10 为什么我们在工作时更无礼？

Last Tuesday on my way to work I was waiting to cross a road when a middle-aged woman next to me dropped some coins on to the pavement.Six people bent down to retrieve them for her.A man in a smart navy suit fumbled in the gutter to find a 1p piece, which he proceeded to hand over.The only person nearby who didn't help was me — but that was because I was holding on to my bicycle.

上周二，我在上班的路上等着过马路，旁边一位中年女士将几枚硬币掉落在人行道上。6个人躬下身去帮她捡。一位身着考究海军蓝西装的男士，在排水沟里摸索着找出1便士，然后还给她。唯一一个站在一旁却没帮忙的人就是我——而那是因为我正扶着自行车。

Instead, I found myself telling the group that what I'd witnessed made me pleased to be a Londoner.Everyone was in a hurry to get to work.Yet everyone instinctively paused to be nice to a stranger who had lost less than a quid in small change.The good Samaritans looked at me doubtfully.Being kind was one thing; talking to strangers quite another.As soon as the lights changed they bustled off to their City offices.I bustled off to mine.

相反，我对这群人说，看到这一幕使我为自己身为一个伦敦人而高兴。每个人都赶着去上班。而每个人都本能地停下来帮助一个掉了不足一英镑零钱的陌生人。这些好心人莫名其妙地看着我。助人为乐是一回事；跟陌生人说话则完全是另外一回事。交通灯一变，他们就匆匆赶往各自位于金融城的办公室。我也赶往我的办公室。

When I arrived I walked to my desk straight past various colleagues staring at screens, some of whom were wearing headphones.I didn't greet any of them.I dumped the previous day's dirty tea cup in the communal sink and took a clean one from the cupboard.I sat down, looked at my emails and resolved not to reply to any of them.I went up to the canteen, bought myself a greasy pastry, which I ate at my desk, scattering crumbs all round me.

到了公司，我径直走向自己的办公桌，路过一众盯着电脑屏幕的同事，他们有的正戴着耳机。我跟他们谁也没打招呼。我把前一天的脏茶杯扔进公用水槽，又从橱柜里拿了只干净的。我坐下，查看电子邮件然后决定一封也不回。我去餐厅给自己买了块油乎乎的糕点，坐到办公桌前吃，弄得周围都是碎屑。

This is my routine every morning at the office; I wouldn't have been at all surprised if some of the Samaritans were doing something similar at theirs.How people behave at work isn't all that nice.We are more thoughtful to perfect strangers in the street than we are to our colleagues in the office.At work we ignore people, we stink them out with our lunches, we arrive late to meetings.We talk loudly when others are trying to work, or we whisper distractingly when we don't want everyone to hear.

这就是每天早上我上班后的例行程序；我一点也不奇怪那些好心人中也有人在他们办公室干类似的事儿。人们在工作中怎么就表现得没那么友善呢。我们对街上的陌生人要比对办公室的同事体贴得多。在工作中我们无视他人，用自己的午饭把别人熏走，开会时姗姗来迟。我们在别人努力工作时高谈阔论，又在不想被人听到时令人心烦意乱地窃窃私语。

Management experts call this “workplace incivility”, which they define as “low intensity deviant behaviour” that is not necessarily intended to harm its target, but does so anyway.I didn't set out to be uncivil to my colleagues by not saying hello or by ignoring so many emails.This is just how office life has become.

管理专家们将此称为“工作场所的不文明行为”，并将其定义为“低强度越轨行为”，这些行为虽不一定是有意为之，但仍妨害到了别人。我不打招呼或对大量电子邮件置之不理，并非故意对同事们失礼。只是职场生活已变了样。

Research suggests such rudeness is rampant and doing real harm.It makes people hate their jobs, it makes them less creative and more stressed.It might even (though I'm doubtful) make us more prone to heart attacks.

研究显示这样的无礼非常普遍并正在造成实实在在的危害。它使人们厌恶本职工作，缺乏创意并压力倍增。甚至可能（虽然我怀疑）会使我们增加罹患心脏病的风险。

It isn't immediately obvious why offices are becoming less civil.Human nature hasn't changed much.In my experience, when something big goes wrong in the office, people are very nice indeed.But six things have changed that may have made us all ruder in little ways.

为何办公室变得不那么文明了并非一目了然。人性没有太大改变。依我的经验，当办公室里出了什么大事时，人们会相当友善。然而六种事物发生了改变，可能以不甚起眼的方式使我们所有人都无礼了许多。

The first is email.As there is far too much of it to reply to we've learnt not to — or to send terse one word answers — both of which are rude.And having mastered the art of ignoring emails we are now learning to ignore anything we don't feel like doing.Answering the phone at work is becoming optional — which is rude not only to the person on the other end, but to the colleagues subjected to endless ringing.

首先是电子邮件。因为实在有太多邮件要回于是我们学会了索性不回——或生硬地只回一个词——两种方式都很无礼。而且自打掌握了忽视邮件的技巧我们现在正学着忽视所有我们不愿做的事。上班时接电话变得很随性——这不仅对打电话的人很无礼，对忍受没完没了铃声的同事们也是一样。

The second invitation to incivility is the smartphone, which has made appearing to listen when someone else is talking — hitherto a mainstay of good manners — no longer required.This month I was at a conference at which not only was three-quarters of the audience (me included) staring at their phones, but half the people on the panel were openly tweeting or Whatsapping as the man at the lectern droned on.

其次招致不文明行为的事物是智能手机，它令倾听别人讲话——一直以来的基本礼节——变得可有可无。这个月我参加了一个会议，当主讲人发言时，不仅四分之三的听众（包括我在内）盯着手机看个没完，连半数的讨论者都公然发着推特或使用着Whatsapp。

Open plan offices are also made for incivility.Now that we are herded together in public spaces, what would have been fine in private offices (eating noisily, talking loudly on the phone etc) becomes less so.It is thanks to open plan offices that we have the rudest office invention of the lot — headphones.These shout: I'm here, but I wish I wasn't.

开放式办公室也为不文明行为提供了土壤。既然我们一起被赶到了公共空间，那以往在私人办公室里无碍的行为（大声吃东西、讲电话等等）就变得不那么合适了。多亏开放式办公室，让我们有了最粗鲁的办公室发明——耳机。戴这些玩意儿就好像在喊道：我在这，但我不想在这。

Hot desking and flexible working have made things worse still.When you are not sitting with the same people every day, and may not even know the person who dumps themselves down next to you, there is no incentive to be particularly nice as you won't see them tomorrow.

办公桌轮用制和弹性工作制令情况变得更糟。当你每天和不同的人比邻而坐，可能都不知道旁边郁郁寡欢的人是谁时，你就会没有兴致表现得特别友好，因为明天就见不到他们了。

Possibly worse than any of this is the cult of busyness, which has made rudeness not just acceptable but admirable.If it is impressive to be busy, then it is good to keep people waiting, good to turn up late to meetings and good to be so preoccupied that you end up blanking people in the corridor.

或许最糟糕的当属对忙碌的推崇，这使无礼不仅能被接受还令人称羡。倘若忙碌了不起，那让人干等着也无妨，开会迟迟不露面或由于太投入而在走廊挡别人的路也都无所谓。

All this is pretty fundamental, and it isn't clear how to get civility back.

这一切都是非常基本的，而如何让礼貌回归却不清楚。

The only way that might work is rude in itself: it is secretly to video people behaving badly and send it to them, or share more widely.Almost everyone is decent really.Few people like to think of themselves as rude.A 10-second video of someone cutting a colleague dead or eating disgustingly might have an agreeably corrective effect.

唯一奏效的办法也许是无礼本身：把人们的不佳表现偷偷拍摄下来然后发给他们，或分享地更广泛些。几乎每个人都很体面。很少有人认为自己无礼。一段10秒的视频，记录某人对某位同事不理不睬或吃相不雅也许会收获令人愉快的矫正效果。

词汇总结

retrieve [rɪ'triːv]

vt.[计]检索；恢复；重新得到

vi.找回猎物

n.[计]检索；恢复，取回

Six people bent down to retrieve coins for her.

6个人躬下身去帮她捡硬币。

Samaritans 乐善好施的人

The good Samaritans looked at me doubtfully.

这些好心人莫名其妙地看着我。

bustle off 使忙乱；催促

I bustled off to my office.

我也赶往我的办公室。

greasy ['griːsɪ; -zɪ]

adj.油腻的；含脂肪多的；谄媚的

pastry ['peɪstrɪ]

n.油酥点心；面粉糕饼

I went up to the canteen, bought myself a greasy pastry, which I ate at my desk, scattering crumbs all round me.

我去餐厅给自己买了块油乎乎的糕点，坐到办公桌前吃，弄得周围都是碎屑。