I am early enough in my career that I would feel utterly uncomfortable doing that. My blog is under my real name. It would be so easy to look at my resume and go oh. That company. Woof. I don't really want my public feelings of that experience tied to me like that. This isn't a startup. This is a non-tech business that has been around for decades. Don't burn bridges and all that.
I will add this tidbit... you would literally have to pay me "f--k you" levels of money for a middling developer to even think of going back to that company. My professor had the ability to get my a coding job at a completely different location (physical and business-side) inside that same company (I was in Procurement previously) for about 150k (almost 3x what I was making). $150k in a rust belt city is a lot of money. Due to my work history there I would have been immediately vested and they had a 6% 100% match on a 401k. My commute would have been 10 minutes. I literally laughed at him. The amount of money that could get me back in those doors is way out of the reach of a 9-5 systems programmer. The first dollar figure where I would have to pause would be in the $1 mil a year range. And I honestly don't know if I would have said yes even to that.
I stated something similar in a reply below, but I think it is worth repeating on its own...
It is hard to describe to someone who never experienced a job that is overwhelmingly and exclusively awful how much of an impact it makes on you. And I am not talking about a job that you don't like or don't enjoy. I mean a job that has zero redeeming qualities and a culture that is incredibly toxic.
You feel like a failure at work, but there is nothing you can do to improve or impress the higher ups. Nothing is good enough. Period. Managers are instructed not to give out performance reviews any higher than a 3/5 for their best performers because the company does not want to pay out bonuses. You can be outputting 44% of the work of a 13 person team and you are called out by your immediate supervisor because you had a word document open and "it was closed the next time I walked by. So you clearly are not working your full 8 hours a day." You have to handle the work of three, then four, then five people because everyone else seems to be getting hired elsewhere and quitting. And the company certainly isn't replacing them. (Cost savings, yay!) You aren't able to find a new job despite putting out dozens of feelers and going to a couple interviews a month, and getting to the final interview rounds for 3 or 4 jobs. Congratulations, you worthless POS. You cannot even get hired out of that company. Maybe you really are that awful of an employee. You are miserable. And you see an out (quitting) but if you quit (without a job) there are a whole bunch of questions. Will someone like you ever be able to find work again? If you can't find work over five months while you are employed, what makes you think you would stand out anymore if you were unemployed? And in some ways the unknowns caused by quitting are even worse than the misery.
So, you go back in the next day and go "no way the prospect of losing my home can be worse than this." Then you go home and it is "no way my job can be worse than losing my home and failing my wife and kids." And in both cases you realize that, yes, somehow, both of those statements are true. The job is more miserable than losing the home which is more miserable than the job which is more miserable than letting down my wife and kids which is more miserable than my job which is more miserable than losing my home which is more miserable than my job which is more miserable than letting my family starve which is more miserable than my job...
...and suddenly you find yourself with a gun in the front seat of your car because there is nothing in life that is not miserable. Nothing.
I was able to quit my toxic job. But if I was in a situation similar to that of Mr. Thomas, I can easily see why he thought he only had one option. And it is heartbreaking for his family.
Getting a job "easily enough" is still a big risk to take when you own a home and have a wife and two kids. I was in a job that deteriorated to the point that it was making me so miserable I would get physically ill around 3-4pm on Sundays due to having to go to work on Monday. It took me about 5-7 months to get to the point where I quit.
It is not an easy step to take. I was 24-25, enrolled in a Master's program (easy enough to explain why I left without a job) living in a house that I was not paying rent for and had the full support of both my parents and my fiancé. I didn't want to be a burden to my family. I was scared it would take me another 7 months to find a job like it did when I graduated from college in 2010. I had bills to pay. All of that was overwhelming despite me logically knowing I would be fine and that I wouldn't starve or go homeless or miss a bill payment because my fiancé or parents had stated so.
I can only imagine the pressures he thought he faced at home if he felt like it was his responsibility to take care of his family. It was probably so overwhelming that he saw no other out.
It is hard to describe to someone who never experienced a job that is overwhelmingly and exclusively awful how much of an impact it makes on you. And I am not talking about a job that you don't like or don't enjoy. I mean a job that has zero redeeming qualities and a culture that is incredibly toxic. You feel like a failure at work. You are miserable. And you see an out (quitting) but if you quit (without a job) there are a whole bunch of questions. And in some ways those unknowns are even worse than the misery. But then you go back in the next day and go "no way the prospect of losing my home can be worse than this." Then you go home and it is "no way my job can be worse than losing my home and failing my wife and kids." And it both cases you realize that, yes, somehow, both of those statements are true. The job is more miserable than losing the home which is more miserable than the job which is more miserable than letting down my wife and kids which is more miserable than my job which is more miserable than...
... and suddenly you find yourself with a gun in the front seat of your car because there is nothing in life that is not miserable. Nothing.
I will add this tidbit... you would literally have to pay me "f--k you" levels of money for a middling developer to even think of going back to that company. My professor had the ability to get my a coding job at a completely different location (physical and business-side) inside that same company (I was in Procurement previously) for about 150k (almost 3x what I was making). $150k in a rust belt city is a lot of money. Due to my work history there I would have been immediately vested and they had a 6% 100% match on a 401k. My commute would have been 10 minutes. I literally laughed at him. The amount of money that could get me back in those doors is way out of the reach of a 9-5 systems programmer. The first dollar figure where I would have to pause would be in the $1 mil a year range. And I honestly don't know if I would have said yes even to that.