This is one of my favorite security vendor stories ever, and I shall tell it you now. Not really because of the vendor btw, just because of the characters involved.

So it’s late on a Friday, probably about 10 years ago, I’m about to leave the office. My desk phone rings, and because I was still relatively naive at this point, I answer it.

“Hey, just wanted to say hi, my name is xxxx and I’m your new account rep at yyyy, how are things going?”

I explain that I’m good but just about to leave because you know, the weekend, and that the product is fine (we’re in a multi-year deal, so no need to upsell us or anything).

“Great to hear - I’ll give you a call next week to discuss more - bye!”

My dude, I dont need to talk to you. Anyway, it’s the weekend.

Monday morning. Desk phone rings at 8:30am.

“Hey Mike it’s xxxx from yyyy again, how was your weekend?”

I couldn’t believe that he called me back so fast. I explained that not much had changed in the 48 hours since we’d last spoke. I did not mention my weekend. Instead he told me about his.

“Yeah my weekend sucked. Some random dude punched me in the face at a bar. Crazy.”

I then calmly explained that, that sucks, but also I don’t know him, and perhaps, just perhaps, talking about your weekend bar fight to a customer may not be the best idea?

The call ends and thankfully I never hear from him again.

A few years later I’m out with a salesperson from another vendor who used to work at yyyy and I tell them this story because it stuck with me. I then get to hear the other side.

“Yep. I know that guy. I was there the night he got punched. It wasn’t a random dude that punched him. It was his boss, after he got drunk and tried to make out with his bosses wife. He got fired shortly thereafter.”