Deconstructing the Rite Aid settlement agreement On November 1, 2021, the Department of Justice published a settlement agreement it entered into with the nationwide pharmacy chain Rite Aid specifically concerning the inability of people with disabilities to use both Rite Aid’s COVID…
The importance of exit interviews during the “Great Resignation”
Organizations should be doing them already. But if they aren’t doing them or aren’t doing anything with the data, how will they recover from this most recent pandemic side-effect? I just updated my CV last month. Disclaimer: because I got…
What do American employers owe their employees with mental health conditions
This situation will become more prevalent thanks to the pandemic. This article will start with a general discussion on accommodations and then move on to the specifics of a mental health condition. Is the employer required to provide accommodations? Unless…
Why I’m still wearing a mask
Mask regulations have been lifted for fully vaccinated Americans, but wearing masks for some of us will never be optional. 2017 was a pretty bad year for influenza. I had a job that required me to travel to the corporate…
I got a restraining order against my COVID-denying next-door neighbor.
I am significantly immune-compromised and was just forced to go through this process to ensure my safety. I will call my assailant, “Mr. Covid.” His actions had already generated two separate police calls (from others) for assault in the previous…
Pivoting to fully remote accessibility testing
Five months into the pandemic w/ no finish line in sight, temporary changes must be reassessed and made permanent to improve productivity. We are now five months into the pandemic. That is enough lived experience to have determined that: This…
People with disabilities control $8 trillion in spending
That figure is enormous and is hard to understand until it is explained in terms of other things. I use the figure “$8 trillion” in many of my accessibility training sessions as the value of the global disability purchasing market.…
The majority of people with disabilities can’t file an unemployment claim without help.
There’s no excuse, but plenty of blame to go around. Deferred maintenance on state unemployment systems is the common denominator. Unemployment applications are skyrocketing due to COVID. All of these state unemployment systems were built with public money, which means…
Post-COVID employment changes that will benefit everyone, but especially people with disabilities
Who wants to “go back to normal” when “normal” wasn’t so hot anyway? I’ve been accused of being a glass half-empty kind of person, but I have a good reason for how my personality was shaped. I spent 25 years…
Why COVID-19 contact tracing apps *must* be accessible
People with disabilities should benefit from emergency software. They also WANT to participate. Contact tracing won’t work without them. COVID-19 coronavirus: Tracing app ‘unusable’ for the blind and those with low vision No one in accessibility was surprised by this…