Ever been laid off by a company; then return to work for the same company?

[jtgain]

How did it feel? I may be going back to work for a company that laid me off last year. (I found a temporary job for the last 10 months). I have mixed feelings about it. I'm glad to be working, and the old bank account sure will breathe a sign of relief, but I'm also upset.

These people let me go. ME! A valuable, contributing member of their team who cared about my work, but they tossed me aside. Now, I'm coming back and I feel like the jilted lover who got cheated on, but keeps coming back and forgiving her cheating husband.

Am I crazy, or has anyone else had this?

[Katriona]

I did, but I guess my feelings about it were different due to the nature of the layoffs. A big project tanked, and pretty much everyone who'd so much as gotten an email with the project name in it was laid off. They contracted with a "job center" that was hooked up to their job listings, and we could get whatever kind of job hunting advice we needed - resumes, interviews, whatever.

[Johnny L.A.]

Yes, twice. The first time I was out of work for a month. Unfortunately instead of seven miles from my apartment, the new job was 70 miles from home. I stayed there until the 'Peace Dividend' cut off funding.

The second time I went back to a company after having been laid off, it was in a different division. Hated it. I should have had a clue when I was interviewing and told a former coworker the position I was applying for, and she looked at me as if I was mental and asked 'Why?'.

My jobs are means to support my hobbies. Admittedly, I love my current job with a non-profit. But if I won the lottery I'd have to leave it (after ensuring they get someone in who can be trained in the position).

[3waygeek]

One of my former colleagues was laid off by the other development team at our office two years ago; our team snapped him up to fill an open position. Didn't work out -- we ended up laying him off a month ago.

[Caldazar]

I'm currently employed at a company that laid me off during the collapse of the dot-com bubble. No hard feelings; it was just a business decision. When business picked up again, HR called me to inquire whether I'd interested in getting my old job back.

[Harmonious Discord]

I haven't felt bad about going back to a place that laid me off. The company survived the lack of work and there was still a job.

[CalMeacham]

Yes. Twice. To the same company. The first time it didn't feel odd at all. The second time felt very weird because so much time had gone by between the most recent times, yet the place was very much as it had been.

[An Arky]

Yes. But I'm a gov contractor, and it's the nature of the beast.

[pabstist]

I was fired, then rehired a month later. Apparently they couldn't find anybody who could do my job. The work they had was only going to take a week, so I told them the only way I would do it was for triple my previous pay, which they agreed to.

How could I feel bad screwing them over after they screwed me over? I got fired because by then they had had tacked on 6 totally unrelated time sucking responsibilities onto my original job and I couldn't do it all. So I spent that week doing my original job and nothing else, on my own schedule even.

Then a month later they hired me again to fly across the country and drive a company car back, everything paid for. Yep, I took my sweet time on that trip! They kept calling asking when I'd get back, umm, I don't know, in a few weeks?

[Khadaji]

I was laid off in 06 and my old boss keeps asking me to return. If things don't work out with the stuff I'm doing now, I'll consider it.

[ryobserver]

I've worked for the same company since 2000. They laid me off in 2003 after outsourcing my entire unit's work to freelancers in Ireland. Three months later, just as my severance package was about to run out, they interviewed and rehired me for a different job in another department. I'm still in that department but in a more senior job.

So, yes. I was upset about being laid off but happy to be rehired. They gave me a decent severance package, rehired me at the same salary and bridged my seniority for vacation etc., so I was actually quite well treated, by corporate-America standards anyway. No grumbles here.

[stpauler]

Yup. I was laid off January 2009 as they were moving my unit to Hartford (which made sense as the rest of the department was there anyways). I had two months of full pay and benefits and then four months of severance after that. I was hired back in July in a different department (two weeks before the severance was about to end).

I got all of the benefits;on-site parking which is usually a 7 year wait for new employees, also another 3 days of vacation pay bringing my total PTO to 33 days off because I had served 10 years after I got back.

The best part? I love the new job so much more than the old one.

[Jamicat]

I have a few times...

It's sorta like going back to an x.

Kinda cool in the beginning.

But, eventually you remember why you really wanted to get away from the situation in the first place. :(

[FallenAngel]

Several years ago I took a job at an adult chain writing product copy for their website. They hit some financial trouble and my boss thought she could do my job and hers.

It took less than a month for her and the owner to figure out just how wrong she was. They asked me back and I demanded a 20 percent raise, which they gave me.

I continued my job search after coming back and stayed there the three months it took me to land a different gig. I firmly learned my lesson: No amount of money makes it worth it to work for crazy people.

[Enright3]

Count me in. I was a programmer for a company that decided to try to go to a new technology platform. We had the choice to take training and convert to the new platform or become a contractor (since the new platform was supposedly going to replace the old one). I took the training. within six months it was all but over. Massive layoffs on everybody that converted to the new platform. The contractors' jobs were as safe as ever of course. After I was laid off I applied for and got a job in the network engineering department. I worked there for three years more until I got laid off again. ~sigh~ I've been laid off 5 times in all.

[racer72]

I was laid off by my current employer on 3 different occasions and I kept coming back. Been there a total of 25 years now.

[Hari Seldon]

My stepfather was in a union job and was constantly getting laid off and called back. On at least one occasion (I took the call from the company at 5 AM) he was laid off for one day. He was frequently laid off for a week or so. But he was well-paid when he worked and his health benefits lasted till he died at age 91 (that is, for 26 years of retirement, following 35 years of employment, from when he got out the army in 1945 till 1980.

[ZipperJJ]

My dad worked at Ford for 38 years. He was laid off at least 3 times when I was alive, maybe more before that. The first two times (when I was just born) the "money you get paid when you're laid off pool" ran dry and he worked a lot of odd jobs. In fact, come to think of it, I didn't realize he worked at Ford when I was a little kid - I always knew him as a guy who drove a truck for Nickle's Bakery.

I think that's how it works in a union place, tho. You just keep getting laid off and brought back on until you decide you can't do it anymore.

[Silver Tyger]

At my previous job, I worked there for about a month a year before I went back (and was there four years). They laid me off because they had a previous employee want to come back and the boss had promised that if he ever wanted a job he could have it.

Technically I'm back again, but only to fill in while someone is on vacation.

[RealityChuck]

Sort of. I worked as a temp at GE for a couple of years, was laid off, then worked there as a temp again. But those were in different departments.

Another time I was laid off but they called me back a couple of times as a consultant. That was a bit odd, but I needed the work, so I managed.

[Dangerosa]

I've never been laid off, but I've been on the other side of the decision. And while I can't assure you it wasn't YOU, I can assure you that it might not have been YOU at all. Sometimes its which project you are working on, or length of service, or the influence of someone who then leaves themselves. And since they are hiring you back, the second is more likely.

Instead of seeing yourself as the jilted lover, see yourself as the one separated by circumstances - grad school, a great job offer across the country, an ill parent that they needed to move to care for - with uncertainty about getting back together.

This isn't my story, this is my husband's. About eight years ago he'd been with the firm for two years - and his boss was crazy. She was also easily influenced. People who felt threatened by my husband lobbied to have him let go, and he was given 30 days notice of getting laid off. His boss worked on getting rid of him with cause, HR negotiated him getting laid off (I suspect there may have been other influencers - people who saw he had talent, and felt he needed to be retained).

About 25 days into this nightmare, they reorganized. My husband was moved to a different group and apparently everyone chose to forget all about the whole "you have five days left." (Thus the suspicion on other influences - he ended up going to work for one of the VPs that respected his abilities).

About a month after that, his crazy ex-boss decided to "pursue consulting activities" in the down market of 2002.

Another year went by and the people who had lobbied his boss also decided to "pursue other opportuntieis."

My husband is still there. Loves the job. They love him. He's been subsequently very successful there. And it doesn't seem like anyone remembers.

[TruCelt]

I was laid off and rehired by another Division three months later. The worst part was that I lost my Options, which had been my only bonus the year before. I often wonder if the whole thing didn';t occur more to avoid paying those (the price had gone up substantially and they were six months from vesting).

I had taken a large ego hit when they told me they could do without me, so it was a relief when they called and wanted me back. The new Division turned out to be quite dysfunctional though, and I was very glad to get out of there a year later.

So yeah, Jamicat nailed it.

[Tastes of Chocolate]

I was laid off during a down market, and in the next sentence offered a job with another division. I took it, and stupid me didn't even ask for the afternoon off. It was really weird sitting at the same desk, surrounded by the same people, but having to remember to do another job.

A year later my former boss, with my new bosses blessing, asked if I was interested in my old job back. I accepted (it really was a better fit). I still get a chuckle out of the whole thing. It's obvious that they learned that they really did need another person doing that job, just like we'd been telling them. I'm actually kind of glad I wasn't there for that year, as they tried to do 3 peoples jobs with 2 people.

But I should have taken the afternoon off.

[StusBlues]

How did it feel? I may be going back to work for a company that laid me off last year. (I found a temporary job for the last 10 months). I have mixed feelings about it. I'm glad to be working, and the old bank account sure will breathe a sign of relief, but I'm also upset.

These people let me go. ME! A valuable, contributing member of their team who cared about my work, but they tossed me aside. Now, I'm coming back and I feel like the jilted lover who got cheated on, but keeps coming back and forgiving her cheating husband.

Am I crazy, or has anyone else had this?

Me. Then again, said layoff happened when I went to grad school and tried to telecommute. They just didn't have enough work for me to do in that mode. Years later, I moved back to town and they rehired me. That's where I'm working now.