Ever gone back to an old job after a really long time?

This topic was created by OzBob .

[OzBob]

Ever gone back to an old job after a really long time?

OK, I did the antipodean in the UK thing for over 10 years, been back for a few more down under. Now the IT consultancy I work for has sent me back to,.... my old public service employer!

The old kit has all gone, but I recognise the host-naming standard they still use (I defined the original). Funny thing is, the old setup was pretty informal and we were left alone to get things done. Now the IT section is co-located with the main head-shed building, so I have bureaucrats from a-hole to breakfast. They have even got the IAAS route and don't host any physical kit, and all the clever tools and packages that were customised to make sysadmin life easier are gone-burgers.

So, has anyone every "gone back" to an old employer / site after a large number of years? Was it a good experience? I personally don't give a toss now, I'm only there for the on-call money this time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, after 18 years and left after 10 weeks due to the lack of investment in their technology in over 20 years. It was literally, a step back in time.

Never again..

[Lotaresco]

I get called back to places I used to work from time to time. What shocks me the most is that I often encounter the same people, doing the same job, making exactly the same complaints that they did 10 or 20 years ago. As you say nothing much changes on the technology side since many organisations seem to think "buy some technology, run it until it stops working". So I see legacy IT kit that should be in the Science Museum, if only as examples of really bad ideas kept working long beyond their sell by date.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of came back once..

I worked a job about 13 years ago where I took care of POS equipment. (in both senses of the acronym) When I started, there were two of us taking care of about 70 restaurant units. I used to drive 3,000 miles a month. I didn't really mind it as it was one of my first IT jobs, I had an earlier background as a restaurant manager, and I liked the people, who were always glad to see me when I'd come to rescue them from whatever IT issue. I also liked to drive and got very nice mileage reimbursement checks for my personal vehicle, which was a nice little perk at the time. The machines ran Linux or SCO and were antiquated before I started the job.

Eventually they laid off my counterpart, and I assumed his area as well. (things started to be less fun) A year later, they laid me off, and were supposedly going to get our vendor to support them remotely and by shipping any needed equipment. Our layoffs were partially political, as the market director (who was having an affair with the CEO) hated us. The tide changed a few years later (she told the CEO's wife she was having an affair with him when he threatened to break up with her, and was subsequently fired)

I was working a different IT job then and was invited to come back and help them as an independent contractor. I accepted and did random jobs for the next few years, billing them for every penny I thought it was worth. Instead of having their vendor maintain things as they were supposedly going to do, I found the situation that I had taken care fairly well IMHO had degenerated into a nightmare mess of everything half working. I finally stopped doing jobs for them when the company went through bankruptcy and was split up and sold off. In retrospect I can't say I miss it, but it was one of those rare experiences in life that kind of leaves you with a sense of completion in a weird way, perhaps like seeing your childhood home demolished as an adult.

[Grant Fromage]

You do forget things.

I was back at a place I had been staff, they were moving premises piecemeal and I was troubleshooter. One of the children had removed a piece of kit which had been deactivated but fanned out to a number of peripherals and hadn`t worked out where they all were, most had run no`s and were on the cable schedule, found and shipped

One wasn`t and i was cursing the fool that put it in as It was now a two man cable bash with floortile uplifts in a busy area

1 metre into the bundle was a tape label saying "temp feed for xxx going to room xxx desk xxx" and at the other end plugged into the ctl panel "temp install, fed from ctl room bay.......awaiting run no. allocation from ( managers intials)" Oh someone knows how to do it, stand down. Recognition kicked in

It was my bloody writing!

10 years previously I had run that cable in on a night shift , ALONE. No wonder I blanked it after sleep.

[Sheepykins]

I've heard its a bad career move to ever go back.

I applied for my old company after working out in Europe last year, they were advertising for my old position (again, noone wanted it. MUGS JOB) but they were paying 15k more than they paid me for doing the same job for 3 years.

But then something better came along.