How do you see people "on the other side"?

Am reminded of that scene in Michael Lewis' "Liar's Poker" when an investment banker finds himself on the Solomon Brothers trading floor:

The forty-first floor of Salomon New York was Power Central, holding not just the current senior management of the firm but its future management as well. You had to go by their strut to distinguish between who should be approached and who avoided. Did I grow more comfortable on the trading floor over time? I suppose. But even when I had established myself within the firm, I got the creepy crawlies each time I walked out onto forty one. I could see certain developments in myself, however. One day I was out playing the Invisible Man, feeling the warmth of the whale shit and thinking that no one in life was lower than I. Onto the floor rushed a member of the corporate finance (M&A) department wearing his jacket like a badge of dishonour. Nobody wore a jacket on the floor. It must have been his first trip down from his glass box office, and he looked one way and then the other in the midst of the bedlam. Someone bumped into him and sharply told him to watch his step. Watch his step? But he was just standing there. You could see him thinking that the gaze of the whole world was on him. And he started to panic, like a stage actor who had forgotten his lines. He'd probably forgotten why he'd come in the first place. And he left. Then I thought a nasty thought. A terrible thought. A truly unforgivable thought. But it showed I was coming along. What a wimp, I thought. He doesn't have a fucking clue.

Am always curious to hear, honestly, how people in different departments of the same company perceive their peers.

With a partner who works in IBD, I certainly know how ham-fisted traders are perceived by "thoroughbred" bankers (and, needless to say, she how spreadsheet monkeys are perceived by Masters of the Universe). Curious to hear others' takes: How do IBD'ers see wealth managers? How do traders see accountants? All in good fun, of course...

 

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