所屬教程:職場人生

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2017年02月07日

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The boss of a friend recently gathered all his charges together for a ritual new year pep talk. “Each of you has the right to love your job,” he told them.

最近，我一個(gè)朋友的老板對(duì)其所有下屬發(fā)表了一番鼓舞士氣的新年致辭。“你們每人都有權(quán)熱愛本職工作，”他對(duì)部下們說。

She thought this terrific and looked a bit dashed when I pointed out it was both dangerous and unrealistic. No one has the right to love their jobs. Not only that, most people hate them.

我的朋友覺得這話很可怕，看上去有點(diǎn)被雷到了，我則指出這話既危險(xiǎn)又不切實(shí)際。沒誰“有權(quán)”熱愛本職工作。不僅如此，大部分人都討厭工作。

If you type into Google “my job is —” the search engine predicts the way your sentence is going: “so boring” or “making me suicidal” or “ making me miserable”. If you start “my boss is —”, Google offers: “lazy”, “ is bullying me” or (my favourite) “a cow”. Even more alarming, if you type “my job is stimulating”, it assumes you have made a typo and suggests what you must have meant “not stimulating”.

如果你在谷歌(Google)上輸入“我的工作——”，谷歌就會(huì)聯(lián)想出你要說的是：“巨無聊”或“讓我想死”或“讓我郁悶”。如果以“我的老板——”開頭，谷歌則會(huì)奉上：“是懶貨”，“一直虐我”或(我最喜歡這個(gè))“神煩”。更驚人的是，如果你輸入“我的工作很刺激”，谷歌就會(huì)猜你是不是打錯(cuò)了，還會(huì)提示你想說的是不是“不刺激”。

The internet has a way of whipping up bad feeling. Yet in this case workplace disaffection is real and growing. We are in the middle of what Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor at UCL in London, calls an “epidemic of disengagement”. Most surveys show less than a third of workers care for their jobs, and the long-term trend is getting worse. In the UK there is some evidence we like our jobs a good deal less than we did in the 1960s.

互聯(lián)網(wǎng)慣于助長負(fù)面情緒。但職場中人的不滿卻真的存在并還在與日俱增。我們正處于倫敦大學(xué)學(xué)院(UCL)教授托馬斯•卡莫洛-普雷姆茲克(Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic)所說的“厭惡工作的流行期”。多數(shù)調(diào)查顯示，喜歡自己工作的員工不足三分之一，而且從長遠(yuǎn)看來情況還會(huì)更糟。在英國，有些跡象表明，人們遠(yuǎn)沒有1960年代那會(huì)兒那么喜歡自己的工作了。

This is most peculiar. I was not in the workforce in the 1960s. But I was in the 1980s, and can confirm things are better than they were back then. When I joined the City pre-Big Bang, it was stuffed with upper-class men in pinstripes, many of whom were astonishingly dim. Jobs were still for life, so if you landed one you did not like, you were trapped. Promotions took ages, and even then were largely based on Buggins’ turn and who you played golf with. Bullying was so normal no one thought to complain. Office buildings were dingy, dirty and uncomfortable. There were no such thing as ergonomic chairs, and you were likely to get lung cancer from all the passive smoking.

這就怪了。1960年代我還沒踏進(jìn)職場。可1980年代我已經(jīng)工作了，而且我敢肯定現(xiàn)在的情況比那時(shí)要好。我是在“金融大爆炸”(Big Bang，即1986年倫敦金融城結(jié)構(gòu)大改革)之前來倫敦金融城工作的，那會(huì)兒金融城里滿是穿細(xì)條紋西裝的上流男士，他們好多人都非常不開心。那時(shí)候工作是為了生計(jì)，所以如果沒找到心儀的工作，你就得捱著。晉升更是百年一遇，就算碰上了也多半是因?yàn)榻K于輪到你了，再就是你跟誰打過高爾夫。被老板虐更是家常便飯，誰也沒想過發(fā)牢騷。辦公樓里陰森森的，又臟又難受。壓根沒有什么符合人體工學(xué)的椅子，而且你還很可能因?yàn)轱栁譄煻蒙戏伟?/p>

Now, not only are offices bright and beautiful, we do not even have to go to them if we do not feel like it — we can work at home instead. Bosses have been taught not to shout. There are gyms and free fruit. And if you happen to be a woman, things have improved beyond recognition. In the 1960s you were limited to filing and shorthand, while now (at least in theory) you can run the show. So why are we so miserable?

如今，不僅辦公環(huán)境明亮又美觀，而且如果我們不喜歡甚至可以不去——在家辦公也行。老板們已被告誡不要大喊大叫。還有健身房和免費(fèi)水果可以享用。如果你是一名女性，境遇更是今非昔比。1960年代，你只能整理整理文檔以及做做速記，然而現(xiàn)在(至少在理論上)你能夠執(zhí)掌大權(quán)。所以為什么我們還這么郁悶?

The most common reason is having a bad manager. But this is a puzzle as managers are surely less hopeless now than they were half a century ago.

最常見的理由是有一個(gè)差勁的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)。但這一點(diǎn)很讓人費(fèi)解，因?yàn)榻裉斓念I(lǐng)導(dǎo)們絕對(duì)沒有半個(gè)世紀(jì)以前那么無能。

All those MBA degrees, mentoring, coaching and training — none of which existed 50 years ago — cannot have been entirely in vain.

所有那些MBA學(xué)位、職業(yè)指導(dǎo)、輔導(dǎo)還有培訓(xùn)——50年前一個(gè)都見不著——不可能全都沒用。

Part of our modern disaffection may be due to job hopping. Because we can leave at the drop of a hat, we are less likely to make a go of wherever we are. If everyone is constantly coming and going, no one ever feels secure or has any sense of belonging.

如今我們不滿的部分原因可能在于跳槽。因?yàn)槲覀円谎圆缓暇湍芘钠ü勺呷?，所以就不太可能在一個(gè)地方好好干。如果人人都頻繁跳槽，那誰也沒法得到安全感或是歸屬感。

But the biggest reason for unhappiness is that we expect too much. Office jobs may have improved, but our expectations have far outstripped them. Better education has not helped. People with university degrees tend to dislike their jobs more than people without them. And so as more people have degrees, unhappiness rises. As we march up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it is harder to enjoy the view from the top.

然而最令我們不開心的是我們期望得太多。辦公室工作也許改善了，但我們的期望值卻早已遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超越了這些。更好的教育水平也無濟(jì)于事。有大學(xué)學(xué)歷的人比沒有大學(xué)學(xué)歷的人更容易對(duì)工作產(chǎn)生不滿。所以隨著更多的人擁有學(xué)歷，不滿也日益增長。在馬斯洛需求層次理論(Maslow's hierarchy of needs)的需求層次中，我們爬得越高，就越難以被取悅。

Things are made worse by the well-meaning actions of the companies themselves. Faced with a disaffected workforce, they insist it is vital for us to be happy. They trumpet their values. They tell us they are changing the world. They demand we are all not merely engaged but passionately so. They encourage us to volunteer at good work — all in the name of meaning.

企業(yè)自身出于善意的舉措令情況變得更糟。面對(duì)不滿的員工，他們堅(jiān)信快樂對(duì)我們至關(guān)重要。他們宣揚(yáng)自己的價(jià)值觀，告訴我們他們正在改變世界。他們要求我們不僅要投入工作而且還得充滿激情地投入。他們鼓勵(lì)我們自愿努力工作——一切都是以意義的名義。

The result is not happiness. According to new research from Sussex university, when done crassly this sort of thing makes workers unhappier and more disenchanted than they were before.

結(jié)果卻并沒有帶來快樂。薩塞克斯大學(xué)(Sussex University)一項(xiàng)新的研究表明，這種事情如果是簡單粗暴地做出來，員工會(huì)比以往更加不快和幻滅。

The corporate obsession with happiness is part of the cause of our unhappiness. When everyone around you is claiming to feel passion or to have found meaning, or when managers say you have a right to love what you do, it is only natural — at the smallest hint of boredom or after a minor run-in with a manager — to conclude that your job makes you suicidal and your boss is a cow.

企業(yè)對(duì)快樂的熱衷也是我們不開心的一部分原因。當(dāng)周圍的人都說自己充滿熱情或找到了生命意義，或者當(dāng)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)們說你有權(quán)愛自己的工作，自然而然地，只要你覺得有一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)厭煩或是跟領(lǐng)導(dǎo)有了點(diǎn)小摩擦后，你就會(huì)覺得工作讓你想死，還有老板真是神煩。