Ask HN: Have you ever gone back to a job after quitting? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Have you ever gone back to a job after quitting?

6 pointssharkweek4 comments

Randomly curious how common this is - let's say you quit and went to another job for a while, but started missing your old job, have you ever gone back?

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I did this at one point in my earlier career. My resume had a job change every 9 - 18 months. I was mortified to find that I was really unhappy at a new place after 5 weeks. I was discussing with my old coworker who let my manager know I was unhappy so they offered to have me back, which I did, but the reasons I left were unresolved some 6 months later so I left again.

This time I did some soul searching about what would make me happy. I knew the problem was really with me and though I had strong urges to leave, similar to my previous urges, I managed to stay at my new job for 6 years.

The takeaways from my sample size of 1: You can go back. If you left for some particular reason, it is possible that the situation remains unchanged and you will still be unhappy. If you leave again, you will likely burn bridges so be sure you want to be back. If you are doing this on a frequent basis, look within to understand why you have the need to change jobs so often.

I've come back to a job after a round of layoffs. My company laid me off and after a month, they realized my manager had lied and actually had another job lined up as they were letting me go. I was the only one that actually knew how the system worked (my manager lied about this too) and they begged me to come back.

10K higher salary and an extra week of vacation later, I was working there again.

The company lasted another year before it folded completely. I only did it because the boss pretty much left me alone and I didn't have anything to do besides maintain the current system that I built during my 5 years there.

I used this opportunity to start my own company because my daily job took me about 20 minutes in the morning. I previously automated most of my daily tasks. Anyone with any tech experience was fired or let go and nobody really knew what I was doing besides keeping the current system running smoothly.

New jobs are always difficult in the beginning. Mostly because you have lots of unfamiliar systems to learn and new coworkers.

The question you should be asking yourself, is why did you quit your old job in the first place? Do you think anything will be different if you go back?

Actually yes. I had a job for 5+ years, but was getting stressed and unhappy. I found what seemed like a perfect job, on paper, and left. As it turned out the perfect job was not great, so I bounced around 3-5 companies for a year, before asking for my old job back.

With the benefit of hindsight I should have raised my problems with the original company, at the time, not just walked away. That would have lead to improvements for myself and others, and saved me a year of starting new jobs which didn't suit me.

I would imagine for someone who is to come back to an old job, the staffing or team may have changed as well. There's a really high chance that your ex-coworkers may have left as well. I never gone back to a previous job but I do keep in touch with previous bosses/project managers/ex-coworkers in which lead to them hiring me as a consultant for a different company.

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