At what point is it OK to give up on certain jobs and people?

You might read that headline and think “Never!” either because “Work is virtue” or “Relationships are life!” The latter is closer to true than the former, but neither is 100 percent true.

Anyway, here’s what I mean:

Small personal example: I have a friend from college, mini-media celebrity these days (holler!) and even back in 2006, when he was hustling at CNN and I was slinging hash at ESPN, I’d email him and he wouldn’t respond for days/weeks. He’s a good dude, mostly a great dude, and dudes in general can’t communicate worth a chicken fart — remember, the “goal of male adulthood is to find a partner, not strengthen friendships” — and we’d see each other at weddings and the periodic guys’ meetup thing, but now into late-30s, early-40s, I’ll text him about J.D. Vance running for Senate or whatever, and he won’t respond for days. Weeks, even. At some point, how hard do you try? How much do you fight? Dude’s got his own life, his own geo, his own priorities. I don’t doubt we’re friends, but I’m a little bitch if I keep texting him random shit with no reply, no?

Bigger personal example: Had some woke Massachusetts hustler “friend cancel” me a few weeks back, using the line “We were never really that close anyway,” years after his wife told me at a wedding “You’re legitimately among his best friends.” At that level, it’s cut the fat time. If a relationship ain’t adding any value to your life, and people are telling you “Eh, we never were close anyway,” get gone. Go build back better somewhere else.

The biggest personal example: I been divorced, and the funniest shit about getting divorced, or “D’ed up” in the parlance of the times, is that you can look back on a longer relationship (mine was about eight years all-in) and pinpoint very specific pockets of time where things collapsed beyond seeming repair. I have a few of those with my ex, many of which are my fault in some way (some of which are hers). One would be the Monday night of the 2014 UConn-Kentucky title game; that was a knock-down, drag-out fight. That was April 7, 2014. We broke up in early March 2017. So it clearly wasn’t the end, but it was moving that way. The one I always go back to is that, on Christmas Day 2016, at a red light in Miami, she told me I was a “self-loathing alcoholic.” Do I resemble that remark at points? Absolutely. Is it the bigger picture of me as a person? No. But that was the first-ever time since 2009, when we started, when I thought to myself “This shit ain’t worth it.” We were done in less than 3 months.

A small work example: I’ve had dozens of jobs, and hundreds of contracts, where you hit a wall with process or people and you’re like “Eh, it’s OK to stop giving a shit about this,” and you only keep giving a shit about it for the check or until they end you. I was working with a lady in Houston a couple of years ago, freelance, and her only focus was that stuff had to be posted on Tuesdays. The topic didn’t matter, the strategy didn’t matter, nothing mattered except Tuesday had to come and go with some post. It was unbearable within six weeks. I needed the money tho, so I hustled to find other stuff and when I had enough cushion, I bounced. I had stopped giving a shit weeks (months!) before, but I needed that capitalism ride.

Bigger work example: Worked at this joint when I first moved to Texas. For a while I legitimately liked this job, and they even sent me to Belgium. That was cool! Over time, it eroded immensely. I was an asshole and I drank too much and was adjusting to Texas and needing friends there, so I am sure I was a terrible employee in pockets (or all-in). Then my manager used to have these fun, laugh-filled meetings with her other direct reports (not me), and I had to sit outside in my cubicle and hear those meetings, and it was very sad and not inclusive, and I basically quit on that job entirely and then ended up getting the pipe (laid off) about four months later. In the period where I quit on them, I was at a trade show in Vegas, came downstairs to meet someone, and I saw my entire team — like the whole team I was on, minus me — getting into cabs for dinner. Talk about “team-building,” eh? So yes, it’s OK to quit on jobs.

The biggest work example: Had an emotional connection with this one place I worked in Texas, for a host of dumb reasons detailed here. Before I interviewed with them in August ’18 for a full-time-ish job, I actually cried in my car a little bit. Again, I’m weird. I got the job, started there, and within about 12 days I was like “What in the fuck is this place?” It was a bunch of Instagram-obsessed wokesters playing work as fake adulthood, which is one of my least-favorite games. I quit on this place soon, day-drank too much, and got fired eventually. It was a bad narrative for me, but I understand the ins and outs of it with time passed.

So can you quit on people and jobs? Yes. You should try for as long as makes sense, and fight valiantly to defend things and people and ideas and passions that you care about, but at some point there’s no fight left and it’s OK to roll over or focus on other things. Begging for texts, begging for approval, begging for a functional workplace when those things ain’t anywhere in sight? Fuck it. Thank u, next.

Thoughts?