For the past few months I’ve been working with some like-minded watch enthusiast colleagues, and a couple of UK watch companies, on a design for a custom Axon watch. We’re getting really close to taking orders, so I posted about the project in a company wide Slack channel.
A colleague, who knows I’m leaving the company, messaged me and asked:
“Are you gonna buy one, or is the brand toxic now?”
I honestly didn’t find the question terribly surprising. What I found a little surprising was that I hadn’t really considered not buying one of the watches we were working on – even though I’ll be long gone from the company before it’s delivered. (Bespoke watches don’t happen overnight. It’s months between order and delivery.)
It’s tempting and not entirely unreasonable, really, to blame this on my watch … enthusiasm. Or on some variant of sunk cost – since I’d done most of the work on the project.
But I don’t think it’s either of those.
I think it’s an aspect of Annie Duke’s insight, that the right time to quit feels like quitting too soon, and that by the time it’s obvious you need to quit, you’ve waited too long.
We’ve probably all known people who’ve stayed at a company, or in a relationship, long past the point we think they’d be happier elsewhere.
We might be wrong… but we might be right, and something is making them stay: a paycheck, or the promise of a payday around the corner; colleagues and friends they don’t want to lose contact with; the sense of prestige that comes from their title and role at a big-name firm that’s woven itself into their sense of self.
Whatever the reasons, they persist long past their “sell-by date.” And the motivation, belief, passion and commitment they used to feel twists and changes.
By the time they make the decision to quit – or the decision is made for them – all that’s left is disdain and a lingering sense of betrayal. That this was done to them. And that feeling colors everything that came before.
Many of us have experienced this a least once. For some of us it’s the experience every time we leave a job, or a relationship.
Acrimony and scorched earth.
I responded that I totally intend to buy a watch, and said “I’m not leaving ’cause I hate this place, I’m leaving ’cause my bet is that I’ll be ‘better out than in.’”
That led to a conversation about … all of this stuff. And specifically about how, for many of us, by the time we leave we’ve come to dislike the thing we’re leaving – at least a little.
I think we get there in the normal two ways – “gradually, then suddenly.”
The trick is to notice the “gradually” bit.
To spot that you’ve stepped onto a path that ends with wanting to burn everything to the ground.
My best advice, when you realize you’re on that path – when you notice that you’re keeping track of where the sticks & the marshmallows are in anticipation of the coming conflagration – is figure out how to fix it, or figure out how to leave.
It’s critical in those moments to remember that – job or relationship – past you chose to do this. It wasn’t done to you. It was your choice. Your decision. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
Things change. This version of this thing maybe isn’t the thing you’d choose, if you were choosing now.
That’s okay.
The best thing you can do now, to borrow some wisdom shared with me, is “wake up smarter,” and make a different choice.