Dinner Table Discussions

It happened again. So often I tend to say something foolish or potentialy offensive on the dinner table and realize it moments later. The usual reason for the occurences is that I have misgivings about the ability of person I am in conversation with or for that matter the coterie he belongs to. Now this feeling has to in some way or the other become apparent. It cannot stay hidden forever and hence in due course it does evince itself. In any case this is what happened today.

I was sitting with three guys who are currently enrolled in the MBA program. I have a serious grouse against most mangement graduates. I feel most of them exhibit pretensions of being intelligent or smart while at some level they themselves know they are not. I donot know where did I inherit this skepticism from. Now this guy on the table says that he has been shot listed in one of the companies. I assumed that since Deutche bank was on campus he had been shortlisted in Deutche.

However I felt this guy was talking way too foolishly and was not the kind of person one would expect to get shortlisted in such a high profile job. I must make it clear here that I dont myself covet a job in an i-bank. However the very idea of a person around me making huge amounts of money fills me jealousy ( I dont know why and I hate the phenomenon:( ) In any case in due course of conversations it turned out that he had been shortlisted for some software startup for the designation of a "Relationship Manager". Now the next genre of stereotypes kicked in. Software guys are really nerdy, donot have any imagination, are incapable of exhibiting emotions and sell their soul to write mundane code. Unfortunately I once was a s/w engineer and still continue to be one : ( By this point in conversation I had amassed enough stereotypal energy and started on a sarcastic note - "So is relationship manager similar to Field application engineer", kind off like treating the manager of a bank like a cashier.

This was too much of an insult to the class of Business Graduates. How could someone trivialize an ISB MBA to such a ridiculous position. So one of the guy's friends got hurt and started rambling on how different the two roles were. I immidiately realized what mistake I had commited. Now instead of admitting my mistake or even keeping quiet I started eulogizing how FAE's are among the most exalted human beings to inhabit planet earth and any body should be proud of being an FAE.

I really wonder at times why I behave with such immaturity . I hope God gives me the strength to accept my stereotypes, not carry them around like shields.