They say she is utterly grounded yet adept at challenging coworkers to rise to the moment. They describe her as unapologetic about who she is – or what must be fixed – charismatic, convincing and empathetic. The episode laid bare many of the personal traits that have aided Lay-Flurrie since becoming Microsoft’s accessibility chief in 2016 – characteristics that enabled her to bring big changes to a big company.Ĭolleagues say Lay-Flurrie’s leadership style blends relentless honesty, contagious energy and masterful communication. This experience has been a good reminder of why we need people with disabilities to be in the process of product design.” “But good grief, there are things we need to do better. “It’s in no way representative of what other people live with on a permanent basis,” she adds. Every time those canes come out, the questions come with them. “This thing literally happened in the space of 90 minutes. “I've had 30, 40 years to get used to the deafness thing,” Lay-Flurrie says. Yet all of it gave her a fresh view of how millions of folks – people for whom she advocates – depend on mobility equipment, power entry doors and disabled parking spots – and how they often navigate their days in front of wide eyes filled with fascination, pity or both. A few well-meaning folks spotted her trudging through hallways and scurried to open doors, once causing Lay-Flurrie to lose her balance and crash to the floor. Other people offered advice, some of it helpful. Strangers asked Lay-Flurrie how she’d been injured. When Gerry came along, everyone saw the canes. In time, Lay-Flurrie accepted and then celebrated the disability, though some colleagues still didn’t know she had one. Of course, that made workdays exhausting. Video captioning at work was not yet a thing.īut her perfect diction and exceptional lip-reading skills – honed by practicing in the mirror as a little girl – allowed her to cloak the deafness. So, no hearing aids, no sign language interpreters. Back then, she feared it would define her. On that level, the clot had shoved Lay-Flurrie into a somewhat different reality.Įarly in her career, until about age 30, she purposely hid her severe, ever-increasing hearing loss, originally caused by childhood measles and multiple ear infections. More than 1 billion people live with disabilities and about 70% of those are not immediately apparent, such as deafness. Microsoft’s chief accessibility officer – a tech exec who is profoundly deaf – now had a visible disability. her “trusty steeds,” dubbing them “Michael” and “Rosie.” She derided Gerry as “stubborn, sneaky and attention seeking” but soon reported that “Gerry and I have figured out how to cohabitate.” She called it “Gerry.” Then she named her canes, a.k.a. Yet to the surprise of no one in her life, Lay-Flurrie found both whimsy and wisdom in the harrowing episode.įirst the humor. More than a year later, she still needed her two canes on some days. After leaving the hospital, she relied on two canes to walk. ![]() But the embolism caused long-term leg damage. Surgeons successfully reduced the clot’s size. “I never expected, at my age, to hear a message from doctors: ‘You may not live through this,’” she recalls. Jenny Lay-Flurrie with her husband Tom McCleery. ![]() That day in March 2019, Lay-Flurrie was admitted to the intensive care unit. A previously undetected anatomical defect was the cause. Within an hour, doctors had their diagnosis: A 2-foot-long blood clot snaked from her foot to her stomach, reaching perilously close to her lungs. Tom’s insistence saved her life, she would say later. So, despite the packed bag in her car and the pressing mission on her mind, she grudgingly agreed when her husband, Tom, suggested that they pause their drive to the Seattle airport and instead visit a nearby emergency room. The mysterious pain, which had erupted 24 hours earlier, was only growing. She had a flight to catch, an accessibility conference to attend in California, and more people to enlist in her journey to build a more inclusive world.īut Jenny Lay-Flurrie’s left leg was positively throbbing. She did not want to stop at the hospital. Stories from inside Microsoft’s journey to design a more accessible world
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