I have a friend who left her job for greener pastures, but realized quickly that her old job was better. Her old job asked her to come back several times over the course of almost 2 years, but she didn’t want to move backwards in her career, so she always declined. It wasn’t until they asked her to come back with a big promotion (which meant a different boss) that she decided to come back.
So far she has been happy.
Left because I was doing three jobs as one person. They couldn’t hire a replacement with that job description (surprised Pikachu face). My new job wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be, so I got hired back in a properly defined job and that’s been working out fine.
Hated the new one. I am glad the old one was kind enough to take me back, even if we all knew it was temporary.
Necessity, multiple times. I had incredible luck out of college - and by that I mean that places I worked at kept closing or getting bought out by other companies and doing major layoffs. I kept going back to my fast food job I had in college because it was better than nothing. I went back 4 separate times before I found a job that didn’t close within a year.
So it wasn’t exactly by choice!