After 5 months...

I met a group of my batch-mates yesterday. The expectation was for the place to be filled with discussions about people's jobs. I was not entirely wrong, but was surely wrong to some extent.

In a group of 15 people seated by joining many tables together, I happened to get the center seat. Well, ok I didn't "get" the seat, but was pushed to it when the veg/non-veg split took place. But more importantly that gave me the opportunity to listen to the discussions on both sides of the table - left and right. It was quite a contrast. The guys to my right were discussing only about stocks and the share market. May be the fact that they were all finance majors working for equity research companies and banks tilted the scales too much into stocks. The friends to my left were chatting just like college students - about funny incidents and popular faces. This group was a good mix of IT professionals, bankers and consultants. The guy sitting opposite to me, also in the center, was a spectacle. A core marketing major who had not taken any finance subjects, he was trying hard to listen to the finance geeks to my right. In about 20 minutes he became the person from his firm with the highest financial knowledge.

Which side did I participate in? Actually, a bad throat made me a spectator for most of the time, but whenever I did speak, it was directed at the fun-based group. All-in-all it was pretty nice to meet quite a number of my friends. But as always the devil was at work in the idle mind and worked out the following stats

 

The finance group consisted of

a) 100% vegetarians

b) Mostly people doing equity research. Even the banker in the group was into ER.

c) People who didn't show any signs of changing jobs in the near future

 

The fun group consisted of

a) 62.5% non-vegetarians

b) 37.5% vegetarians all of whom happened to have taken finance major in college.

c) People from various backgrounds

d) Quite a few who were looking for better opportunities

 

So what do these stats indicate? Nothing except that there was an idle mind at work!!! But I sure wonder what is with vegetarians and finance.

 

The sad moment for me was when I got to know the bill amount paid by the birthday boy. After all, I'm next in line.