Mel Houser, M.D., Executive Director, All Brains Belong VT
Once upon a time, I decided to fire a consultant.
Why? Because they are committing harm to the 1 in 10 people whose brains work like mine. And I cannot support any business that perpetuates harm.
I’m dyspraxic, which means my brain processes tasks and sequences differently than others. Complex, multi-step systems can be overwhelming. Navigating them often takes extra cognitive energy. It’s exhausting. This perspective shapes how I evaluate accessibility in businesses—because if something is difficult for me, it’s likely a barrier for many others as well.
Let me tell you the story.
STEP 1: The Email
The story starts innocently enough: an email arrives.
Attached is my invoice.
STEP 2: The Invoice
I click the attachment. It’s an invoice. Fine. Let’s pay it…
Wait a minute. Seriously? I read it again. And again. Fifteen times, actually.
There was no mention of how one can pay the bill. Not in the email, not in the attachment, not anywhere. Surely, I must be missing something. Certainly this national consultant with a robust infrastructure for all the things has a way for clients to pay an invoice with this many zeros in it?
I head to their website. No clear payment options listed there either.
STEP 3: The Quest for a Credit Card Payment link
I send a separate email to the address listed in the Step 1 email (the sender was a “no-reply”), politely asking for payment instructions.
STEP 4: I wait for a response…. the next day.
Does this email find me well? No, Chris. It does not. This email finds me extraordinarily pissed off. Paying a bill should take 15 seconds.
And so it begins…
STEP 5: The 10-Step Payment Process
They send me a link to register on their payment portal.
I dig out my checkbook, enter account numbers, re-enter account numbers, and scan a voided check. It’s an executive functioning and motor planning nightmare. But I pay the bill. It’s done, right? RIGHT? Wrong.
Now comes the part where I tell you why I am rage-writing a blog post on a Sunday night.
STEP 6: EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH, I get Step 1 again.
If you really appreciated my business, you would not send me this email. You don’t actually care about me, my organization, or the thousands of people we serve whose brains work like mine. And because you don’t care, here’s what you make me do next…
STEP 7: The Search for the random email from August 2024
I have to search my email for the old email from August 2024 when the billing team replied to the email I should never have had to send…. giving me the website to pay.
STEP 8: Click the link in the random email from August 2024
I click link in email from August 2024. Except it asks me for not only my username and password (which would have been bad enough), but it asks me for my Customer ID number.
What’s my Customer ID? No idea.
STEP 9: Go find my Customer ID number in the other email from today, which I had to remove from my visual field because I had to search from the random email from August 2024
I have to go back to my email at Step 6 to open up the attachment PDF, which has nothing useful in it except my customer ID number.
STEP 10: Return to the Portal
Armed with my Customer ID, I return to the payment portal.
This time, it only wants my Customer ID and zip code. Not the username and password it asked for last month. Strange, but fine. I log in.
STEP 11: “Enter your payment method.”
It starts to require me to start from scratch setting up the payment methods. NO. NO WAY. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Never again will I repeat Step 5 ever again in my life.
STEP 12: There’s got to be another way.
This makes no sense. I try logging out and logging back in. Somehow I am shown a different screen that actually wants a password. Obviously I don’t remember my password that I use monthly in the setting of high stress and emotional upheaval.
STEP 13: Password reset.
Open yet another browser window to check my email, get the prompt for the password reset. Reset the password.
STEP 14: Log back in.
Log back in with new password.
STEP 15: Pay bill.
Five more clicks later, the bill has been paid.
And that, dear reader, is the story of how I decided to fire my consultant.
Businesses that genuinely care about their clients don’t make it this hard to pay them. They don’t build systems that create unnecessary stress, frustration, and harm.
And I, for one, refuse to support a business that doesn’t care about me, my organization, or the people we serve.
The Moral of the Story: If your systems create barriers, you’re sending a message to your clients: We don’t value your time, energy, or well-being.
At All Brains Belong, we work every day to address the subtle ableism that shows up in systems and processes. If you’re curious how to make your workplace, healthcare practice, or community more inclusive, explore our programs and resources here: https://allbrainsbelong.org/education.