Going back into an old workplace is weird

[Makinitrain]

Just that really.
Does anyone get a really odd feeling about going back into an old place of work?
I worked at a shop for five years in my twenties (not that long ago) and it was the best time of my life. If I go back to visit and shop, I always regret it.
All the people I used to work with are still there, they act friendly and happy to see me, but I'm not 'one of them' anymore.
There's also another place I worked where I was quite unhappy, if I ever go back there then the smell of the place makes me feel all those depressed and sad feelings again.
Anyone else?

My first shift in a vast old Mental Health hospital was on a sweltering Summers morning on a thirty bed long stay geriatric ward with thirty doubly incontinent patients , all with advanced dementia . A friend now lives in a very plush flat in a section of that ward,which was unnerving to have a meal there and still smell poo as a trace memory !

the whole hospital is now a vast housing estate , with many wards converted and the once beautiful grounds infilled with poky rows of flats , townhouses and a token community centre . Quite weird walking around it , it has distinct social distancing of class and status built into the design of roads and access .

I used to work in an old hospital which eventually was knocked down and turned into a retail park. I used to find it odd standing in the car park for B&Q thinking “this is where the morgue used to be “ 😀

I used to work for a high street bank in Bristol and was also on the relief staff list(basically could be called upon to work at any branch in the city and local towns to cover sick leave). For a long time after it was strange going back in to do my own banking. It's been over 20 years since I was made redundant so a lot of the branches have closed, but I still look at the branches that still exist and think "I know where the strongroom is".
I also worked in a building that later became occupied by a radio station that I listened to. That I could actually picture the building the DJ was in added something to my listening experience.

Not workplace, but university.

I remember going back to my university campus a year after graduation, where I still had friends in the year below me, and I couldn't get into the staircases to visit any of them, as I no longer had the key (this was pre mobile phones, so I had to hang around until I saw someone I knew to let me in). I cried when I got back home.

Many years later I returned just to visit, and show my children the place, and found myself feeling rather resentful towards the young undergrads striding about the place like it was theres. It was mine, I tell you, MINE!

I’ve been into my old work twice and it was definitely weird. I could see all ‘my work’ stacked up but knew I didn’t have to do it. Felt awesome.

Oh absolutely. I feel exactly the same way.

I worked in a shop for 3 years in my late teens/early 20s and loved it. I left at 22 when my daughter was born and came back 6 years later.

It honestly felt like I'd come home. It was just as warm and happy and full of old and new friends as before. It's the sort of place where staff turnover is very low and everyone muddles along well.

All my previous employers have gone bust!

@Covert19 that's hilarious, you protect your campus!

Yes, old workplaces definitely bring up all sorts of feelings. University too. I remember walking through mine three years after I'd left, realising that all the people who were contemporaries would now be gone and it belonged to difficult people now. And one old workplace was a shop now closed/moved. I find that sad too.

the whole hospital is now a vast housing estate , with many wards converted and the once beautiful grounds infilled with poky rows of flats , townhouses and a token community centre . Quite weird walking around it , it has distinct social distancing of class and status built into the design of roads and access .

It wasn't this place was it?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfield_Hospital,_Bedfordshire
I used to live close to there and it gave me the creeps. It was a proper victorian asylum back in the day and there were lots of spooky local stories about the place. Why anyone would want to live there is beyond me, although it is very pretty!

Revisiting my old school was weird too. Some things were totally unchanged like the domestic science room and the science laboratories, but two of the buildings were almost unrecognisable. The main hall and senior boarding accommodation was due for demolition and the junior boarding accommodation...well basically I didn't recognise it at all.
Some of the smells were the same though...

My old comp school no longer exists either in name or as a building. It moved to new premises and changed its name, and the old buildings were demolished and a housing estate built. It makes me quite sad that I can never visit it again even though I wasn’t that happy there at the time!

I've never been back to anywhere I have worked or spoken to anyone I previously worked with in each company after the day I left.

Aw I left my old job in December after five years there, and I feel super sad when I go back in. We had the best time and I made some amazing friends, and we’re all still in regular contact but it’s never the same is it?
I had to leave, the bosses were pricks and it wasn’t that practical given how much my personal circumstances had changed over the five years but I’m still sad I left, even tho it was the right thing to do and even tho I’m in a job I love now with lovely people.