{"id":2209,"date":"2026-02-01T11:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T11:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/?p=2209"},"modified":"2026-02-12T08:33:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T08:33:00","slug":"one-day-its-fine-and-next-its-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/02\/01\/one-day-its-fine-and-next-its-black\/","title":{"rendered":"One Day It’s Fine, and Next It’s Black"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the past few months I’ve been working with some like-minded watch enthusiast colleagues, and a couple of UK watch<\/a> companies<\/a>, on a design for a custom Axon watch. We’re getting really close<\/em> to taking orders, so I posted about the project in a company wide Slack channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A colleague, who knows I’m leaving the company<\/a>, messaged me and asked:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cAre you gonna buy one, or is the brand toxic now?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I honestly didn\u2019t find the question terribly surprising. What I found a little surprising<\/em> was that I hadn\u2019t really considered not buying one of the watches we were working on – even though I\u2019ll be long gone from the company before it’s delivered. (Bespoke watches don\u2019t happen overnight. It’s months<\/em> between order and delivery.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s tempting, and not entirely unreasonable really, to blame this on my watch \u2026 enthusiasm<\/a>. Or on some variant of sunk cost<\/a> – since I\u2019d done most of the work on the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s either of those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it\u2019s an aspect of Annie Duke\u2019s insight<\/a>, that the right<\/em> time to quit feels like quitting too soon, and that by the time it\u2019s obvious you need<\/em> to quit, you\u2019ve waited too long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve probably all known people who’ve stayed at a company, or in a relationship, long past the point we<\/em> think they\u2019d be happier elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We might be wrong\u2026 but we might also be right<\/em>, and something is making them stay: a paycheck, or the promise of a payday around the corner; colleagues and friends they don\u2019t want to lose contact with; the sense of prestige that comes from their title and role at a big-name firm that\u2019s woven itself into their sense of self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever the reasons, they persist long past their \u201csell-by date.\u201d And the motivation, belief, passion and commitment they used to feel twists and changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em>. And that feeling colors everything that came before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acrimony and scorched earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I responded that I totally<\/em> intend to buy a watch, and said \u201cI’m not leaving ’cause I hate this place, I’m leaving ’cause my bet is that I’ll be \u2018better out than in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That led to a conversation about \u2026 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we get there in the normal two ways – \u201cgradually, then suddenly<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trick is to notice the \u201cgradually\u201d bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To spot that you\u2019ve stepped onto a path that ends with wanting to burn everything to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My best advice, when you realize you’re on that path – when you notice that you\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s critical in those moments to remember that – job or relationship – past you chose<\/em> to do this. It wasn\u2019t done to you. It was your choice. Your decision. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things change. This version of this thing maybe isn\u2019t the thing you\u2019d choose, if you were choosing now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s okay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best thing you can do now, to borrow some wisdom shared with me, is \u201cwake up smarter,\u201d and make a different choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “One Day It’s Fine, and Next It’s Black”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-the-universe-and-everything"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2209"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2252,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions\/2252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}