高管新时尚：休假时不工作

09 高管新时尚：休假时不工作

又到“黄金周”。此时的你，是不是正在享受一个完全属于自己的惬意假期？还是身在沙滩、心在工作，用电话和邮件填满整个休假行程？FT专栏作家露西·凯拉韦告诉你：休假不工作，这才是高管圈的新时尚。

When I was at university I spent a summer travelling around Europe with some friends, and one of them suggested we drop in on his parents' place in the south of France.

大学时的一个夏天，我和一群朋友一起环游欧洲，其中一个朋友邀请我们到法国南部他的父母家做客。

There are two things I remember about that visit.There was the mortification of being greeted by a butler who ceremoniously carried my tatty luggage — a few things stuffed into a plastic bag — to the suite of rooms to which I'd been allocated.

说起那次拜访，有两件事我至今记忆犹新。首先让我觉得很没面子的是，一名管家彬彬有礼地将我寒酸的行李——一只塞了许多东西的塑料包——送到为我安排的套房。

But what stays in my mind even more was the image of his father — who turned out to be a famous tycoon — clad in small swimming trunks with cigar clamped between teeth, holding a gin and tonic in one hand and a telephone receiver in the other.

而让我印象更为深刻的是我朋友父亲的样子——他原来是位有名的大亨——只见他穿着窄小的泳裤，嘴里叼着雪茄，一手端着杯金汤力，一手握着电话听筒。

The year was 1979 and this was what power looked like.The man was too important to be out of touch with the deals he was doing.So he had installed a telephone line by the swimming pool and passed his summers issuing instructions from a lounger by the water.

那时是1979年，当时大人物就是这样。这个男人位高权重，没法将自己的生意放手不管。所以他在泳池边也装上了电话，于是他在水边的躺椅上发号施令，度过了一个个夏日。

A quarter of a century later, technology allowed all of us to pretend to be tycoons.We might not have had the butler or the pool house but everyone could head to the beach with a BlackBerry packed along with their towels.And because we could, we did.Only for most of us, what we were doing was not deals, it was responding to mundane inquiries that could have waited two weeks — or forever.

25年过去了，技术使我们人人都能装成大亨。也许我们没有管家或是带泳池的房子，但都能带着浴巾和黑莓(BlackBerry)手机去海滩。正因为我们能这样做，我们就这样做。只不过我们多数人都不是在做生意，而是在回复鸡毛蒜皮的小事，这些事可以两周后再处理——或者干脆不用理会。

This year, I decided to do something radical that I hadn't done for almost a decade.I took a proper holiday.I disconnected myself from work altogether.I didn't open any work messages.I spent time reading, walking, looking at the sea — and sometimes getting into it — while I thought about not much at all.

今年，我决定做些大胆的尝试，我已经有将近十年没这样做了。我惬意地度了个假。全然抛开了工作。不去打开任何与工作有关的消息。我阅读、散步、瞭望大海——有时到海里泡一泡——脑子里什么都不想。

When I returned to work and reacquainted myself with email, it was perfectly straightforward.I deleted almost all of them unread, responding only to the things that looked interesting.Far from feeling overwhelmed, I felt a certain excitement in the sudden immersion in work.It was a new-shoes and sharp-pencil sort of feeling that used to go with the beginning of a school term.

回来上班后，我非常简捷地处理了电子邮件。我几乎删除了所有未读邮件，只回复那些看起来有趣的。突然恢复工作不仅没让我觉得不堪重负，反而让我有一点兴奋。这种感觉似曾相识，就像以前在新学期伊始，穿上新鞋子，削尖了铅笔的感觉。

Over the past week it has started to dawn on me that my radical action was not radical at all.I was merely following the latest fashion.

过去一周，我意识到自己的大胆举动其实一点都不大胆。仅仅是赶了趟时髦。

Last week I sent an email to an entrepreneur I know, and within seconds the automatic reply came back: “I am on holiday until August 30 and will not be checking messages.” This was particularly remarkable given that last time I'd seen him — some five years ago — he had told me how he expected all his employees to respond to messages instantly wherever they were and whatever they were doing.

上星期，我给一位认识的企业家发了封邮件，随即就收到了自动回复：“目前我正在休假，8月30日前不会查看信箱。”这种口吻跟我上次见到他时——大约五年前——简直判若两人。那时他对我说，他希望所有员工，不论何时何地，都能第一时间回复信息。

So I emailed back asking what had made him change his mind — but all I got in return was the same automatic message telling me he wasn't reading whatever I was sending.

于是，我回邮件问他为什么改变了想法——可收到的仍旧是一模一样的自动回复，无论我发什么，他都不会看。

The very next day I got an email from a woman who I had contacted before I went away.It began: “Sorry for my radio silence — I have had a blissful two-week holiday and am just catching up on emails on my return.” Here was the same thing again: a driven, thirtysomething entrepreneur who wanted me to know not how hard she worked on holiday but how she loafed around, and how much she enjoyed it.

就在第二天，我在休假前联系过的一位女士给我发了封邮件。邮件开头这样写道：“抱歉一直没回复，我度过了一个两周长的愉快假期，回来后才开始处理邮件。”这又是一个同样的事例，一个锐意进取、已届而立之年的企业家，想让我看到的不是她在假期如何努力工作，而是她如何放松，如何适得其乐。

To see how widespread this change is, I've done a little experiment.I've collected all the out-of-office emails I've had this summer, and counted the number that were followed at once by an email sent from the beach.Three years ago, it was very unusual for an automatic message not to be quickly followed by a real one.This year I've had a total of 38 automatic messages telling me the sender was away, only six of which have been succeeded by a personal, poolside reply.

为了看看这种变化有多普遍，我做了个小实验。我收集了今年夏天收到的所有外出时的自动应答邮件，又数了数那些在第一时间从海滩回复的邮件。三年前，收到一封自动回复邮件后，如果没有一封真实的邮件紧随其后，是很稀罕的。今年，我总共收到38封外出时的自动应答邮件，其中只有6封邮件随后有真人从泳池边上发来了回复。

Bragging about not working on holiday seems to be part of a wider trend — which I wrote about a few months ago — in which fashionable execs flaunt not their long hours, but their short ones.

夸耀自己不在假期工作符合一种趋势：紧跟时代潮流的企业高管们炫耀的不再是花了很长时间工作，而是只用了很短时间就完成了工作——我几个月前曾写过一篇文章谈到了这种趋势。

To be emailing from the pool does not prove you are powerful, it is starting to be seen for what it is — a sign of weakness, poor time management and an inability to delegate.If you can take two weeks off altogether it shows you have overcome all gadget addiction, and like a modern-day tycoon can control when you work — and when you don't.

在泳池边发邮件并不能证明你有影响力，这开始被人们视为能力不足、不善管理时间以及不会放权的证明。如果你能休息整整两个星期，则说明你已经克服了对电子设备的依赖，而且像一个现代大亨一样，自己掌控着何时工作——何时不工作。

词汇总结

drop in on 顺道拜访

When I was at university I spent a summer travelling around Europe with some friends, and one of them suggested we drop in on his parents' place in the south of France.

大学时的一个夏天，我和一群朋友一起环游欧洲，其中一个朋友邀请我们到法国南部他的父母家做客。

ceremoniously [,seri'məunjəsli]

adv.隆重地

tatty ['tætɪ]

adj.不整洁的；不值钱的；破旧的

There was the mortification of being greeted by a butler who ceremoniously carried my tatty luggage — a few things stuffed into a plastic bag — to the suite of rooms to which I'd been allocated.

说起那次拜访，首先让我觉得很没面子的是，一名管家彬彬有礼地将我寒酸的行李——一只塞了许多东西的塑料包——送到为我安排的套房。

tycoon [taɪ'kuːn]

n.企业界大亨，巨头；巨富

A quarter of a century later, technology allowed all of us to pretend to be tycoons.

25年过去了，技术使我们人人都能装成大亨。

mundane ['mʌndeɪn; mʌn'deɪn]

adj.世俗的，平凡的；世界的，宇宙的

It was responding to mundane inquiries that could have waited two weeks — or forever.

只不过我们多数人都不是在做生意，而是在回复鸡毛蒜皮的小事，这些事可以两周后再处理——或者干脆不用理会。