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SQL Saturday Boston #sqlsat203 A Compromised Event

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April 26, 2013 by Mike Hillwig

There are some stories that are just too absurd to believe, and they’re often too far-fetched to make up. This is one of them.

We were just kicking off our event. People were coming in the doors, they were visiting sponsors, they were getting coffee, and my stress level was starting to subside just a bit.

That’s when I heard the shouting. Someone was yelling for security. It seems that someone had crashed our party. He was shouting, flashing his badge around, telling us that he was from the Department of the Navy and that he had just compromised our event. I grabbed my cell phone and called the facility manager for Microsoft.The shouting continued. That’s when I confronted him, keeping my hands in my pockets to ensure I didn’t appear to be physically threatening, which isn’t much of a problem anyway at 5’8″ and about 30 pounds overweight.

What was really impressive is that this guy somehow got into our venue, picked up an attendee bag, lanyard and all, helped himself to coffee and donuts, and mingling with our participants. I verbally confronted him and started leading him to the door. That’s when the facility team took over the situation and escorted him out of the building.

The guy’s “badge” was really an ID card from the Department of Veterans Affairs. He was probably a patient at a VNA hospital, and we should honor his service to the nation. And he was probably just happy that he got coffee and a donut.

This is probably one for the SQL Saturday record books.


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