I admit to not just knowing I don’t always fit in with the people I am surrounded by, but also to not really caring about it. It creates a conundrum of not being liked but not caring enough about that to alter my representation of self. It has worked well enough for me thus far.

Except when the unlikability enters into a work relationship. More specifically, the work relationship between an employee and the HR department. In the past, that problem has led to a dismissal, but fortunately it was only once. For the most part it just means backs are not bent in accommodation in even the simplest of ways.

I was seriously injured on the job nearly two years ago. I returned to work within a year only to have to return to Workers Comp because the recovery didn’t hold. The damage to my body was more extensive than previously thought and needed more and different treatments.

A year later and I am almost ready to return to my previous position. Recovering after the slight misdiagnosis took some time, but that is usually the way with soft tissue damage. It just can’t be anticipated how a body will respond to a change in structure.

But after all this time, there is no longer room for me in my old position. It was completely understandable that someone be given my position during my absence. I work for a small company where everyone has 40 hours’ worth of work every week. To lose a member of the team for as long as I have been gone would make things difficult for everyone involved with my particular section of the company.

And this is where the likability factor comes. I suspect that if HR had kinder feelings for me, there would be more of an emotion imperative to make room for me. But things being as they are with my unlikability factor, what’s being offered me is a legal move to prevent a successful lawsuit for being launched. If they release me now, I will have grounds for a lawsuit that would cost them more money than if they just keep me on until I am deemed unable to perform my duties.

It will be unfortunate for them that I fully expect to be able to do my job as designed. Even if the pain persists and perhaps even worsen, I will do my job. They can sit with their dislike for as long as it serves them. I don’t have a need to be liked, but I do have a need to draw a paycheck.

Someone who dislikes another person, will make allowances for that person to be treated unfairly. That is the nature of humanity, generally speaking. But in the workplace, like or dislike is not a part of equation, or at least it shouldn’t be. Doing my job as well as I do, the door to those emotions remains closed. They don’t have a reason to like me, but they do have a responsibility to treat me fairly.