While volunteering at the HacKid Conference booth in the Cyber Security Safety Village yesterday I was approached by a #RSAC attendee from a major automotive company. Apparently he waited to talk to the other booth volunteer (which was male) first, but the other volunteer was discussing things with other people, so he had to come interact with me. He started out by asking me budget questions about HacKid and when I stated that he could email to get more information about those types of questions he abruptly stated that he needs to talk to somebody that actually knows something and walked off.
This type of behavior happens all of the time. So when we are discussing things like how vendors staff their exhibition booths or the types of outfits that people wear, or themes used, perhaps we should talk about the behavior of the attendees first. They need to treat people like people.
UPDATE:
To ensure my point is clear:
- Yes, there will always be people who do not treat others with respect, even the minimum amount of respect.
- I don’t believe that RSAC needed to take the actions they did, but I don’t disagree with them either if it makes people feel less alienated.
- The ‘Booth Babe’s’ were always professional from what I witnessed, and they were subjected to a great deal of poor behavior from some attendees that was almost always embarrassing to even overhear.
- I was personally treated in a rude and disrespectful fashion, but it didn’t overly offend me, I have posted this more as a statement about how we can all improve our behavior towards others especially when we have no idea who the person is that is the subject to such behavior.