Rewind

I’m at Apple.

For the past few days I’ve felt like I’m in a time warp. I’ve rewound my life, and returned to Apple. I’ve resumed my old position as an instructional designer, in my old department, with several of my old friends. I’m back in the old building on Infinite Loop, just down the hall from the office where I used to sit. I’ve even got my old employee number and email address!

Did the past eight years really happen? Did I leave Apple for Netscape, and work on Navigator and Mozilla and Flock? I must have, because my brain seems to be filled with information about browsers that can only come from over-exposure.

The beauty of it is, several of my fellow Netscapees are here, two. They came to Apple, of course, to create Safari, and now I get to work with them once again.

For a while now I’ve had it on my mind to write a little something about why it turned out to be so hard to work at Flock, much as I loved the place. And why I find it so hard — impossible, maybe — to work on open source projects in general.

I’ve come to a two-pronged conclusion about it: open source communities are tough on women, and open source communities are tough on non-engineers. Since I’m a female non-engineer, I’m doubly cursed.

Soon I will share the stories that support this two-pronged conclusion. But for now I must continue rewinding my professional life back to Apple.

It’s good to be back.