For decades, bosses at publishing houses, glossy magazines, consulting firms, advocacy groups, movie production companies and talent agencies have groomed their assistants to be the next generation of big shots by working them long hours for low wages.

数十年来，出版社、时尚杂志、咨询公司、倡导团体、电影制作公司和经纪公司的老板们通过让助理们低工资长时间的工作，把他们培养成下一代大人物。

Call it the “Devil Wears Prada” economy, after the novel depicting life working for a fictionalized Anna Wintour, the longtime Vogue editor.

我们可以称它为《穿普拉达的女魔头》(Devil Wears Prada)经济。这本小说以《Vogue》长期主编安娜·温图尔(Anna Wintour)为创作原型。

But now, with the Obama administration moving to require time-and-a-half overtime pay for most salaried employees making less than $47,476 a year, that business model is suddenly under assault. The change presents more than an economic challenge for the companies that rely on the willingness of young, ambitious workers to trade pay and self-respect for a shot at a prestige job down the road.

但是现在，奥巴马政府在推动给大部分年薪47476美元以下的工薪族支付1.5倍的加班费，所以这种商业模式突然遭到攻击。对于依赖雄心勃勃的年轻人愿意牺牲报酬和自尊，以换取未来得到体面职位的公司来说，这项变革不只是经济挑战。

In the eyes of those who have survived the gantlet of midday coffee runs and late-night emails, the administration’s overtime regulation represents nothing less than the beginnings of a cultural shift, and not necessarily a welcome one.

有些人经受了大中午去买咖啡、深夜收到工作邮件的考验。在他们看来，政府的加班规定代表着一种文化变迁的开始，但它不一定受人欢迎。

“You want to bump into the boss at 8 o’clock at night,” said Dan Reynolds, chief executive of Workman Publishing, the publisher of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and many of Sandra Boynton’s children’s books.

“你希望在晚上8点撞见老板，”沃克曼出版公司(Workman Publishing)的首席执行官丹·雷诺兹(Dan Reynolds)说。该公司出版过《海蒂怀孕大百科》(What to Expect When You’re Expecting)以及桑德拉·博因顿(Sandra Boynton)的很多童书。

“I’m interested in how this will affect that,” Mr. Reynolds said. “It’s more of a cultural thing than anything else.”

“我感兴趣的是这会如何影响它，”雷诺兹说，“它更多的是一种文化。”

Supporters of the new rule see many benefits, saying it will rein in an overly workaholic atmosphere and perhaps diversify a rarefied world that tends to be white and upscale, thanks to its reliance on social connections and the difficulty of working for scraps without affluent parents.

这项新规的支持者们认为它有很多益处，称它将遏制过度拼命工作的文化氛围，也许还能让白人和有钱人主导的精英圈子变得多样化，因为现在的社会过于依赖人脉，如果没有富裕的父母，就只能挣到可怜的薪水。

Still, the coming change, which will take effect on Dec. 1, promises to be disorienting for many in these prestige professions.

这项法规将于今年12月1日生效。不过，它可能会让很多已经身居要职的人感到无所适从。

In a letter to the Labor Department after it proposed the overtime rule last summer, Workman’s general manager, Jill Salayi, suggested that because the company could not afford to pay overtime to all newly eligible staff members or raise their salaries over the new threshold, it would have to cut back their hours in many cases.

去年夏天，美国劳工部(Labor Department)提出此项加班法规后，沃克曼出版公司的总经理吉尔·萨拉伊(Jill Salayi)给劳工部写了封信，称该公司无力承受给所有新来的员工支付加班费或将他们的工资提高到新门槛，所以在很多情况下，该公司将不得不缩短他们的工作时间。

“Less will be asked of them,” she argued, “which means they will not receive sufficient career development or see timely advancement and/or promotions.”

“对他们的要求将变少，”她解释说，“那意味着他们的事业得不到充分发展，他们也无法适时获得进步或提升。”

(Mr. Reynolds stressed that Workman was confident it would be able to adjust financially.)

（雷诺兹强调说，沃克曼有信心从财务上进行调整。）

Some high-profile nonprofits have raised similar concerns. Ideologically, the United States Public Interest Research Group, founded to fight companies that harm consumers and the environment, and Judicial Watch, which conservative activists created in the 1990s, largely to uncover Clinton administration corruption, have little in common. But both groups, in letters to the Labor Department, argued that the new overtime rule would hamper the mission of training young idealists.

有些受人瞩目的非盈利组织表达了类似的顾虑。从意识形态角度讲，美国公共利益研究组织(United States Public Interest Research Group)和司法观察组织(Judicial Watch)几乎没有共同之处：前者的宗旨是打击伤害消费者和环境的公司；后者是保守派活动人士在20世纪90年代创立的，主要是为了揭露克林顿政府的腐败行为。但这两个组织在给劳工部的信中都表示，新的加班法规将妨碍他们完成培养年轻理想主义者的使命。

“We would send them to the Clinton library if we’re doing an investigation,” Susan Prytherch, who oversees human resources for Judicial Watch, said of junior staff members. “We may think differently before sending them off.”

“我们进行调查时，会派他们去克林顿图书馆查资料，”司法观察的人力资源主管苏珊·普拉瑟克(Susan Prytherch)在提起初级职员时说，“以后派他们去之前，我们可能会有不同的考虑。”

According to Lowell Peterson, executive director of the Writers Guild of America, East, which represents writers in movies, television and digital media, the model is very much alive and well in Hollywood as well.

电影、电视和数字媒体编剧的代表机构——美国东部编剧协会(Writers Guild of America, East)的执行主管洛厄尔·彼得森(Lowell Peterson)称，这种模式在好莱坞也依然盛行。

“Being a writer’s assistant is often the way people get into the business of writing for a living” for television, he said.

他说，“担任编剧的助理往往是年轻人进入这个以编剧为生的行业的途径。”

The same goes for politics, according to Raelynn Olson, the managing partner of GMMB, which led the team that produced ads for both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. “Many of the firm’s senior leaders began their careers in entry-level positions here, including a number of our partners,” Ms. Olson said.

GMMB的执行合伙人雷琳·奥尔森(Raelynn Olson)表示，在政治界也是如此。该公司领导的团队曾为巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)的两次总统竞选制作广告。“我们公司的很多高管都是从这里的初级职位开启自己的事业，包括我们的一些合伙人，”奥尔森说。

But the problem with trying to perform one job while simultaneously demonstrating aptitude for a bigger one is that it can require extremely long hours.

但是，问题在于，在努力完成一项工作的同时展现自己具有完成更大任务的能力就需要工作很长时间。

At the Washington offices of Burson-Marsteller, which handles public relations and polling for a variety of corporate and political clients, so-called associates typically make $40,000 to $50,000 a year, and often work well beyond 40 hours a week. Some are tasked with pitching in on 24-hour-a-day monitoring of media coverage for clients in addition to their usual work, which can keep them up late into the night.

博雅公关(Burson-Marsteller)的华盛顿分公司为各种商业和政治客户处理公共关系、做民意测验。该公司所谓的合伙人的年薪通常在4万至5万美元，每周的工作时间一般远远超过40个小时。有些人还要在日常工作之外参与24小时监视媒体对客户的报道，这可能会让他们加班至深夜。

Under the previous federal overtime rule, which applied automatically to most salaried employees making less than $23,660, those additional hours were essentially uncounted, making the young associates a relative bargain. (Employees making more than this can be eligible for overtime under a much more subjective “duties” test, but often don’t receive it.) Under the new rule, many of these staff members are to be paid time-and-a-half overtime when they work more than 40 hours a week, if their salary remains unchanged.

按照联邦政府之前的加班法规——它自动适用于大部分年薪少于23660美元的工薪族——加班时间基本上不予计算，所以这些年轻合伙人是相对便宜的人力成本（年薪高于这个标准的员工按照一个主观得多的“职责”测试，有资格申请加班费，但这笔钱是往往拿不到手的）。按照新法规，很多这样的员工如果每周工作超过40个小时，将获得1.5倍的加班费——如果他们的薪水依然不变的话。

Catherine Sullivan, a company spokeswoman, said: “Burson-Marsteller has always paid, and will continue to pay, overtime to those who are eligible.” She noted that employees below the associate level currently do receive overtime pay and also participate in round-the-clock monitoring.

该公司的一位发言人凯瑟琳·沙利文(Catherine Sullivan)称：“博雅一直给符合条件的员工支付加班费，以后也将继续支付。”她指出，比合伙人级别更低的员工目前有加班费，也参与24小时监视工作。

Some organizations in which young staff members are already relatively well compensated said they would probably raise salaries over the new threshold.

一些原本已经给予年轻员工较高报酬的公司表示，他们很可能会把员工报酬提升至超过新标准。

But the economics of that approach may be less practical at smaller companies where labor represents a larger share of overall costs. A former employee of the Wylie Agency said assistant literary agents there — usually eight to 10 in the New York office — typically earned in the $30,000s and routinely worked 50 to 60 hours a week without overtime pay.

但是那种方式可能不太适合小公司，因为小公司的员工工资在总成本中占的比例较高。威立版权代理公司(Wylie Agency)的一位前雇员称，该公司的助理版权代理人的年薪在3万美元左右，通常每周工作50至60个小时，没有加班费。该公司的纽约分分公司通常有8至10位版权代理人。

The former Wylie employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals, said that there was such an expectation of long hours that anyone arriving after 9 a.m. or leaving before 6:30 p.m. generally felt compelled to email the entire office, giving a reason for being AWOL.

威立公司的这位前雇员由于害怕遭到报复，所以要求匿名。此人称，大家都觉得公司期望员工长时间工作，所以上午9点之后上班或下午6点半之前下班的员工通常觉得有必要给整个办公室的同事发邮件，解释离岗原因。

Andrew Wylie, who runs the agency, said he would consider paying time and a half if he asked junior staff members to work overtime, but not if they worked long hours of their own volition. “What am I supposed to do, sit at the door with a stopwatch?” he said. “I’m not going to do that.”

这家公司的老板安德鲁·威立(Andrew Wylie)说，如果是他自己要求初级员工加班，他会考虑支付1.5倍的加班费，但如果是他们自愿加班，他不会给加班费。“你要我怎么办？拿着秒表坐在门口？”他说，“我不会那样做。”

David Manson, a longtime television producer who has worked on such shows as “House of Cards” and “Bloodline,” said that some entry-level jobs were so widely sought after that the new overtime rule was unlikely to affect either pay or hours, at least at smaller companies.

曾参与《纸牌屋》(House of Cards)和《至亲血统》(Bloodline)等电视剧的资深电视制片人大卫·曼森(David Manson)说，有些初级工作有无数人渴望得到，所以这项新的加班法规不大可能影响薪水或工作时间，至少在小公司是这样。

Lauren Weisberger, the author of “The Devil Wears Prada,” based her book — which inspired a 2006 movie starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway — on her tour as Ms. Wintour’s assistant at Vogue in 1999 and 2000. She said that working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. was typical and that her salary almost certainly put her below minimum wage on an hourly basis.

劳伦·魏丝伯格(Lauren Weisberger)的《穿普拉达的女魔头》是根据她1999年至2000年在《Vogue》担任温图尔助理的经历创作的。这本小说2006年被改编成电影，由梅丽尔·斯特里普(Meryl Streep)和安妮·海瑟薇(Anne Hathaway)主演。魏丝伯格说，她在那里经常是从早7点工作到晚7点，如果按时薪计算，她的薪水几乎肯定低于最低工资。

It never occurred to her to put in for overtime pay, which Condé Nast, the magazine’s publisher, provides. “I certainly would not have had that conversation with Anna; I would have had to have it with H.R.,” said Ms. Weisberger, whose latest book will be out in July. “I don’t imagine that conversation took place a whole lot.”

她从没想过申请加班费。她的薪水来自该杂志的出版公司康泰纳仕集团(Condé Nast)。“我肯定不会跟安娜谈加班费；要谈也得是跟人力资源部的人谈，”魏丝伯格说。她的新书将于今年7月出版。“我想这样的对话很少见吧。”