The Jobs AI Can’t Replace and the Workers It’s Already Erasing

3D rendered digital human head outlined with neon contour lines that resemble a fingerprint's unique swirls, against a deep blue background.

AI isn’t replacing workers. Policy is.

And when cuts come, disabled employees are too often first in line. Not because we can’t do the work. But because we asked for accommodations, or a flexible schedule. Or the audacity to be seen as fully human in a system that was never built for us.

Amazon laid off 14,000 corporate staff, most weren’t on the warehouse floor. As Fortune reports, they were middle managers, analysts, people whose work once held institutional memory. And while AI was the scapegoat, the real driver was a quiet shift in values: replace people with productivity.

Let me say it plainly: Every time efficiency comes at the cost of someone’s humanity, you lose.

Because here’s what AI will never replace:

• A colleague who notices and acts
• A mentor who listens without needing to understand everything
• The gut sense that something feels off—and the courage to say so
• A disabled employee who sees the policy gap before it creates harm

Try feeding that into OpenAI.

Accessible workplaces don’t happen by default. They’re built, sustained, and protected often by non-disabled colleagues whose advocacy carries more weight, simply because of the math. When the 80% speak up, momentum shifts. But the burden shouldn’t fall solely on disabled people. We’ve been saying the same things for years. Now we need others to help carry it forward.

I’ve watched colleagues pushed out for asking too many questions, for requesting an accommodation, or for simply challenging the status quo. And I’ve watched those same institutions spin it. “Moving in a different direction,” “transitioning,” “resigned to pursue other opportunities.” But those of us inside? We know how to read between the lines.

Gartner projects that 1 in 5 organizations will eliminate half their management layers using AI by 2026. That is a loss of human infrastructure, especially for marginalized communities who rely on advocates inside the system to challenge the status quo.

DEI isn’t a brand strategy. It’s a values system. And when it disappears, it erases people. And voices. And momentum.

“You can certainly change your branding, but you can’t change your values without it having a resounding effect,” former Georgia state representative and candidate for governor Stacey Abrams told The Washington Post.

So as AI reshapes our workplaces, let’s ask better questions.

What stories about work and value do we need to unlearn? Are we innovating for everyone, or just for the most efficient few?

Innovation that forgets its people isn’t progress. It’s loss.

AI may generate text. It will never generate trust.

Let’s keep the human at the center of the future we’re building.

Not All Disabled Leaders Are Allies, And That’s the Conversation We Need to Have

A man in a wheelchair sits in a doorway high on a dark glass skyscraper, kicking away a golden ladder as pieces fall toward a crowd of people reaching upward beneath stormy skies.

As October wraps up, I keep circling back to something we rarely say out loud: not all disabled people are allies.

John Oliver once joked on HBO Last Week Tonight about former Rep. Madison Cawthorn that “being an asshole is truly accessible to everyone.” He wasn’t wrong. We like to assume disabled leaders automatically champion the disability community, that lived experience guarantees empathy.

But it doesn’t.

Governor Greg Abbott, a wheelchair user, has consistently pushed policies that harm disabled Texans. Senator John Fetterman, once celebrated for normalizing assistive technology and comfortable clothing on the Senate floor, now carries the label “Trump’s favorite Democrat.” Representation does not always translate to advocacy. Sometimes it just makes the betrayal sting more.

And I have seen that same pattern play out closer to home. Early in my federal career, when I first needed a telework accommodation, I turned to a senior colleague who was a respected disability advocate. I expected empathy. Instead, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Keep your head down. Don’t fight this.”

That moment never left me. It might have been practical advice, but it was not allyship.

It taught me that proximity to power is not the same as solidarity, and that some of the hardest lessons come from people who should have known better.

We love to talk about inclusion in the workplace. The posters. The hashtags. The polished commitments to mental health and belonging. But the moment someone actually uses those systems, asks for flexibility, PTO, or an accommodation, the tone shifts. Suddenly inclusion has an asterisk. Suddenly the same people preaching wellness start whispering about fairness and team morale.

Genuine allyship is not about the company newsletter or the press release in October or the panel during Disability Pride Month. It is about the quiet, consistent work of believing people when they tell you what they need, without making them prove it. It is about creating systems where asking for help does not feel like a liability.

There is a hierarchy in disability culture we do not talk about enough. The visible versus the invisible. The acceptable versus the difficult. The wheelchair user makes a great photo op. The employee with PTSD, chronic pain, or neurodivergence gets side-eyed for needing too much. Passing privilege is real, and too many use it to climb the ladder only to kick it down behind them.

Having a disability does not make someone an ally. It does not even make them kind. Sometimes it just makes them powerful enough to prove they are not.

If allyship means anything, it is how we act when no one is watching, especially toward each other.

Awareness Doesn’t Pay The Rent

A warmly lit café stage with a vintage microphone under a spotlight, brick wall backdrop, empty chairs, and a steaming mug in the foreground.

Every October, the feeds light up.
Wheelchairs in perfect lighting,
hashtags dressed for a party.

“Awareness.”

That word rolls too easy off the tongue.
But awareness doesn’t pay the rent.
It doesn’t rewrite policy.
It doesn’t get you promoted, either.

I’ve worked in communications long enough to know.
Awareness is the appetizer,
not the meal.
It’s the press release,
not the practice.
The promise without the paycheck.

You want courage?
Alright, here’s one.
Try staying in a workplace that calls your exhaustion “grit.”
Try using your leave,
and watching your reputation shift while you heal.
Try asking for equity,
and hearing silence so heavy
you could hang your coat on it.

We get hired for the photo,
not the promotion.
We’re celebrated when we show up,
forgotten when we speak up.
That’s not inclusion.
That’s PR with better lighting and a diversity hashtag on top.

For every disabled person you see,
there are three you don’t.
Chronic pain.
Neurodivergence.
PTSD.
Autoimmune conditions.
Invisible doesn’t mean imaginary.
It just means the world stopped looking.

One in four Americans lives with a disability.
That’s not a metaphor.
That’s the CDC talking.
Only four percent disclose.
That’s fear talking.
And fear—
fear’s got a corner office and a pension plan.

Here’s the truth.
I don’t want awareness anymore.
I want accountability.
I want leaders who ask what barriers to remove
before we hit them.
I want promotions that don’t come
with an asterisk
and a whisper.
I want policy written by the people who live it,
not by the ones who still think
“disability”
is a bad word.

Inclusion isn’t a month.
It’s not October’s costume.
It’s the budget.
It’s the boardroom.
It’s the elevator you send back down.

So when the hashtags fade
and the banners come down,
don’t just call me resilient.
Ask yourself why I had to be.

Because awareness is easy.
Action
Action is everything.

Real Access Starts With Trust: Why Disabled Workers Are Burning Out

Every October, the same playbook rolls out.

National Disability Employment Awareness Month. NDEAM. That one time a year when agencies and companies race to post glossy graphics and say all the right things about valuing disabled talent.

Here’s the thing: we don’t need a marketing campaign. We need a functioning workplace.

Because while the federal government brands itself as a “model employer,” the reality for many of us doesn’t match the message. Too often, the accommodations process feels less like a conversation and more like a slow-motion extraction.

When things go right, it’s simple. An employee says, “I need this,” and you work together to figure it out. That’s what a healthy workplace looks like. But when leadership wants the optics without the action, the process turns adversarial.

Paperwork is requested. Then more paperwork. Then silence. Then suddenly your performance is under review. Not because anything changed, but because you disclosed. Because you asked for what you need to succeed.

That’s not a problem employee. That’s a problem environment.

And the delays? They do real harm. Earlier this year, a federal court ruling found that a six-month delay in approving a service dog for a public employee may have violated the ADA. The court didn’t just critique the decision. It flagged the delay itself as discriminatory.

People are being worn down by design.

Across the federal workforce, we’re seeing a quiet purge. According to The New Yorker more than 550 disability-related complaints were abandoned after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security dismantled its civil rights office. Agencies are walking back hybrid work and delaying accommodations that used to be routine. Even the EEOC, the agency that enforces disability rights, has seen its own disabled staff pushed to fight for access.

This is not accidental.

When a disabled employee asks for an accommodation, they are not asking for special treatment. They are saying, “I want to keep doing the job you hired me to do.”

But too often, that disclosure is weaponized. Suddenly we’re seen as less capable. Projects are reassigned. Promotions disappear. The same systems that talk about equity on their websites make us jump through hoops to be treated with dignity.

And the real kicker? Most accommodations cost under a hundred bucks to implement. What costs more is burnout. Turnover. Legal fees. And reputational damage.

So let’s talk about what real access looks like.

• It looks like believing people when they say what they need.
• It looks like cutting the red tape that delays support.
• It looks like holding toxic leadership accountable, not promoting them.
• It looks like building trust, not breaking it the moment someone discloses.

And it looks like this: If you're going to call yourself a model employer, act like it.

What It Feels Like to Be Called 'Non-Essential' by Your Own Government

A weathered metal sign reading "Government Closed" is attached to a black iron fence, with the U.S. Capitol building blurred in the background.

Shutdowns don't just stop paychecks. They chip away at people.

If you've never lived through one, it's easy to think it's just bureaucracy. Temporary. Inconvenient.

It's not.

I've been through shutdowns before, but this one feels different.

Maybe it's because I've seen too many people I care about wake up to RIF notices after decades of public service.

People I worked alongside. People who trained me. People who gave everything to this government only to be told they are no longer essential. My former colleagues at USPTO are among them. Some of the most dedicated professionals I've ever known. Their careers ended not with ceremony or dignity, but with silence.

Cruel actions from a supposed model employer.

That word. Non-essential. It doesn't just hit your paycheck. It hits your purpose.

It is an emotional body blow.

And for disabled federal employees, it hits even harder.

Shutdowns pause more than systems. They stall accommodation requests. They cut off the very processes that allow us to do our jobs in the first place. Timelines get frozen. Cases fall through the cracks. And no one knows when things will pick back up.

And the timing? It's National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

We can post about inclusion all day, but the reality is that thousands of disabled public servants are currently locked out. Some temporarily. Some permanently. And there is no guarantee that access, or dignity, is coming back.

Meanwhile, our own administration is publicly mocking us.

The official The White House YouTube account posted a montage of clips from The Office, meant to portray federal employees as lazy and useless. At the exact moment we're being furloughed, RIF'd, and dragged through bureaucratic uncertainty, the Executive Branch is laughing at us.

And if that weren't enough, we've been given official "guidance" on what to include in our out-of-office replies. Language that leans partisan. Messaging that doesn't feel neutral or respectful but instead feels like we're being used as pawns in a larger political game. WIRED reports U.S. Department of Education unilaterally changed employee’s out of office to reflect that language.

Our own government is mocking us and demeaning the work we do.

Canine Companions® Lovey knows something is off. She's been glued to me since this started. Watching more closely. Laying a little closer. Matching her breathing to mine.

Because this isn't just about politics or policy.

It's about people.

To every civil servant who is furloughed, fired, or just trying to hold it together: You are not disposable. And you deserved better than this.

To everyone else: please be kind to your federal friends. We are not okay. We are doing our best to survive.

Creative, Inclusive Workspaces: What We Can All Learn from the Adaptive Umbrella Workshop

Ryan presents via Zoom at a workshop on creating inclusive workspaces.

As we kick off National Disability Employment Awareness Month, yesterday I had the incredible honor of delivering the closing keynote address at the Adaptive Umbrella Workshop, hosted by the Bloomfield Township Public Library. This workshop focused on fostering creative, inclusive workspaces, and it was a privilege to share my thoughts on how we can create environments where everyone feels like they belong.

I've seen firsthand how conversations around diversity, equity, inclusion, and access are often treated like checkboxes—something to do out of obligation rather than a genuine effort to celebrate difference. During the workshop, we talked about how true inclusion goes beyond merely checking off boxes; it’s about cultivating a culture where disability isn’t a dirty word or something to dance around.

We discussed how equity, not just equality, must be the goal. Equity recognizes that everyone needs different tools to succeed. The idea that reasonable accommodations—whether it’s telework, flexible schedules, or assistive technology—are “special” or “unfair” is still prevalent in many workplaces. But these accommodations are about creating a level playing field.

In the federal government, where I've worked for over a decade, telework has been a game-changer, especially during the pandemic. But it isn’t just about the pandemic—it’s about offering flexibility for employees who navigate complex physical and invisible disabilities like chronic pain. Accommodations like these are about empowerment, not favoritism.

Another important topic we tackled was the disclosure of invisible disabilities. A 2023 study by the SHRM revealed that 47% of employees with invisible disabilities haven’t disclosed them to their employers. This comes from a place of fear—fear that disclosure will harm career prospects or lead to workplace stigma. Employers must create safe spaces where employees feel empowered to disclose if they choose to, without fearing repercussions.

Finally, we talked about resentment. Sadly, workplace accommodations are often misunderstood, leading to friction among coworkers who don’t see or understand the need. But as I shared during my keynote: It’s not the manager’s job to justify accommodations to other employees. Accommodations are about equity.

This workshop reminded me that building inclusive workspaces is an ongoing process. It’s about continuous education, open conversations, and creative solutions. The more we talk about what inclusion really looks like, the better we get at building work environments that uplift everyone, not just a select few.

A huge thank you to Jennifer Taggart and the Bloomfield Township Public Library for hosting such an important event, and to everyone who attended and asked thought-provoking questions. Your engagement fuels the work we’re doing to create a more equitable future.