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Be miserable. It’ll make you feel better
The idea of companies employing jolly good fellows and “happiness alchemists” may be cringe-making, but is there anything else really wrong with it? Various academic studies suggest that “emotional labour” can bring significant costs. The more employees are obliged to fix their faces with a rictus smile or express joy at a customer’s choice of shoes, the more likely they are to suffer problems of burnout. And the contradiction between companies demanding more displays of contentment from workers, even as they put them on miserably short-term contracts and turn them into self-employed “partners”, is becoming more stark.
企业聘用“快乐好伙伴”和“快乐炼金术士”的举动也许让人退避侧目，但除此之外是否还真有什么其他问题？各种学术研究表明，“情绪劳动”会带来显著的成本。员工越是被迫咧嘴微笑或对顾客挑选的鞋子表达愉悦赞美之情，他们就越容易感到倦怠。而且，公司一方面要求员工展现满足之情，另一方面却迫使他们签订可怜的短期合同，将其化为自雇形式的“合作伙伴”，矛盾愈加明显。

Cringe n./v.使畏缩
alchemist n.炼金术师
be obliged to 必须做某事
- oblige v.强迫做某事
rictus n.咧嘴
burnout n.精疲力尽
contradiction n.相反
miserably adv.痛苦地
- Les miserables 《悲惨世界》
stark adj.明显的(obvious), 完全的(obsolute)
- The room was decorated with stark simplicity.

But the biggest problem with the cult of happiness is that it is an unacceptable invasion of individual liberty. Many companies are already overstepping the mark. A large American health-care provider, Ochsner Health System, introduced a rule that workers must make eye contact and smile whenever they walk within ten feet of another person in the hospital. Pret A Manger sends in mystery shoppers to visit every outlet regularly to see if they are greeted with the requisite degree of joy. Pass the test and the entire staff gets a bonus—a powerful incentive for workers to turn themselves into happiness police. Companies have a right to ask their employees to be polite when they deal with members of the public. They do not have a right to try to regulate their workers’ psychological states and turn happiness into an instrument of corporate control.

但这个“快乐教派”最大的问题是对个人自由的过度侵犯。许多公司已然过火。美国大型医疗服务供应商奥克斯纳医疗服务系统（Ochsner Health System）规定，无论何时，员工在医院里只要与他人距离在十英尺以内，就必须与之保持眼神交流及微笑。Pret A Manger每月定期派出“神秘顾客”到每家门店，检验店员是否按要求的愉悦程度招待顾客。通过考验的话，全体员工会得到奖金——这有力地激励了员工们互相督促保持快乐。公司企业有权要求员工礼貌地向公众提供服务。但它们没有权力规管员工的心理状态，也无权把快乐变为企业管理的手段。
cult n. （邪教）群体
invasion n.入侵
- invade v.侵略
individual v.个人的
requisite adj.必须的
incentive n.动机，刺激
- a strong incentive to conserve energy
instrument n. 手段，工具