An acquaintance who works for a well-known company emailed to tell me that in an idle moment he had been looking at its intranet site and noticed something odd.

一个在某知名企业工作的熟人给我发邮件说，他忙里偷闲看了看他们公司的内部网站，发现了一些怪事。

His chief executive’s post about the organisation’s latest results had attracted eight likes, while a post saying that a vending machine had been installed on the sixth floor had got 197.

他们首席执行官发布的有关公司最新业绩的公告，只引来8个人点赞，而关于6楼安了一台自动售货机的告示却获赞197个。

I thought you’d enjoy that, he said.

他说，我觉得你会对这事感兴趣。

I did enjoy it, but didn’t find it odd in the slightest.

我确实觉得挺有意思，但一点都不觉得奇怪。

I’ve long known that corporate employees were irredeemably trivial.

我早就知道公司的职员们是多么不可救药地关注小事。

A colleague who for years was the Financial Times’ managing editor once told me that by far the most unpopular thing she ever did — more so than making people redundant — was axing free coffee and superior biscuits that were delivered to every team on Thursday mornings.

一位在英国《金融时报》(Financial Times)做了多年执行总编的同事告诉我，她干过的最不受待见的事——比炒人家鱿鱼更怨声载道——就是取消了周四一早给每个团队派送的免费咖啡和高级饼干。

It is not just in this man’s workplace that people care more about chocolate bars than profitability.

人们对巧克力棒比对公司的盈利状况更上心，这不仅发生在我这位朋友的公司。

Try this test: ask anyone in your office how much money your company made last year.

试着做个测试：问问你办公室的任何一名同事，你们公司去年赚了多少钱。

I bet they won’t have the foggiest idea.

我敢说他们脑中一点概念都没有。

I have been asking the question to everyone I’ve come across.

我拿这个问题问过见过的每个人。

Most looked panicked as if they had just been found out — some made wild guesses, while others hung their heads and admitted total ignorance.

他们大部分都惊慌失措地像被突然逮到一样——另一些人则瞎猜一通，而其他的人则耷拉着脑袋承认自己完全不知道。

I texted a friend who for the past 20 years has occupied increasingly senior positions at the same company and put the question to her.

我发短信问一位朋友这个问题，她过去20年在同一家公司里不断升职。

Her reply came back: Haven’t a clue.

她回复说：毫无头绪。

The only person I asked who could tell me exactly how much his employer made had a bonus that depended on it.

唯一能告诉我他的老板赚了多少钱的人，是因为他的奖金与此挂钩。

This, surely, is a version of Parkinson’s law of triviality, which states that the amount of time we spend thinking about something is in inverse proportion to its importance.

这无疑是帕金森鸡毛蒜皮定律(Parkinson’s law of triviality)的一个例子。

In Parkinson’s fictional example, a committeeset up to commission a nuclear reactor spends five three minutes approving the construction of the a nuclear reactor itself, and then several hours arguing over colour to45 minutes over building paint the a bike shed.

该定律说，我们考虑一件事的时间和这件事的重要性成反比。在帕金森举的例子中，一个委员会只用了3分钟就批准了核反应堆的建造，但接着却花了45分钟讨论自行车棚。

His conclusion was that we dwell on the trivial because we can understand it, while we shy away from the complicated because we are out of our depth and don’t dare ask questions for fear of looking stupid.

他的结论是，我们总对小事纠缠不休是因为我们懂这些小事，而我们回避复杂问题是因为我们对这些问题摸不着头脑，同时又怕出丑而不敢发问。

Just as I was thinking this, my friend sent me another text:  . . . and I don’t care either.

我正这么想着，又收到了我朋友的另一条短信：……我也不在乎。

I looked at the message and it occurred to me that I had got it all wrong.

看着这条信息，我突然意识到自己大错特错。

Her reluctance to engage with how much money her employer makes wasn’t that she doesn’t understand it or that she is trivial or stupid.

她不愿关注自己老板赚了多少钱并不表示她不懂行、只关心小事或是头脑简单。

She was being perfectly rational.

她一直都非常理性。

My friend doesn’t need to know what her employer’s P & L looks like, so long as it is healthy enough not to affect her job.

只要公司运营健康、她的工作无虞，我的朋友就无需知道老板的盈亏状况。

She works for a multinational and her contribution does not affect the overall profit one way or another.

她为一家跨国公司工作，她的业绩不管怎样都不会影响到公司的整体利润。

She does know the profit margins on the parts of the business she is responsible for, and manages them assiduously.

她对自己负责的业务领域的利润率了如指掌，并对之尽职尽责。

Equally, to care a lot about a new snack dispenser is not at all stupid, but is wise for three reasons.

同样，对新置的零食贩卖机格外上心一点都不傻，而且从三个方面来讲这还挺聪明。

For a start it has direct implications for what you can eat.

首先它直接表明了你能吃点啥。

Secondly it is an indication that the company is not about to go bust as it is making discretionary investments, and thirdly suggests some degree of intelligent management in that the wishes of staff are taken into account by the facilities team.

其次它预示着贵公司还不会关门大吉，因为它还在投资非必需品。第三它还反映出一定程度的智能化管理，说明设备团队考虑到了员工们的意愿。

You could say we have a duty as responsible corporate citizens to take an interest in the finances of the organisations we work for, but I’m not sure we do.

你也许会说，关心一下公司的财务状况，是我们身为有责任感的企业公民的应尽之责，但我不确定是否如此。

Given we only stay in jobs for as long as it suits us, and given we could jump ship and join the competition at any time, there is no point in feeling proprietorial about what our company does in general.

假如我们只会在适合我们的时间长度里做一份工作，又假如我们随时都可能跳槽加入职场竞争，那就没必要抱有一种操心公司总体状况的主人翁意识。

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try hard and take pride in our own work.

那并不表示我们不应尽职尽责和为本职工作感到骄傲。

We ought to mind a lot about things that make us more or less likely to get promoted/sacked — and mind even more about how congenial are our immediate bosses and colleagues.

我们应密切关注那些或多或少对我们晋升还是被解聘产生影响的事情——更要好好琢磨我们的顶头上司以及身边同事的性情。

By contrast the bigger stuff does not seem to matter much at all.

相反那些大事则似乎不怎么要紧。

There is another problem with the big things.

这些大事还存在另一个问题。

The larger the company the more abstract its results, and the more difficult to explain.

公司规模越大，业绩就越抽象，也越难解释。

Add to this the fact that all CEOs default to boring in all formal communication, and you guarantee that any attempt to tell employees about supposedly important things will leave them cold.

此外，所有首席执行官只要进行正式沟通必然很枯燥，因此，只要他们试着向员工宣布所谓的要紧事，就准保让大家兴致索然。

There is a lesson here for top management.

最高管理层可以从此汲取一些经验。

Unless you can show that a post on global strategy is as relevant as a vending machine, there is no point in making it.

除非你能说明一份全球战略公告和一台自动售货机一样和员工息息相关，不然就没必要公布它。