.

For a while, I managed to occasionally get past this problem by reading something interesting and going back into the work. It was like the interesting stuff turned my brain on for a while and I could then concentrate for a short time on the difficult stuff (what the other people called easy stuff). Although this worked sometimes, it would not always work. I think it may have had to do with picking something that would turn on the part of the brain needed for the other work.

I've always felt that there is no difference in overall intelligence between people. We are just better at some things than others. So even though the average person finds some work easy and other work difficult, the fact is, the complexity of the work is equal, but different. It is like an AM and FM radio, neither can tune into the stations of the other, but the abilities of each radio are equal but different.

You do not expect one radio to do what the other radio is good at. If this were people and 90% of the radios were AM, then no one would question the AM radios not being able to do what the FM radios could do, but they would assume if the FM radios are gifted enough to do FM, then they should easily be able to do AM.

After taking a close look at what areas I find difficult, it appears a lot like the radio analogy. It is like I can see bits and pieces of AM, but not enough to really make it out. Occasionally, I can make out just enough to figure out the blank pieces. When it comes to FM, I can just do it without any effort. My brain is not an AM radio and for this reason, it just throws away most of the information. Basically, my brain is almost totally blind to AM. Putting me in a room with nothing but AM is like putting me in a sensory deprivation chamber. My brain has no input to keep it focused and it just goes into a dream state.

As I have aged, I am finding the techniques allowing me to work on this stuff I find complicated are less and less effective. Other than changing the world to make it better able to make use of each person's unique talents, I don't really have a good answer.