Maybe this person hadn't had much chance to network beyond their coworkers or people otherwise connected to the company? Depending on how they got fired, I could see how that might create a sense of being excluded from the bit of the community they could see.
In other words, maybe they hadn't yet come to appreciate that there are multiple tech communities with all kinds of diverse characters.
In other words, maybe they hadn't yet come to appreciate that there are multiple tech communities with all kinds of diverse characters.