‘I politely declined’: Guy who quit 3-years prior gets a call from HR offering him a $5,000 re-join bonus and $300 more a month, turns out management drove the company to the ground

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Dec 3, 2025 7:00 PM EST

A man who quit his toxic workplace three years ago got a perplexing phone call from HR one day begging for him to return. They offered him $300 more a month and a $5,000 rejoin bonus on top of another $3,000 retention bonus. Sounds like a swanky deal, but what in tarnation could possibly be going on if a company you despised is trying to get you back? Don't let their new "deal" make you forget why you quit in the first place. The reason this man quit was because he wasn't being given any respect and they refused to let him grow in the company. He had had it. So he quit and moved on to a much better job and work environment. 

 

That's why it was so easy for him to "politely decline" their new offer three years after he quit. After that phone call, he spoke to several old co-workers who he had worked with who also eventually quit. It turns out that HR was tasked to call all of the past employees over the last five years and give them the same offer to return. Turns out that the entitled management that pushed everyone to quit, also pushed the company into disaster. 

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  • "Ex-company called all the ex-staff asking whether they're interested to return"

    man talking on phone holding blue coffee cup outside building
    via Unsplash+ (and Vitaly Gariev)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Rant warning. (This is not in the US or Canada). I left this company about 3 years ago.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • It's a huge company with thousands of staff and I was a frontline supervisor. I left because I was accepted into my dream job and they paid better, and also I had some resentment against them -- the people who joined after me were paid $500 - $1,000 per month more but because we were so short- staffed and HR basically took anyone in, their works were pretty mediocre and we had to tank a lot of their work.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • I was also unhappy that my manager loved to flip-flop give conflicting instructions, and I ended up taking a lot of heat from the management and also from the people below me who were paid better than me.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • When I resigned, my manager was very unhappy, told me that "I shouldn't have given you this appraisal grade if I knew that you are not staying", and stopped talking to me until my last day.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • After I left, my ex- coworkers told me that the manager told the whole world what I have written in the exit interview and discredited me.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • Fast forward 3 years later. Last week, HR from this ex-company called me and asked if I'm looking for a job and whether I'm interested to re-join them.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • They asked how much am I earning now and told me that they are willing to pay $300 a month more than what I currently earn and will take me in at a higher grade, plus a $5,000 re- join bonus on top of another $3,000 retention bonus.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • man in blue dress shirt using computer
    via Unsplash+ (and TheStandingDesk)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Being professional, I politely declined the HR. I have no intention of wanting to work under that manager ever again.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • I later learnt that since I left 3 years ago, most of the supervisors they hired lasted on average 9-10 months despite the very lucrative joining bonuses.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • Many of the people who joined at the same time as me have also left. As it turns out, the poor HR was asked to call EVERY SINGLE staff that left within the last 5 years to ask if they wanted to re-join.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • Another of my ex- coworker left with a lot of resentment and started his own business. Dude cursed at the poor HR to the tune of you treated me like shit, now you want me to come back?
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • and hung up on her
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • person holding white android smartphone in white shirt
    via Unsplash+ (and NordWood Themes)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • queenofcaffeine76 My husband was working for a small but growing company at the start of covid. They hired him to manage the shop. After a year, they had him overseeing the shop while also working as their only qualified graphic designer. They started training someone else to run the shop and told my husband that they were going to hire someone to assist him with the designing. Weeks go by and my husband notices he's the only employee being left out of frequent meetings. They told him it was bec
    via queenofcaffeine76
  • OnYaBikeMike I usually decline an exit interview for this very reason. The one time i was forced into one I just said 'Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work here, and the support you have given me. It is now my time to move on', and politely declined or deflected other other questions. There is nothing you can say that will be to your benefit. Most companies are just collecting ammo to fight of any potential legal issues.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • OP earth_wanderer1235 We went through 2 rounds of exit interview, first by manager then by HR on my last day of work. At that time I just smiled, nodded did not say anything when he interviewed (nagged/ranted at) me. He tried to use other coworkers to elicit information from me, e.g. where am I going, how much was I paid, etc. Then I wrote everything in the HR exit interview so he had actually gotten a fair bit of heat from the HR because of what I wrote.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • No_Group5174 My old company called to see if I was interested in coming back to assist the person who took over my role. My response in summary: "I left because you wouldn't promote me into the next grade and HR literally told me "you should feel lucky you have a job". You hired a person to replace me at the grade you wouldn't promote me into and, now he is failing, you want me to come an help him do the job I was successful doing on my own. Thanks for confirming my decision to leave was entirel
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • No_Group5174 I was "invited" to a mandatory exit interview. What the hell, I was being paid to be there, right? Turned up at HR at the agreed appointed time and place to be told that my interviewer was on holiday that week. And that her stand-in was also off that day. And that every other person in the whole of HR was "too busy" to conduct my interview that day. Or the next. Or the next. That pretty much was the cherry on the cake for my experience with HR at Thales Crawley.
    via earth_wanderer1235
  • Confident_Peak_6592 I never understood the meaning of an Exit Interview... How bout bye Felicia....I'm leaving because your management is terrible...l love when the company comes up with brilliant ideas, like let's get rid of all the people that have been here for years and do there jobs in their sleep and then bring in younger workers and pay them nothing.... How that work out.. Within a year they all leave and management is like how can we get those old guys back who never complained or called
    via earth_wanderer1235

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hr job new hire work upper management new job workplace payback entitled manager karma quitting
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