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上星期，一位读者给我发了封电子邮件。他督促我以更积极的态度迎接节日的到来。他请求我，别老是指责别人；还要我谈谈在过去几年中，我最欣赏的书和文章。
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A reader
sent me an e-mail last week urging me to entersintosthe festive spirit by
being more positive. Please, he asked, could I abandon the knocking copy
and tell readers about the books and articles that I had enjoyed most over
the past year?
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这是圣诞节额外的一个压力：不但要努力工作，还要努力尝试做一个好人。这对一个写管理类文章的人而言，是件特别棘手的事：在这个圈子里，负面消极的东西实在太多，以至于要寻找点积极的东西，要比给宠坏的孩子挑选一样完美的圣诞礼物还难。
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This is
one of the additional stresses of Christmas: not only do you work harder,
you have to try to be a better person, too. It is particularly tricky when
you write about management fads: the negative is in such lavishly abundant
supply that tracking down the positive can be harder than searching for
the elusive perfect Christmas present for one's spoilt children.
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所以我原本打算不理会他的请求。但是当我打开《哈佛商业评论》的时候，我陡然发现了一篇非常好的管理类文章，应该说是今年到现在为止读到过的最好的管理类文章，也是本世纪最好的一篇管理类文章。无论是否是圣诞节，我都愿意将它和各位分享。
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So I was
intending to ignore his plea until I opened the Harvard Business Review
and stumbled on the best article on management that I have read not just
this year but this century. Christmas or no, I want to share it with
everyone.
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这些观点既不来自于企业经理，也非业界权威。她是茱迪斯•马丁（Judith
Martin），也即人们熟悉的礼仪小姐。她是个专栏作家，指导美国人的举手投足。有关采访她的文章刊登在《哈佛商业评论》的12月期刊上。
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The
source of these ideas is neither manager nor guru. She is Judith Martin,
aka Miss Manners, who writes columns telling Americans how to behave, and
she is interviewed in the December issue.
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她认为，办公室里新的礼仪时代已经到来。她说，杰克•韦尔奇（Jack
Welch）推行无界线企业，那是百分百错误的想法。我们需要界线，而且需要很多。
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She
argues that the time has come for a new formality at work. Jack Welch was
100 per cent wrong in aiming for the boundaryless corporation, she says.
What we need are boundaries - and lots of them.
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我明白，这句话正是我几年来一直希望看到的。我已经看够了不拘小节的主张，看够了所谓我们是一个愉快的大家庭的说法，看够了人们直呼其名，看够了他们穿着保罗（Polo）T恤和斜纹棉裤上班，看够了所谓我的大门永远向您敞开的标榜，更别提所谓的同事间亲密无间了。
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I realise
this is what I have been longing to read for years. I have had enough of
informality. Enough of we're-just-a-big-happy-family. Enough first names.
Enough polo shirts and chinos. Enough my-door-is-always-open. More than
enough bonding sessions.
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而我想看到的是公司的等级制度，和一整套我们可以仰仗的商务礼节。我要的是：礼仪。
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What I
want now are fixed boundaries and a system of business etiquette that we
can all rely on. I want manners.
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一直以来，人们都看老规矩行事。但据礼仪小姐称，每隔200年左右，就会有一场“自然主义”运动企图赶走这些规矩。但是，最后礼仪总是会回归的。工作中的礼仪格外重要，它让我们收起自己丑陋的一面，以取悦他人。
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Man has
always depended on ritual. Yet, according to Miss Manners, every 200 years
or so there is a "naturalistic" movement that tries to sweep it
away. Yet manners always come back eventually. They are particularly
important at work as they enable us to package our ugly emotions in a way
that is palatable to others.
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在过去的20年里，我们在办公室里深深地陷入了一场自然主义者革命。管理层和人力资源专家大规模地拆除了公司的礼仪机制，他们还为这场破坏运动辩解说，没有规矩可以让我们更诚实、更灵活。对此，礼仪小姐的回答是，无论有没有礼仪，办公室里总有足够诚实可信的人。
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For the
past two decades we have been in the thick of a naturalist revolution at
work. Management and human resources experts have largely dismantled the
machinery of corporate manners and have defended this destructive process
with the claim that informality makes us more honest and more flexible.
Miss Manners's reply to this is that there is quite enough honesty in the
office, anyway.
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我对此不胜苟同。有各种微不足道的真相（比如同事们究竟如何看待我）是我不想知道的。但有些大事的真相应该让老板知道，然而他们可能永远无法发现。人们并非因为礼仪，才没有把真相说出来，他们是担心诚实会砸了自己的饭碗。
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I could
not agree more. There are all sorts of small truths I simply do not wish
to know, such as precisely what my colleagues think of me. And on the big
truths - the ones that bosses need to know but tend never to find out - it
is not manners that stop people speaking up, it is fear that honesty will
cost them their jobs.
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礼仪小姐还指责了如今充斥在办公室中的假友谊，并嘲笑那些声称只要人们互相喜爱，就会有更好的行为举止的言论。只要看一看夫妻间如何对待对方，就知道事情并非那么简单了。
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Miss
Manners rails against the pseudo-friendliness that now dominates office
life and ridicules the argument that if we like each other a lot, we will
behave better. A glance at how husbands and wives behave towards each
other shows that this simply is not the case.
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她还认为，缺乏规章制度是我们面临过多性骚扰的罪魁祸首。由于没有反对办公室调情的相应礼节，我们只能依靠法律解决，但这种手段实在粗暴且具有破坏性。
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She also
thinks the absence of rules is to blame for the mess we are in over sexual
harassment. As there is no etiquette that makes office flirting
unacceptable, we rely instead on the law, a hopelessly blunt and
destructive implement.
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她认为，唯一自觉对他人举止文明的，是那些有办公室恋情、却不希望同事们发现的人。只有他们才会谨小慎微，保持着一种职业的冷漠态度。照此推论，我们是不是都应该想象自己与办公室里的同事发生了秘密恋情？这点她倒没有说。这种观点并不令人愉快，事实上，粗鲁得很。
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According
to her, the only people who know how to behave towards each other are -
oddly enough - those who areshavingsan office affair but do not want their
colleagues to find out. Only they are scrupulous about maintaining a
professional aloofness. Whether the corollary is that we should all
imagine ourselves to be engaged in secret affairs with everyone in the
office, she does not say. The thought is not a pleasing one. Indeed, it is
rude in the extreme.
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但除此之外，她倒是提出了一些有益而合理的办公室礼节：一、老板不应该给秘书买礼物。钱是唯一得到认可的对优秀业绩的嘉奖。二、办公室同事不应该一起到乡村度假。这是一个极妙的建议，但是公司往往重视不够。周末，如果你和同事们一块在郊外的豪华别墅宾馆分享所谓的“真相”，但是到头来大家关系是越来越糟糕。三、工作就是娱乐，这句话从措辞上看就有矛盾。她说：“要求人们不计报酬地工作，这本身就不公平。更糟的是，它侵犯了个人生活的权利。”这个女人实在是太棒了。
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Otherwise
she has some good, sound rules. 1. Bosses should not buy their secretaries
presents. The only acceptable reward for a job well done is money. 2.
Nobody should ever go on an office retreat. This is fantastic advice and
cannot be said often enough. Nothing makes you despise your colleagues
more than spending a weekend together sharing "truths" about
yourselves in a plush country house hotel somewhere. 3. Business
entertaining is a contradiction in terms. "Asking people to labour
without pay is not fair. Worse, it cutssintostheir personal lives,"
she says. This woman is fantastic.
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她的主张唯一有错的地方，是她说得还不够。总的来说，没有规矩的主张是希望我们更热爱本职工作。这种友善是为了使我们更愉快。事实上，它却让我们更不喜欢工作了。工作和家庭生活的模糊界限使我们有种错觉，似乎工作应该和休闲活动一样让我们乐在其中。以此标准来评价工作的话，它总是不能尽如人意。相反，如果我们把工作看成是一块有着明确规章制度的独立领域，我猜，我们会得到更大的满足。
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The only
thing wrong with her argument is that she does not go far enough. The new
informality is generally supposed to make us like our jobs more. The
friendliness is meant to make us happier. In fact, it surely makes us like
our work less. The blurring of divisions between work and home lulls us
sintosa sense that work is going to be as actively enjoyable as leisure.
Judged thus, it is always going to fall short. If, instead, we viewed work
as an isolated realm with its own precise rules, I suspect we would find
greater satisfaction.
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在这里我产生了一种盲目乐观，我希望在企业的混乱状态持续20年之后，礼仪和规矩正在渐渐回归。无可否认，尽管这些回归的迹象还很微小，但只要你努力去找，它们的确是存在着的。
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My hope -
and here I am showing a seasonally Pollyanna-ish streak - is that manners
and formality are on the way back, after 20 years in the corporate
wilderness. Admittedly the signs are small but they are there if you look
for them hard enough.
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如今，我收到的许多电子邮件都使用了正规字体。随随便便的小写字母越来越罕见。办公室装扮可能更加职业化了。值得一提的是，《哈佛商业评论》留出这样一个空间，让礼仪小姐此等古板而坚持礼仪的人发表意见。二三年前，当工作就是娱乐这种狂热达到顶峰的时候，她那充满智慧的言论极具破坏性，无论如何是不可能登上这样一本负有声望的杂志的。
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Many of
the e-mails I now get are laid out like formal letters. Sloppy lower-case
ones are becoming a rarity. Office dress is possibly getting a bit
smarter. And the very fact that the HBR is giving so much space to a fusty
stickler for form such as Miss Manners in itself says something. Two or
three years ago - at the height of the work-is-fun craze - her excellent
good sense would have been simply too subversive to be published in a
respectable magazine.
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译者/喜喜
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