I guess “recidivate” is more appropriate.

recidivate: To return to a previous pattern of behavior, especially to return to criminal habits.

Is returning to a previous employer considered recidivism? What if the reporting structure and task lists have changed drastically since you left? What if those new tasks interest you more than what you are doing now? What if you miss what you were doing?

If you haven’t already heard, my light saber will be turning back to green on or about August 4th, assuming all the paperwork goes through.

I guess I should also respond to something I mentioned on Twitter, Gale’s excellent post about the hidden reasons people leave.

1. The job or workplace was not as expected. – I can honestly say that the workplace and the job were just about as expected. I loved certain aspects of the job: learning new things, dealing with new people, interacting with the other groups in a large organization, trying to balance serving the customers and running a service. But, other parts were not so easy to deal with.
2. The mismatch between job and person. – This is the big one. I’m not cut out to be a Service Manager for a campus wide service, let alone multiple services. I also miss the day to day work of solving problems, supporting individual users and building solutions for a slightly smaller, more nimble organization.
3. Too little coaching and feedback. – Never really a problem, though some internal changes in management structure did leave me concerned about who I’d be reporting to and who I’d be taking orders from. But, those were mostly resolved long before I’d decided to depart.
4. Too few growth and advancement opportunities. – Not a problem for me. Ever.
5. Feeling devalued and unrecognized. – For others in the organization, yes, but not for me.
6. Stress from overwork and work-life balance. – Not really the case, if anything, I’m going to an environment that will probably increase the stress and twist the work-life balance even more.
7. Loss of trust and confidence in senior leaders. – Somewhere, at the back of my brain, maybe. But nothing bad enough to make me just up and leave.

Anyway, I’m hoping the new duties at an old place will lead to a return of work related blogging on some new and some old topics.