Will the real 'techie' please stand up?

'Since so much is spoken about tonnes and tonnes of money that software professionals earn, the man-money relationship also gets an extreme spin. It is presumed that all software professionals and BPO employees change their cellphone every month. That they blow up all their money in pubs and bars. That they keep the shopping malls going, that they are the 'spendarati', and so on. The subtext is that the software professionals seem to be putting money on par with happiness and living.

It is needless to counter these stereotypes, because they spring from a hyperbolic angst of a society that is trying to make sense of the enormous speed of change taking place around it. It is trying to grapple with a new work ethic that is getting established. We should be aware that the cases that often lead to such stereotyping are more exceptions than the rule...'

- Sugata Srinivasaraju, 'Most Peculiar Men'.