One time, in the late 200s or early-2010s, I walked up to the Facebook booth at the Percona* MySQL Conference. I was speaking at the conference - always fun - and the networking at the Expo floor is always fun too.
Now, at that time, at least, the expo floor there was pretty much two groups: those selling database products and services and those looking to recruit. Facebook was in the second category.
I'm happily self-employed, so I've never particularly tried to court the attentions of FAANG and friends - big company politics is not something I particularly enjoy or tolerate.
Anyway, the fellows at Facebook greet me by saying "We're from Facebook."
Straightforward, to the point - which is better than a sales spiel, I suppose.
"What's a Facebook?" I respond evenly.
Now, for those who don't know me well, I am rather difficult to read. (Ask Luke Bouley.) I did, in fact, know what Facebook was, but the fact that they thought "We're from Facebook" was enough introduction and enough of a sales pitch to get recruits onboard was slightly annoying to me.
Their reaction?
An about face; they turned around and left... their booth. I was standing, alone, at their booth. I am not sure where they went, exactly, but all three of them disappeared - much like Batman disappearing halfway through a conversation with Commissioner Gordon.
After a few moments - I wasn't really sure what the correct response was in this situation - I, too, left.
In the grand scheme of things, I don't know what this story means, but it's definitely something that happened.
* I wrote "Percona" because that's who's running the MySQL Conference now, but it's quite possible it was Sun or Oracle running the conference at that time; I don't recall which year it was, and I've given talks there a couple times.
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