In general I agree with you. The particulars of this situation are more difficult to reconcile with that utopian motherhood argument. This was at a federal national laboratory. No profits at all. The main driver is technical progress, it requires people who are independent self-starters. There are ever shrinking budgets, harsh competition, and difficult beaurocratic hurdles to deal with on top of the difficult nature of the work itself. There is no money or department that provides someone to go around and keep an eye on the neurodivergent people and making sure they’re on track and doing their work and helping them cope with their difficulties in managing their needs. Perhaps someday in the future there will be such a program and funding but right now there is not.

I really do feel sad about the reality for ADHD people because it’s a particular set of challenges that affects a great deal of things in one’s life. You wouldn’t want a neurosurgeon with hand tremors operating on you. You wouldn’t want a person with no arms to be in charge of sorting things at a factory. And you don’t want somebody who can’t be organized and work efficiently while using taxpayer money to do research at a national laboratory. that’s literally unfair to the taxpayer and goes against the entire mission of the national laboratory. It’s just really hard to accept that someone isn’t fit for this job. It’s hard enough when somebody just isn’t a good fit due to personality issues but when they have a neurodivergency that affects them and they have the desire to be this kind of engineer it’s just sad but there’s very little to do about it at least in the present environment.