They're the employees who can't seem to get organized, don't finish the paperwork, always miss deadlines. They're the workers who can't make it through that long-range project, are easily distracted, can't sit still.
They're people like Joshua Gottesman, a certified public accountant who upset his bosses because he couldn't focus on stacks of income tax returns, though his supervisors described him as "brilliant."
Lazy good-for-nothings? Not necessarily, researchers say. They may, like Mr. Gottesman, have attention deficit disorder (ADD), a neurological condition that can make the workplace a nightmare for bosses and employees alike.
As more and more adults are diagnosed with ADD, employers find themselves trying to cope with yet another disability. They've already outfitted offices for physically disabled workers and offered counseling for alcoholics.
Now they're dealing with a disorder that's not visible.
Joshua Gottesman had typical work problems.
In his first job out of Towson State University, "I worked at a small firm in Baltimore, and I drove the manager nuts," said Mr. Gottesman, 33, who was diagnosed with ADD 18 months ago.
He worked with tax returns. "It was boring," Mr. Gottesman said. He found he couldn't sit still and focus on them. His attention shifted quickly to any new task. "Something new always seemed more interesting. You always do things on the spur of moment. You never think about the consequences."
His supervisors were frustrated. "They saw what I could do," said Mr. Gottesman, who grew up in Randallstown, "but they couldn't get me to work at a consistent level."
When he consulted a psychologist, he realized that his problems hadn't started at the office. It took 6 1/2 years, three colleges and a couple of majors before he got a degree. Even in grade school, he'd been the class smart aleck -- because, he now realizes, he couldn't pay attention to the teacher.
Today, Mr. Gottesman is helping design computer software for KPMG Peat Marwick LLP in Montvale, N.J. Peat Marwick transferred him to that position -- a better fit than the accounting he had been doing -- after he told them he was diagnosed with ADD.
Eighteen months ago, Mr. Gottesman said, he feared that he wouldn't be able to keep his job. Now, on medication and in his new office, "I'm in a much better life and work situation."
Leland L. "Ted" Cogdell Jr., of Greenbelt, was diagnosed with ADD five years ago, when he was 23. Today he is an editor with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Working on publications, he said, fits his skills in verbal reasoning. But ask him to listen to a lecture filled with technical details and "I'm way off in space. I'll drift away."
He's learned how to compensate. For instance, he said, "I don't do well with verbal instructions. I'd rather write it down, or sometimes I can't retain it." His boss has had to give him "a little more time and some understanding and some sensitivity."
"It's an emerging issue," said Susan Meisinger, a vice president at the Society for Human Resources Management, headquartered in Alexandria, Va.. "The whole issue of psychological and psychiatric disabilities are just now rising in the consciousness of employers."
Last week, the first national conference on ADD in the workplace was held in New York at a meeting of Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder.
Appropriate jobs
People with ADD tend not to do well in jobs that require focusing for long periods on one task or include a lot of paperwork.
The condition, which many researchers believe is genetic, has symptoms that include difficulty in staying focused for long periods, moving from one uncompleted task to another, and trouble in absorbing directions. Treatment includes behavior modification programs and medication -- typically the drug Ritalin, sometimes combined with anti-depressants, such as Prozac.
Doctors used to believe that children with ADD outgrew the problems at adolescence. Now they see the symptoms persisting.
But with that come some desirable traits. People with ADD, doctors say, often tend to be creative and impulsive, the kind of people who move fast, quickly come up with novel ideas and solve problems well.
"Some things that seem to work well for people with ADD are sales, owning your own business, law enforcement, the media -- TV, videos -- something that allows you to move around a lot," said Patricia Latham, a Washington lawyer whose clients include adult ADD sufferers.
"The least successful are where you're sitting behind a desk, doing a lot of paperwork."
Researchers are beginning to gather statistics on how many adults suffer from ADD. They estimate that between 1 percent and 7 percent of American children have the condition, and 25 percent to 40 percent of those will have symptoms as adults.
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which took effect in 1990, people with ADD can ask for special help in the workplace. If they are discriminated against because of their condition, they may file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission.
"With a lot of employment litigation, employers feel somewhat harassed, because many of the complainants, they feel, have had disciplinary or performance problems and now are looking for a law to give them some legal recourse," Ms. Meisinger said.
But a diagnosis of ADD does not necessarily mean that the employee can keep a job.
If an employee's condition means he cannot perform "an essential job function," the employer may have grounds to deny him a job, said Dale S. Brown of Washington, legislative liaison for the National Network of Learning Disabled Adults. "If a school bus driver goes blind, an employer would be within his rights to fire him."
And the law does not require an employer to make an adjustment that causes undue hardship to the business.
Kathleen Nadeau, a clinical psychologist whose Bethesda practice is devoted to adults with ADD, said the disorder "can create a lot of workplace problems and poor performance problems that bosses do not like to see. But it's no different than what we went through with depression, with alcoholism.
"ADD should never be used as an excuse: 'Well, I've got it, and there's nothing I can do about it,' " Dr. Nadeau said.
Some need more time
Some ADD employees may need an employer to allow more time to do the job. Or they may need a desk away from the distractions of co-workers gathered at the water cooler.
"If you have a positive working relationship with your boss, who knows you're hard-working, competent and dedicated, that supervisor wants to help you be more productive," Dr. Nadeau said. "Unfortunately, many people don't consult with me unless they're about to be fired." And then, it may be too late to patch up the situation.
And not every business has the flexibility to accommodate a worker who wants a new position because the old one was a bad fit.
"When you hear Peat Marwick transferred [Mr. Gottesman] to another job, that's because Josh is brilliant," said Steve Levine, a partner in the Baltimore accounting firm that Mr. Gottesman started in eight years ago. "In a smaller firm environment, where hourly billing is your commodity, you don't have that kind of flexibility."
Mr. Gottesman said he knew, in his previous jobs, that his bosses thought he just wasn't applying himself. "It was frustrating, because I was trying my hardest to do these things, and I was being criticized, even though I was doing my best."