My keycard didn’t work.
Please fucking don’t. Think long and hard about why you left in the first place - you probably had a good reason.
Not all departures are due to bad things. Sometimes you want to pursue a different area of focus and your current company doesn’t have an opening like that. But maybe a few years later they do.
There are many scenarios to leave a company - in yours you were denied an avenue for self development and if the company has done that once they’ll do it again.
Not all companies are good. If one is shitty enough for you to abandon the relationships you built there it isn’t worth going back to.
I left my small company to go work for a large company since my career has only been in startups and I wanted to see how they do things at a 10k+ employee org. If I end up hating working for large companies I’d consider going back to my smaller company. Not all companies are shitty and not all departures are a burned bridge.
I worked at the same company for almost exactly 12 years, I was so burned out that I didn’t just leave to a similar role, I changed fields. After a year and a half I was nearly broke and went back to my abusive ex, despite a healthy pay bump I left again after a year and haven’t done anything tech related since.
Yeah. Only when the only reason I left was money and I negotiated for the appropriate money on the way in the door when returning.
Any place I’ve left for any other reason I haven’t, and wouldn’t, go back to.
Nope.