職場英語：想當SOHO族 說服老板同意在家上班

Question: I work in a major city. The suburb where I live is not that far away as the crow flies, but the horrendous traffic (even in the predawn hours) means my commute often takes more than an hour each way, and it is a huge drain on my energy. Then, when I get to work, my day is so full of stupid little interruptions that it's hard to focus on one thing long enough to finish it.

問題：我在一座大城市上班。我住在郊區(qū)，離公司總部的直線距離并不算太遠，但可怕的交通狀況(甚至在黎明時分)意味著，我上下班一個單程往往就需要花費一個多小時，這極大地消耗了我的能量。當我終于抵達公司，開始一天的工作時，各種愚蠢之極，非?，嵥榈母蓴_，又讓我很難保持足夠長時間的專注度，進而導致我無法完成工作。

For both of these reasons, I would be a lot more productive if I worked from home at least a couple of days a week -- no commute, no distractions. The problem is my boss. When I have approached him about this, he always says, "If I can't see you, how do I know you're working?" He says it jokingly, but actually I think he means it. Also, he has brought up the fact that Yahoo, Best Buy, and HP have limited or banned telecommuting, and expressed concerns about data security if people are working from home. Any ideas about how to persuade him to let us try it anyway?

出于這兩個理由，我認為，倘若我每周至少有一兩天在家辦公——無需上下班，沒有分心之事，我的工作效率肯定會大幅提升。問題在于我的老板。每當我向他提及此事時，他總是說，“如果我看不見你，我怎么知道你在工作呢?”他說話的口吻像是開玩笑，但我覺得這其實是他真實的想法。此外，他還提到雅虎、百思買和惠普等大公司都限制或禁止遠程辦公這一事實，并且擔心大家都在家工作或將危及數(shù)據(jù)的安全性。請問我究竟該如何說服他呢?

Answer: Next time your boss brings up Yahoo, Best Buy, and HP as paragons of policy, says David Heinemeier Hansson, you might point out that "all three are in trouble, so they need all hands on deck. Why would any company want to join that club?"

回答：下一次，當你的老板把雅虎、百思買和惠普奉為政策典范時，你或許有必要援引大衛(wèi)-漢森的看法，向他指出，“這三家公司目前都陷于困境，所以他們需要全體員工各就各位。為什么還有公司想要加入這個俱樂部呢?”

Far more relevant is that telework has quietly become the rule, rather than the exception. Remote is packed with other compelling reasons for telecommuting's rise. Cutting out commutes is better for the ozone layer than having millions of people sitting in traffic jams, spewing carbon monoxide, for hours on end. It allows companies to source top talent from anywhere in the country or the world, without regard for how much face time they can put in at the office.

更中肯的理由是，遠程辦公已悄然成為業(yè)界規(guī)范，而不是特殊案例。《遠程辦公革命》一書還為這種工作方式的崛起列舉了其他一些令人信服的理由。相較于讓數(shù)百萬人堵在路上，連續(xù)數(shù)小時不停地噴涌一氧化碳，省掉通勤顯然更有利于保護我們的臭氧層。遠程辦公可以讓公司廣納天下英才，并且根本沒必要考慮這些來自美國或世界某個地區(qū)的精英們能夠在辦公室停留多長時間。

Working from home or on the road, at least some of the time, also tends to make people more productive."The modern office has become an interruption factory, and interruptions are not free. There is a cost in productivity to constantly demanding people's attention immediately for little things that are not really urgent," Hannson says. "People who can't concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time are almost certainly not doing their best work."

此外，至少在某些時候，在家或旅途中工作往往使得人們的工作更富有成效。漢森認為，“現(xiàn)代化寫字樓已經成為一個紛紛擾擾的工廠，但干擾并不是沒有代價的。不斷要求人們立刻注意一些其實并不緊迫的小事情，的確會拖累生產率，”“無法持續(xù)幾分鐘以上集中精神的人，幾乎肯定做不好他們的工作。”

Hansson offers three suggestions for winning over your reluctant boss. First, the idea that you'd be able to get more work done, and do it better, without distractions (and without the wearying commute) makes a good starting point for the discussion. "Don't frame it as a request for a perk, as if this is a favor you're asking the company to do for you," Hansson says. "Instead, emphasize how much better it will be for the team and the company if you are able to work without interruptions. Having you at your most productive benefits the boss at least as much as it benefits you."

漢森就如何說服你那位不情愿的老板提供了三項建議。第一，你或許應該開門見山地告訴老板，在沒有分心之事，并且無需經受通勤折磨的情況下，你能夠更好地完成更多工作。“不要把遠程辦公說成一種額外待遇，好像你正在要求公司幫你一個忙似的，”漢森說。“相反，你應該強調指出，如果你能夠不受打擾地工作，那就將為團隊和公司帶來更大的好處。讓你處在最富成效的工作狀態(tài)，對于老板的好處至少跟對于你自己的好處一樣大。”

Second, "you'll need to address his concern about data security," Hansson notes. "But data is not necessarily secure just because people are working in an office together. Employees take laptops home, they carry company data in their personal smartphones, they go on business trips. If there are security gaps the company needs to address, that is a serious issue whether you are working at home or not." Before bringing up telecommuting with your boss again, ask your in-house techies for help in hack-proofing the devices you plan to use.

第二，“你需要解決他對于數(shù)據(jù)安全性的關切，”漢森指出。“但僅僅因為人們一起在辦公室工作，并不一定能夠保證數(shù)據(jù)的安全。員工往往把筆記本電腦帶回家，他們的智能手機也攜帶公司數(shù)據(jù)，而且還經常出差。如果公司存在亟需填補的安全漏洞，那的確是一個嚴重的問題，但這跟你是否在家工作并無關系。”再次向你的老板提出遠程辦公要求之前，先尋求公司內部技術人員的幫助，讓他們?yōu)槟愦蛩闶褂玫脑O備安裝防黑客軟件。

And third, Hansson suggests enlisting more of your colleagues to the cause."Trying out telecommuting with just one or two people is doomed to fail, because that one person, or two people, will become too isolated from the group," he says. "A better way is to have all the people on your team work remotely some of the time, so everyone gets a taste of it, and no one is the 'odd man out' who's always calling in on the conference line at meetings." At some companies, he adds, teams or departments start with "work-at-home Wednesdays," so everyone gets at least one distraction-free day per week.

漢森提出的第三個建議是，爭取拉攏更多的同事加入這項事業(yè)。“僅僅一兩個人嘗試遠程辦公，是注定要失敗的，因為這一兩個人將與團隊嚴重分離，”他說。“一個更好的辦法是，讓團隊成員在某些時候全部遠程辦公，讓每個人都有機會體驗這種工作方式，這樣就不會有人成為那個總是占據(jù)公司會議線路的‘離群索居者’。”他補充說，在一些公司，團隊或部門開始實行“周三在家工作”制度，這樣每個人每周至少可以有一個不受干擾的工作日。

The hardest argument to counter is, "If I can't see you, how do I know you're working?" Says Hansson, "It reflects a deep-seated fear of losing control. Fighting that requires that you go slowly and start small -- 'I worked from home on Tuesday and look at all the great stuff I got done' -- and then gradually increase the amount of time you telecommute."

最難反駁的觀點是，“如果我看不見你，我怎么知道你在工作呢?”漢森說。“這反映出一種根深蒂固的恐懼感——老板害怕失去他對公司的掌控力。反駁這種觀點，需要你放慢腳步，從小處著手——‘我周二在家工作，您瞧瞧，我已經出色地完成了這么多工作’——然后逐漸增加你遠程辦公的時間。”

Hansson says that at his company, Chicago-based collaboration software maker 37signals, where most of the staff works remotely, "the biggest problem we have had is not people goofing off while working at home, but people overworking. They get into a state of flow and just keep going. Sometimes, to keep them from eventually burning out, you have to protect employees from themselves and insist that they take some time off." But of course, your boss may have to see that to believe it.

漢森說，在他供職的芝加哥協(xié)同軟件制造商37signals公司，大部分員工都采用遠程辦公的工作方式。“我們的最大問題不是在家工作的員工故意磨洋工，而是他們過于操勞了。他們的心智進入了一種流暢狀態(tài)，一刻不停歇地忘我工作。有時候，為了防止他們最終精疲力竭，你還必須保護自己的員工，堅決要求他們休息一段時間。”當然，除非親眼所見，你的老板或許不相信天底下還有這樣的事情。