Many moons ago, when I was younger, bendier, and under the mistaken impression that professionalism protected you from prejudice, I found myself delivering disability equality training for a very large employer.
Irony, as ever, had arrived early.
Part way through the day, the recruitment lead casually announced,
"Anyway, this is all a waste of time. We don't employ disabled people because we need our staff to be exceptional."
Now, there are moments in life when your brain immediately spots a hundred different things that are wrong with a sentence. Unfortunately, your mouth has to choose just one.
So I asked, as calmly as I could, why they assumed disabled people couldn't be exceptional.
They looked genuinely offended.
"It's obvious," they snapped.
Ah.
There it was.
Not evidence. Not experience. Just prejudice dressed up in a sensible suit.
Despite my backside clenching hard enough to crack a walnut, I carried on.
"I wonder," I suggested, "whether that's an assumption rather than a fact."
I might as well have suggested the moon was made of Wensleydale.
"And now," they barked, "you're just being stupid."
Excellent.
Ableism. Then ableism with complimentary ableism.
I smiled the smile every disabled professional knows—the one that says I'm remaining calm while internally writing your performance review.
Inside, though, I shrank.
Here I was: qualified, experienced, invited as the expert in the room... and suddenly I was being spoken to like a naughty child who'd wandered into the adults' meeting.
It took years before I realised the shame didn't belong to me.
These days, one word in a job advert can still make my stomach lurch.
Exceptional.
There it is again.
Whenever I see it, a little voice whispers, Don't bother.
Will anyone actually read my application?
Or will the hours I spend tailoring it disappear into the electronic equivalent of the recycling bin because somebody has quietly decided disabled people aren't "exceptional" enough before I've even reached page two?
People often ask why I "chose" not to work.
That's an interesting version of events.
Rarely do they ask about the hundreds of applications.
The interviews that never came.
The qualifications collected like Pokémon cards.
Or the PhD I was encouraged to complete because everyone assured me it would make me more employable.
For the record, my research suggests I have a better chance of bumping into a three-legged unicorn outside Tesco.
The unicorn, at least, might return my emails.
The contradiction fascinates me.
On one hand, society tells disabled people to work harder, achieve more, gain more experience, collect more qualifications and prove ourselves.
On the other, we're quietly treated as though employment is optional.
A hobby.
Something nice to do between daytime television and naps.
I've genuinely had people tell me I'm lucky not to work.
Lucky.
Over the past decade I've earned roughly the equivalent of seven months on minimum wage.
Apparently that's what winning looks like.
I've also happily volunteered thousands of hours.
Not because my time has no value, but because I believed in the organisations and the people.
Some experiences have been wonderful.
Others... less so.
I've been told paid work was given to people who "needed the money more."
I've had someone forget we'd worked together at all.
"Oh," they laughed, "we just thought you needed to keep busy."
Keep busy.
As though decades of expertise were simply occupational therapy.
The truth is much less funny.
Every unpaid day is quietly subsidised by my husband.
When I volunteer, he pays.
When I spend days writing reports or delivering talks for free, he keeps the lights on.
When another rejection email arrives and I wonder whether I'm simply shouting into the wind, he's the one who reminds me that my worth isn't measured by someone else's payroll.
That's privilege I recognise every single day.
It also makes me increasingly uncomfortable when others assume my work should simply be free because... well... I'm me.
So this year I'm trying something radical.
I'm going to say no.
Not to the people who genuinely value conversation, friendship and collaboration.
Those people are treasures.
I'm saying no to being quietly taken for granted.
No to the assumption that disabled expertise somehow costs less.
No to the expectation that gratitude should replace payment.
No to the people who would be horrified if you called them ableist, yet somehow still believe—without ever saying it aloud—that disabled people are a bit rubbish.
Because here's the thing.
I no longer believe I'm the problem.
And frankly, if you're still looking for "exceptional" people, you might want to widen your search.
Some of us have been here all along.
