英语原文

Last week, I sent an e-mail to a friend who had just lost his job. “I’m so sorry,” I wrote. “Your bosses are morons to have got rid of such a genius as you. I can only suppose a queue will shortly stretch round the block as less brain-dead employers clamour to take you on. Hope you are OK.”

The e-mail was heartfelt except for one word, and that was “shortly”. I don’t expect a queue to form for my friend shortly. Even geniuses are not getting snapped up quickly – unless they happen to be security guards, social workers, accountants or teachers.

In a trice, I had a message back. He said he had had a brief panic about the mortgage and school fees but otherwise was really rather cheerful. Indeed, he was in such high spirits that he even sent me a funny anecdote*.

I could not help comparing the tone of his message with one that I got the very same afternoon from another friend who works for a company that has also been celebrating Christmas with some savage job cuts. Never, she said, had her morale been as bad. The weight of work was crippling as she was now doing the jobs of three people. There was talk of pay cuts. The office was spookily quiet, too; since most of her friends had been sacked, there wasn’t even anyone around to moan to. Worst of all was the fear that her job would be next.

It is tempting to conclude from these two messages that, if there is one thing worse for hitherto successful, well-paid people than being fired, it is not being fired. Those who have been axed don’t need to take the sacking personally, and not working in the days before Christmas can be rather jolly. Whereas for those who have not been fired, the not-so-festive season this year is an orgy of fear and drudgery.

There might be some truth in this now but it is not going to stay true for long. The grimness of the unemployed will get worse as no queues form to take them on, while the grimness of those in work will, in time, start to recede. This is not because the economy will improve – it is because the grimness itself will bring on a sounder and altogether more realistic approach to work.

Over the past decade, the rich, professional classes have developed an increasingly unhealthy attitude to their jobs. We took our jobs and our fat salaries for granted and felt aggrieved if our bonuses were not even bigger than the year before. We demanded that the work be interesting in itself and, even more dangerously and preposterously, that it should have meaning.

The result of all these demands was, of course, dissatisfaction. We had climbed to the very top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and discovered that, at the top of the pyramid, the air was very thin indeed. As an agony aunt, I found that by far the most common problem readers submitted came from rich and senior professionals who had all their basic needs more than catered for, leaving their souls in torment. Help me, I’m bored, they cried. Or, worse: what does my work mean?

In the past few months, anguish of this sort has vanished. When one’s job is at risk and one’s savings are a shadow of their former selves, the search for meaning at work is meaningless. The point of a job becomes rather more basic: to feed and house (and, at a pinch, to educate) one’s family and oneself. If we can do this, then anything we manage over and above this is a bonus. Once expectations have fully adjusted to this new reality and we see earning money as the main reason for work, greater satisfaction will follow.

Low expectations have an awful lot to be said for them. In surveys women turn out to be more satisfied at work than men, in spite of earning less for the same jobs and doing most of the work at home too. The reason is simple: women’s expectations of working life are lower. Similarly, Denmark is the happiest country in the world in spite of having a cold, dark climate and a top tax rate of 68 per cent. The stoical Danes do not expect so much of life and, expecting less, find what little they have rather nice.

Climbing down Maslow’s pyramid is painful and progress is slow. However, there is something that managers can do to make the descent a little less grim. The easiest and cheapest way of cheering up demoralised workers is to tell them that they are doing a great job. It is one of the great mysteries of office life why most managers are so resistant to this when it does not cost one penny. Here is all they have to do: pick people off one by one (to do it in groups is lazy and quite spoils the impact) and say thank you and well done, and look as if they mean it.

* For anyone who needs further cheering, here is the anecdote of my sacked friend, who heard it from someone who works at the school that Paul McCartney’s child attends. At a recent parents’ evening, Heather Mills was told that her daughter was rather good at the recorder. Ms Mills apparently replied: “She gets that from me.”

中文翻译
上周，我发了封电子邮件给一位刚失业的朋友。“我很抱歉”我写道，“开除像你这样的天才只能说明你老板是个蠢蛋。我猜不久就会有一大批不那么脑残的老板争先恐后地雇用你。祝你愉快。”

这是封相当贴心的电子邮件，除了“不久”这个词。我不希望我的朋友“不久”才能找到工作。（虽然）这年头连天才都不会立刻被人抢走，除非这人恰好是保安、社工、会计或者教师。

才一会儿功夫，我就收到了回信。他说，在经历了对按揭贷款和孩子学费的短暂恐慌之后，他便释然了。事实上，他的心情相当不错，甚至还给我发了个小笑话*。

我忍不住拿这封信的语气和那天下午刚收到的另外一个朋友的相比，她所在的公司残忍地解雇了一些人并准备庆祝圣诞节。绝不，她说，我决不会让自己垮掉。她做着三个人的工作量，即将达到她的极限，并且还有减薪的可能。办公室里也安静得吓人，因为她的大部分朋友都已被解雇，周围连个可以说抱怨的话人都没有。最坏的还不是这些，而是担心自己也会被解雇。

从这两封信得出的结论非常有趣：如果那些到目前为止还算成功、拿着高薪的人有什么比那些已经失业的人更遭的话，那就是他们还没被解雇。已经被解雇的人不用再担惊受怕，而且圣诞节前的悠闲日子毕竟相当惬意。但对于那些仍在职的人来说，这个毫无节日气氛的冬天充满着无休止的担忧和劳累。

这个结论现在听起来有点道理，但将来就未必了。由于没有职位可供选择，失业人群的严峻处境只会更糟；同时，在职人群的情况最终会获得改善。这并不是因为经济形势的好转——而是因为习惯成自然，进而接受现实。

过去的几十年，富有的职业经理阶层日益滋生出一种对工作的不健康心态。我们坦然占据着高薪职位，同时抱怨加薪太慢。我们要求工作本身得有趣，更为危险和荒谬的是，那份工作还应该有意义。

所有这些自然导致导致一个结果，那就是不满。我们爬到马斯洛需求层次（1）的顶端后竟发现，金字塔顶端空气如此稀薄。作为知心大姐，我发现到目前为止最为常见的读者提问都来自于富有的高级职业经理，这些人已经满足了包括饮食在内的所有基本需求，却精神空虚、痛苦不堪。帮帮我，我好无聊，他们叫道。还有更糟的：我的工作到底有什么意义？

最近几个月，这种痛苦突然消失的无影无踪。当某人的职位都难保住，并且银行存款日渐萎缩的时候，再去探究工作的意义也就变得毫无意义。工作的目的变得更为原始：为他和他的家庭提供吃和住（必要时，还有教育）。在此基础之上，我们才有可能考虑年终奖的事情。一旦我们的期望回归现实，我们会发现，赚钱才是工作的最主要目的，其它更高级的满足感都得靠边站。

低期望蕴含着大道理。总体看，女性对工作的满意程度要比男性高，虽然同样的工作女性收入要低，而且女性还承担了大部分家务。理由很简单：女性对职业生涯的期望较低。同样道理，尽管气候阴冷、税率奇高（75%），丹麦仍是世界上最快乐的国家。清心寡欲的丹麦人对生活要得并不多，他们发现：少点欲望、多点快乐。

从马斯洛金字塔往下爬是个痛苦而崎岖的过程。但是，经理们还是有些方法可以减轻这种痛苦的。鼓舞士气低落的员工有一种最简单和成本最低的方法，那就是告诉他们：他们正在做一项伟大的工作。这种不用花一分钱的好事儿大部分经理却不愿意干，这真让人想不通。。经理们要做的就是：找员工挨个谈话（不要分组，这会让你显得懒惰并且效果不佳），告诉他们：你做的很好，谢谢你。这多少让他们看上去像是那么回事儿。

*如果有人想知道更多，我给你讲讲我那个失业朋友给我发的小笑话，她是从Paul McCartney（2）的孩子所在学校的一个工作人员那里听来的。在最近一次晚间的家长会上，Heather Mills被告知她女儿在音乐方面很有天赋，Mills女士明确回答到：“她受我遗传。”

（1） Maslow’s hierarchy of needs：马斯洛需求层次（模型），马斯洛需求层次模型认为人的需求分为生理需求、安全需求、爱和归属需求、自尊需求和自我实现需求，金字塔排列，最高层次的为自我实现需求。

（2） Paul McCartney，大名鼎鼎，甲壳虫乐队成员；Heather Mills是McCartney的前妻。很明显女儿的天赋来自McCartney……