Twenty years ago I started work as the FT’s most junior employee. I was on the foreign desk. Every day I had to phone an angry middle-aged foreign correspondent, based in a faraway city that he hated. I was straight out of university, didn’t know how to talk to adults, and swiftly got up this man’s nose. He’d shout at me. One day, when he was telling me again how stupid I was, I said, “Yes, but you needn’t shout.” He shouted some more, then told me to put him through to my boss, where he really let go.

二十年前我进入《金融时报》工作，成为一名最初级的员工。我被分到国际部，每天都得给一个愤怒的驻外中年记者打电话，这位记者驻守在一个遥远的城市，他非常讨厌那座城市。那会儿我刚离开大学校园，不懂该怎么跟成年人说话，于是很快就惹怒了这位中年人，他便开始训斥我。有一天，当他又对我说我有多么愚蠢时，我答道：“你说得没错，但你不必这样大呼小叫。”结果他骂得更凶了，他还让我把电话转到我上司那里，对我上司彻底发了一通光火。

Now middle-aged myself, I often recall the middle-aged colleagues I encountered back then. Some were awful, some wonderful, and combined they taught me the essential art of being an older colleague. The secret: treat ignorant junior employees as humans.

如今我也人到中年，我常常回想起当年遇到的那些中年同事。有些人很可怕，有些人则让人如沐春风，而所有这些中年同事让我了解到身为前辈的基本艺术，秘诀就是：把无知的初级员工当做人来对待。

Juniors have loads to learn. At 5.30pm on my first day in the office, it dawned on me that nobody was even getting ready to go home. This is how grown-ups live, I suddenly realised, in offices where the windows don’t open. I was equally green about financial news. Once, excruciatingly, I asked on the internal messaging system whether anyone had heard of some ancient event called “the Guinness scandal”. Everyone had. It was the defining British corporate scandal of the 1980s. No matter that I was at school then.

初级员工有大量东西要学习。我第一天上班时，到了下午五点半，发现大家甚至没有准备回家的意思。在窗户紧闭的办公室里，我突然意识到这就是成年人的职场生活。当时我在财经新闻方面也完全是菜鸟。有一次我实在没招了，只得在内部即时信息系统上问大家，有没有人听说过很久以前一起叫“吉尼斯丑闻”的事件，结果每个人都听过。它指的是上世纪80年代英国最典型的企业丑闻，那会儿我还在上学呢。

Being a junior employee teaches you about your colleagues’ characters, because everyone can mistreat you if they feel like it. There were unsmiling pomposities who had swallowed a common fallacy among white middle-aged men: “I have a big job because I am a genius.” To them, it was an irrelevant factoid that almost all big jobs then went to white middle-aged men.

初级员工的身份可以让你了解到同事们的性格，因为每个人都可以虐你——只要他们乐意。有些人成天板着个脸摆架子，他们深信一种谬见，“我职责艰巨，因为我才华横溢”，这在白种中年男性群体非常普遍。他们有一种过时的错觉——几乎所有重要的工作都应交由白种中年男性负责。

My contemporaries at other companies suffered similarly. One friend, a gifted graphic artist, once politely reminded his boss that he was terribly paid. The boss replied, “You’re only 29, and you’re already working for this company. You should be proud just to be here.” My friend thanked him, left the office with the useful knowledge that his boss was an antiquated buffoon, and soon had a top job at a rival company.

我的同龄人在其他公司的遭遇也一样。我有个朋友是个很有天赋的图形设计师，有一次他礼貌地提醒上司，他的薪水实在太低了。而他的上司答复道：“你才29岁就能进我们公司了。光是能来这儿上班还不够你骄傲的吗？”我朋友谢过了他，从中学到了一条非常有用的知识：他的老板是一个愚蠢守旧的老古董。他辞了这份工作，很快在另一家竞争对手那儿找到了高级职位。

Our seniors were missing an important fact: even ignorant junior employees possess useful knowledge. In 1995 I was one of the only people in the building who had ever sent an email. I’d just learnt cutting-edge stuff at university. I had recently gone deep into foreign countries in a way that older colleagues with families couldn’t. One older colleague cannily took me to lunch and pumped me for information on a topic of mutual interest. We became friends. Today he is semi-retired, whereas I have the typical middle-aged man’s minor patronage powers. Recently, I put some work his way.

我们的前辈没有意识到一个重要的事实：即使无知的初级员工也掌握着有用的知识。1995年时，我是那幢大楼里少数曾经发过电子邮件的人。我刚刚在大学里学到了一些最先进的东西。当时我刚结束了对几个国家的深度旅行，而那些前辈们因为拖家带口是没法做到的。一位有远见卓识的前辈请我共进午餐，就我们共同关心的话题从我这儿汲取信息。我们就此成了朋友。现在他已经半退休，而我则成了典型的中年男子，拥有些许提携后辈的权力。最近我也开始学这位前辈的做法。

But back then I desperately needed guidance, and a few senior colleagues provided it. One morning, my boss told me I’d made a mistake in the previous day’s paper. I almost burst into tears. She paused a few beats, then said, “It’s OK. I can see you know that making mistakes is serious.” She had taught me the FT’s underlying ideology, and earned my lasting loyalty.

但当年的我迫切需要指导，只有几个前辈为我指点了迷津。一天早上我上司对我说，我在前一天出版的报纸上犯了个错误。我当时差点哭了，她顿了片刻后说道：“没关系。我看得出你已经知道出错是很严重的事。”她教给我《金融时报》的根本理念，从此赢得了我长久的忠诚。

Gradually, I got an education in adult life. One evening in the pub, a senior colleague told me his marriage was collapsing because his wife had joined a cult. I asked all the wrong questions, and probably made him feel worse but, slowly, I discovered the unseen dramas of office life: cancer, alcoholism, affairs... people still having to show up at their desks the next morning and pretend.

逐渐地，我知道了什么是成年人的生活。一天晚上在酒吧，一位前辈告诉我他妻子加入了一个邪教组织，他的婚姻快完了。我问了一切不该问的问题，可能让他感觉更糟，但是慢慢地，我发现了办公室生活里看不到的情节：癌症、酗酒、偷情……但无论遇到什么事，第二天早上人们还是得神色如常地出现在他们的办公桌前。

Another senior colleague changed my career. Knowing I was unhappy writing corporate news, he advised me to quit the paper. (Commenters, please add witty zingers here.) I retorted: “You don’t like your job either. Why don’t you quit?” “I can’t,” he patiently explained. “I’ve got a mortgage and two kids. But you’ve got nothing, so go.” I needed the advice, because I was so inexperienced I didn’t know whether I was just unsuited to writing corporate news or to all work. (More zingers here, please.) I quit and, years later, rejoined the FT in a happier capacity.

另外一位前辈改变了我的职业生涯。他知道我不喜欢写企业新闻后，建议我辞掉《金融时报》的工作。（看官们，请对此随意发表你们的妙语点评。）我反驳道：“你也不喜欢你的工作，你干嘛不辞职？”他耐心解释道：“我要还抵押贷款，还要养两个小孩。可你没有任何后顾之忧，所以你就走吧。”我需要有人给我建议，因为我当时毫无经验，我不知道自己只是不适合写企业新闻，还是不适合所有工作。（请随意拍砖。）我辞职了，数年以后我重新加入《金融时报》，这次我接受了一个更满意的职位。

That’s something else senior employees often miss: today’s junior employee is tomorrow’s senior, whereas today’s senior is tomorrow’s old reject. Back in 1995, most journalists still retired voluntarily, in their fifties, after decades of well-paid service. On Friday afternoons a drinks trolley would park by someone’s desk, and everyone would toast him, before he left the building for the last time, the mortgage on his London house paid off, his kids sent free though university, his contributions to journalism already almost forgotten by the time he got home. Such is the eternal cycle.

这也是资深员工们经常忽视的一点，现在的初级员工就是以后的资深员工，而现在的资深员工就是以后的退休员工。1995年时，大多数记者都是自愿退休，在拿了几十年丰厚的酬劳后，他们在五十几岁时就选择告别工作。在某个周五下午，某人办公桌旁停了一辆饮品推车，然后大家轮番向他敬酒，然后他永远地离开这栋大楼，他还清了伦敦住所的抵押贷款，他的孩子顺利地上了大学，当他回到家时，他对新闻事业的贡献基本已被人们抛诸脑后。这就是一名记者的轮回。

It moves faster now, especially for middle-aged men. Bosses are keen to replace us with cheap millennials. The bitter fiftysomething male ex-employee is an icon of our time. The best way to avoid this fate: hug the juniors, pick their brains, and get their email addresses as you leave the building.

现在这个轮回的速度更快了，尤其对于中年男性来说。老板们热衷于用便宜的千禧一代来换掉我们，五十几岁被辞退的苦闷男性职员成了我们时代的一个特征。避免这一命运的最好办法是靠近后辈，征求他们的看法，还有记得在你离开办公楼前问他们要电邮地址。