How did you know when it was over?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Yes I left “it” ambiguous. In these COVID days, well…

My hunch is that there are certain signs. Maybe your job was over or your relationship was over or there were friendships you let lapse and never went back or something else you let wither on the vine.

Sometimes I see things on TV where people act like such and so happened and well there it is, mama told me that dog won’t hunt or whatever. And I gather they’d leave this job (or other relationship) because it was just so obvious that people didn’t take that shit.

I know I’m being vague and that will drive people crazy but welcome to the Rorschach. :slight_smile: How do you reckon such things?

2

I knew my job was over when I quit being asked to join new projects.

I knew my marriage was over when my wife told me she was leaving.

Sometimes I’m not real quick on the draw.

3

I knew my job was over when…

Our financial advisor called my wife and I in and dropped a bombshell: "You should retire… umm, now." I immediately shrugged and said “Okay!”

I’d taught for twenty years and loved it, but I’d been getting up early and stopping at a coffee shop on the way to school, and drawing for an hour. I noticed that even though I said I got my energy from my students, that drawing time was the high point of my day.

4

My ex was a bit more vague about it. I mean, she said she was leaving, but it caught me totally off guard and due to other circumstances, I couldn’t entirely tell if it was for real or not. But within about two weeks I realized she had been cheating on me for a while, that’s when I knew she wasn’t coming back. This was 10 years ago and from that moment on, to this day, there’s nothing she could say or do that would convince me to take her back.

I remember someone on the radio promoting a book called “I knew it was over when”. It’s a compilation of stories from people talking about the exact moment they knew it was over. The author’s contribution always amused me. He said him and his then GF were under a blanket watching TV and eating ice cream. He looked over (she didn’t know he was looking) and saw her wiping the ice cream off her face with the blanket instead of a napkin. Even though they dated for a little while longer, he said that complete disrespect for him/his stuff, was a turning point.

5

I think in general, the moment when you realize it is over is quite a ways later than the moment when it is over. You can’t see it happening nearly as clearly as you can see that it has happened.

(Or, as an old control theory engineering professor liked to say, “You can’t differentiate in real time.”)

6

“It’s not over until I say it’s over!”

That’s what I say just before realizing that it’s over.

7

It’s not over until the Germans bomb Pearl Harbor.

8

As far as leaving my job, retirement was a wall, and the events leading up to it were steps. Each event added another step and elevated me a bit more – until one day I stepped over and walked away.

  1. Job changed to require increasing travel.

  2. Company changed travel expensing, forcing me out of my RV (which I usually used because of medical complications, even at some cost to me) and into airlines/hotels/TSA/etc.

  3. After an insane design/development effort my immediate bosses rated me the highest ever. Will spare details, but we effing rocked and everything fell into place. Higher level boss (who I’d never even met) overrode the rating and ranked me as “needs improvement” because I hadn’t been to company social events and wasn’t “collaborating” enough for his latest idiotic management fad. Because I was spending late hours in labs and at faraway test ranges, ensuring we met contract requirements – so he could get his bonus. This cost me significantly in pay/etc.

  4. Some serious health problems developed, one of which made long hikes in hot weather a no-no.

  5. To “show inclusion” or some other horseshit, they took away my hard-earned personal parking place - forcing me to hike in from the hinterlands (see item above).

  6. The health problems worsened, requiring a couple of 3 day hospital stays and procedures. I began to evaluate how much sand remained in the hourglass, and how much I should waste in a cubicle.

  7. They began taking away the cubicles in favor of the next moronic management fad – open offices.

  8. I returned from recovery, to discover a nasty-gram from HR declaring I’d improperly charged my off time to short-term PTO, and that due to (yet another) rule change I was no longer eligible and they were taking it from my vacation time. Along with a stern notice that I had been away without sufficient leave or permission and would face disciplinary action if I didn’t “Take action to address this immediately”. I read the email, leaned back in chair and said to myself: “Enough.” It was over at that moment, I knew it as certainly as I knew my own name. I left early to make one last check with my financial advisor and then “took action” per their demand… by sending my retirement announcement to bosses/HR and requesting termination.

I’ve never looked back, nor questioned my decision, nor even visited the old workplace since. I was done.

9

Generally it goes

I can improve this with effort! --> I can improve this with enormous effort! --> why can’t even enormous effort improve this? --> why do I hate my life? --> if only I could get out of this situation --> okay, I quit, I quit! --> (years later) Now I’m not kidding, I really quit. Gosh, I should have done this years ago.

I had to move 3000 miles away to end most of the activities and relationships I was long done with. I have a hard time with the it’s over thing.

10

I blame that voice over guy from “coming attractions.” In that deep voice he’ll say something like,

In other words, if your life sucks it’s your fault because you gave up. Success was just around the corner, you idiot!

I really think Hollywood owes us an explanation…and a big fat apology. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

11

My first job I realized it was over when

  1. They got rid of all the temps in my department

  2. All the regular employees who had previously been in different departments before being reassigned to mine got sent back to their old jobs

  3. The “bad” employees finally got the boot which made up temporarily happy

  4. They forced half the remaining “good” employees to pick other departments to work at

  5. When it was me and 5 other people finally just running a skeleton crew they got two of them to “volunteer” to help another department temporarily and they never came back.

  6. Finally I realized it when I got reassigned to another city, leaving the 3 remaining people to get laid off and the department shuttered a week after I left. The entire time before that I thought we still had a shot.

12

You understand it’s over now, right?

13

There was a hack after I met her and I got ahold of some of the hacked data so I could see if I was in it, and found that she had at least two other profiles.

One was as half of a F-F bisexual couple looking for M’s for threesomes.

The other was looking for a dom for a D/s.

14

This is close to my thinking.

The image I use is “pulling the trigger”. In other words, taking some decisive action that is at the end of a long line of observances, decisions, and smaller actions. Before pulling the trigger, one must perceive a need for a gun, acquire a gun, acquire ammunition, load the gun, have the loaded gun in ones possession at the moment, place ones finger on the trigger - only then can one “pull the trigger”.

15

I knew my relationship with my highschool girlfriend was over when she called me the literal devil.

I knew my relationship with my fiance was over when she called me the literal devil.

I knew my relationship with my lifelong friend was over when she called me …and tearfully told me that she was dating a guy and it had progressed enough that hanging around with me was awkward.

(Damn it! Hat trick missed!)

Okay, in all seriousness, I was prepared for my engagement to be over years in advance - she was disaffected from her church, and I suspected from the start that she might flip back - and made no effort to take the final step towards marriage until I found out how it’d play out between atheist-me and a re-pious her. (I found out. Fortunately by sheer coincidence we hadn’t quite got around to merging finances and assets yet…)

Similarly, I knew that my longtime friendship would die the instant my friend finally got up the gumption to put herself on the market. I loved her, and had once proposed to her - there is no way in hell I was going to hang around once she got a (different) beau, one who shared her religious beliefs. If she hadn’t thrown me out I would have left myself. (I think she only kept hanging around with me as long as she did was because she wanted the company and I was the only obvious option. Well, that or she was in love with me but couldn’t pursue it because I’m an atheist. No way to know.)

But seriously, the highschool girlfriend ending came out of nowhere. In my youth I hadn’t realized that relationships between me and theists were doomed.

16

Very long story made short: I knew my career was over when I realized that most employers only wanted pharmacists who had done residencies and/or fellowships, and that anyone who hadn’t done this was not a new graduate who probably had no other work experience, related or not, and couldn’t be jacked around the way a young, naive person could.

17

I knew my son’s childhood was over when he told me not to put him to bed anymore. He said he would say “Goodnight,” and put himself to bed.

I guess not really his “childhood,” but the “little boy” part of it.

He used to be very clingy (this was a kid who had to be force-weaned at nearly 3 years)-- any time I left him, he’d want to hug me and say goodbye several times, and he wanted me to cuddle him, read to him, and tuck him in even when he could read books on his own, at his bedtime, and he’d ask me to stay until he fell asleep, which I never did, but he always asked.

Then suddenly one night a little before his bedtime, about 1/2 way through second grade, so he was eight (he has an October birthday), he gave me a single, quick hug, and announced he was going to bed, he would read a chapter of his book, turn his own light out, and did not need to be tucked in, just like that. It was like someone flipped a switch.

Ever since, he has put himself to bed. He’s almost 14 now, and doesn’t even have a bedtime anymore, because we can trust him to go to bed at a reasonable time unless he has something he needs to do-- like he planned badly, and hasn’t finished a school assignment, so he stays up late. It doesn’t happen often, and I figure it’s how he learns to plan better.

He’s plenty independent now, but wow, was I worried when we made the decision to force-wean him.

18

I’m good at seeing the big picture about other peoples relationships.
I have a friend who’s made a long series of
bad decisions about men.
I see the end coming months before she does. She’s a good friend but she will not hear me. So I’ve stopped trying. I comfort her when it’s over and never ever say “I told you so”
Same with my younger brother. That boy just can’t get it right. I do tell him “I told you so”

19

You might want to rethink the pointy red tail…

20

I knew it was over when the final buzzer of the Mavericks vs. Nuggets basketball game on 3/11/2020 sounded, while simultaneously Trump was announcing a travel ban from Europe and Tom Hanks was tweeting that he had Covid-19.