About Me
My name is Karthik Shashidhar. At the time of creating this Substack, I am Senior Vice President of Analytics, Business Intelligence and Data Science at Delhivery, one of India’s largest logistics companies.
Recently (just before I started this substack), I completed two years and two months in this job, which makes this my longest corporate job ever. This also happens to be (for all practical purposes) the first full time job I’ve done since I got diagnosed with ADHD in 2012.
Why this newsletter?
For at least ten years now I’ve never shied away from discussing mental health in public. I still remember the response when I “came out with depression” in 2012 - a whole bunch of friends and friends of friends and acquaintances and acquaintances started writing to me asking for help and directions. I would like to believe I have made a difference (how big or small, and whether positive or negative doesn’t matter) in most of their lives.
I have intermittently written about ADHD on my blog. However, given that my blog is a general purpose blog (one reason it’s survived “into adulthood” (I started it in 2004) is that I don’t force a topic on it), these posts might get lost in the sea of posts.
More importantly, it is not common to find “business leaders” writing about neurodiversity or “mental illness” (whether ADHD is an “illness” is debatable). First of all it is lonely up there. Second of all, you are lonely if you are neurodiverse (ok I prefer this term). Put them together and you are lonely indeed.
So this Substack is my attempt to make people like me feel marginally less lonely (whether they read this is another matter). It will be personal. As those of you who read my blog will know to expect, I will talk about all kinds of random things here. Mostly, though, this will be about how to navigate work while having ADHD.
Other admin notes
Look, I have ADHD. So the last thing I want to do is to promise any particular frequency. One reliable way to stop enjoying writing, I’ve found, is to force myself to write at a particular frequency. You can see the graveyard of substacks I’ve started to find out.
So yes - I will write when I want to and send immediately. So make sure you subscribe to not miss anything.
The other thing is - I’ve told you where I work and what work I do. However, I will take utmost care to not write about anything really work related here. This is a substack about ME, and not about my office.
For now at least I expect to keep this newsletter free. However, if I find that it is interfering with my work in ways I don’t want it to, I might decide to put it behind a paywall.
