Ask HN: Fired for Using Firefox

> Anyway, you wouldn't be the first opinionated junior developer that gets a reality check this way.

hahajahha!!! This guy just called me a junior dev. I guess that is possible. To work 17 years in the same profession, being payed, mostly as a temp contractor, having to prove your chops over and over again every year or so, but still somehow never learning anything. Thanks bro. From today on, I'll consider myself a junior web dev. You showed me the truth with your wise words.

> but your failure is actually convincing others of those amazing abilities and skills you have.

In three weeks, I got one ticket. T had to insist on being given a ticket. Ticket said fix the CSS for the login page, I fixed the CSS for ALL pages. Did you get that? All pages. You are starting to sound like my boss, asking me over and over again if the CSS was fixed even after the scrum board said so, the git history said so, I said so in daily stand-ups, and I DMed him so in slack. Wow! I guess am a failure then. Maybe I should have jumped on top of my table and repeatedly screamed "I did it! I did it! I did it!". Is that how you think I should have "convinced others of those amazing abilities". Honest question. Please let me know what else I should have done.

> They told you you don't know how to use your tools. In other words that you were not being professional.

Firefox, or even Chrome for that matter, is not a web dev tool. It is a browser. You use it to browse. Whatever you choose to browse, is your choice. Can you show me one, even just one job ad, from anywhere in this world that says "must professionally only use chrome as their web browser"?

> The fact that you are on HN complaining about this, tells me a lot. It's a bit immature behavior and you are burning a few bridges like that. That combined with a few things that maybe didn't go that well in your work in the first weeks would be a gigantic red flag for a manager.

Honestly, I don't care about your opinion. The fact that you are complaining about me complaining tells me a lot about you. Very immature, combined with some other petty arguments you have raised.

> Firefox, or even Chrome for that matter, is not a web dev tool. It is a browser.

That's an odd thing to say. Firefox, Chrome and Safari are absolutely web dev tools - they're the most powerful such tools I've ever used.

I absolutely could be wrong. Even if I spent 2 hours listening to both sides, I could still be wrong. This is my best guess, based on my own experience of being a manager.

My guess is that you gave them what you thought was honest and helpful feedback, but the way you delivered it made you come across as arrogant and abrasive. I say that because I get the same feeling talking to you on here.

Imagine a story that runs like this. You off-handedly made a negative judgment in public about their existing code, which was written by their longest-serving and most senior engineer, who overhears your criticism. They then criticise you in private Slack channels of which you are not a member. Now your manager has a conflict to deal with. On one side, there's a long-standing engineer who knows the existing tech stack in great depth and has delivered much value for the company. On the other is you, somebody who started three weeks ago, and doesn't know much about the tech stack. The easiest way of resolving the conflict is to get rid of you. While they could be patient and see if things improve, your somewhat abrasive reaction to your manager's request to work more in the office makes their mind up that the pain in managing you is not the worth the potential technical skills you offer. HR advises that the lack of knowledge with Angular and browser dev tools gives sufficient justification, no need to muddy the water by mentioning the personal conflicts, as that's much more subjective. Thanks tamarind8, but your work duration probation "did not met the performance expectations and standards" so we're terminating the contract, here's 2 weeks notice as per your contract.

You arrive here, and tell us that last sentence, and you're asking if it's fair. The rest of that paragraph gives context to the decision.

Now I'm not suggesting I've got all or even any of the details right there, it's simply a generic story I've seen play out quite frequently. But without knowing that kind of detailed context, it's impossible to say what happened.

You can't control the decision to fire you. It's done. Whatever the reason.

But you can now control your response to it. You can be defensive, blame everything on them, and think about taking legal action that will almost certainly fail. Or you can learn from mistakes you made and do things differently next time.

tamarind8, if it's any comfort for you I think a similar situation is quite common in the industry. It's just that not may developers talk about it when it happens, rather they are sort of shamed into thinking that somehow they are inadequate. The _only_ measure of your output is the results you deliver and the time it takes. What tools you use is irrelevant. If indeed you were talking too long to deliver, reasonable colleagues would have asked you to try a different tool set. The situation that you are probably facing is that they do not like you (for what ever reason, even if you are not responsible for it, for example you don't fit in to their old boy's club), and when people do not like you they will dig up anything and everything that they perceive is a drawback in you.

From what you have said you are certainly not a junior dev. Where I see you being somewhat naive is exposure to toxic work environments. A large number of devs and their managers are just immature and nitpicky. Somehow a technology stack is a religion for them. I personally do not know anything that will satisfy such people. And then people can be unimaginably evil, something that often escapes the typical naive engineer/dev who often do not discover it even after having worked up until retirement. Like others have mentioned you have probably dodged a bullet. And your 3 weeks gap is barely anything. Often people can have larger gaps between jobs. Sometimes you can even cover up these gaps by lying on your resume. So point being, relax, do what you can and move on....

> Why is fair relevant? Fair is for board games with your family.

Why are you even responding to my questions, if you have no intent to help? I asked a question. I did not ask whether I should, or have the right to ask the questions. The answers you are giving, are irrelevant. Next time, please understand the question, before giving a so called answer.