職場新人不可不知的老闆小心思大綱
If you're about to finish college and venture into the corporate world, you've no doubt heard plenty of perfectly good tips on job-hunting: Double-check the spelling in your resume, show up on time, look hiring managers in the eye when you talk to them, turn your cell phone off in interviews.
That's all fine, of course, but what if you happen to be rocking a conspicuous piercing, a tattoo, or "hair of a color not found in nature," as Charles Murray puts it? "Curmudgeons will not hire you except for positions where they don't have to see you, and perhaps not even those," he writes inThe Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead. And that's not all: Even if someone else in the organization does hire you, "curmudgeons will not give you a fair chance to prove yourself."
當然，這些都是好點子。不過，如果你碰巧在明顯的部位有穿洞、紋身，或像查爾斯o默裏所說的，有着“非自然色的頭髮，”那應該怎麼辦呢？“乖戾的領導可能不會錄取你，除非他們不必去那些崗位上見你，但就算這樣你也可能求職失敗。”默裏在《壞脾氣者的前進指南》（The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead）中這樣寫道。這還不夠：即便公司的其他人把你招了進去，“乖戾的領導也不會給你一個公平的機會來證明自己。”He adds that "I know it's terribly unfair. But you won't get anywhere by trying to reason with us ... There is no way (in our view) to argue that a pin through an eyebrow is anything but disfigurement." Whew.
他補充說：“我知道這非常不公平。不過你根本沒地方說理去……（在我們看來）你沒法爭辯說眉毛上的針形裝飾絕不是毀容。”哎。
Murray is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the unabashedly conservative Washington think tank American Enterprise Institute. Still, he insists his views are shared -- though perhaps silently -- by people at or near the top of most companies in every industry except maybe high-tech and show business.
默裏是華盛頓智囊機構美國企業研究院（American Enterprise Institute）的W.H.布雷迪學者，而這個機構從來不掩飾自己保守的風格。莫里依然堅持認爲，除高科技和娛樂業以外，所有行業的大多數公司高層都贊同他的觀點——儘管也許是默默贊同。The corporate world is, in Murray's view, ruled by curmudgeons, whom he defines as "highly successful people of both genders who are inwardly grumpy about many aspects of contemporary culture, make quick and pitiless judgments about your behavior in the workplace, and [who] don't hesitate to act on those judgments in deciding who gets promoted and who gets fired."
默裏認爲，企業界被性情乖戾者所掌控。他將此定義爲“極其成功的人士，無論男女，在當代文化的許多方面都表現得很暴躁，他們會迅速對你在工作中的表現做出冷酷無情的裁定，在決定誰要被提拔，誰將被開除時，他們從不猶豫。”So what does it take to impress these folks, who may well be "executives in their forties who have every appearance of being open-minded and cool," but are in truth closeted curmudgeons?
所以，應該怎麼做才能打動這些傢伙呢，這些很可能“在四十多歲時就擔任高管，表面上顯得無比開明和優秀”，私下裏實際上卻十分乖戾的人？First, watch your language. Among Murray's pet peeves is what he perceives as many Millennials' frequent, casual use of "the f-word." He's seen young job hunters instantly disqualified for dropping the f-bomb during interviews (twice, in one clueless candidate's case), but the real advantage in "abstaining from casual obscenity," he writes, is that it will make you a more effective communicator and, eventually, manager: "It's a lot of fun, once you have established a restrained persona, to watch the startled look on others' faces when you do let loose. You will instantly have their complete and perhaps terrified attention."
首先，注意自己的言辭。默裏不能忍受的事情之一是許多千禧一代經常掛在嘴邊的“F開頭的髒話”。他見過一些年輕的求職者由於在採訪中溜出這樣的髒話而被淘汰出局（某次有個愚蠢的求職者還連說了兩次）。不過，默裏寫道，“戒掉這種不正經”的最大好處在於你會成爲更有效率的溝通者，並最終成爲管理者：“一旦你樹立了嚴謹的形象，就可以放鬆下來去看看其他人的震驚的表情了，這是非常有意思的一件事。你會立刻得到他們徹底的、甚至懷有意思恐懼的關注。”Other missteps to avoid, Murray contends, are writing office emails as if they were texts to friends; using the word "impact" as a verb (he recommends the less trendy "affect" instead); saying "issue" when what you mean is "problem"; and clogging every sentence with the verbal tic "like" which, even in moderation, "lowers our estimate of the offender's IQ."
默裏表示，另一個要避免的錯誤是像給朋友發郵件一樣撰寫辦公郵件。比如使用“衝擊（impact）”當動詞【他推薦使用不那麼時髦的“影響（affect）”代替】，在說“問題（problem）”時用“事情（issue）”代替，或者使用“之類的（like）”這樣一些詞來做句子的結尾，即便用得很少，也“會降低我們對郵件作者的智商的看法。”If these tips seem nitpicky, they're not. "I am struck by the high percentage of people who have risen to senior positions who also care deeply about the proper use of the English language," Murray writes. "An even higher proportion of them are obsessively precise about everything."
這些建議似乎像是雞蛋裏挑骨頭，其實並非如此。默裏寫道：“我感到很驚訝，有相當比例的人在升到高層之後對正確使用英語與否仍然十分介意。還有更多人執着於所有事情的精確嚴密。”Murray has some sharp words for Millennials whose "sense of entitlement," he claims, has made them reluctant to pay their dues doing menial tasks. He notes that many curmudgeons (read: bosses) are managers in their fifties and older who "were getting up at five in the morning to deliver newspapers when they were nine or ten" and may have worked their way through college doing hard physical work. Moreover, "when the curmudgeons in your life were twenty-two, most of them found that getting started in the job market was characterized by low pay, boring entry-level work, [and] little job security," he writes.
默裏對某些“認爲一切都是理所當然”的千禧一代進行了嚴厲批評。他表示，這讓他們不願意在瑣碎的事情上花費精力。他指出，許多性情乖戾的人（換言之，也就是老闆們）都是在五十歲、甚至年齡更大的時候才當上管理者，“他們在九歲或者十歲時，就得早上五點鐘起牀送報紙”，他們也許靠着艱苦的體力勞動掙錢進入大學。他寫道，此外，“許多乖戾者二十二歲畢業，在就業市場找工作時，等待他們的只有薪酬微薄且枯燥乏味的低級工作，也幾乎沒有就業保障。”As a result, they're "hypersensitive to any vibe you give off when you're told to go pick up something in the mailroom. You don't have to say anything or even roll your eyes," he writes. "The slightest of sighs will lodge in their memory like their first kiss, only in a bad way."
因此，他們“在要求你去收發室拿點東西時，對你表現出的任何情緒都十分敏感。你什麼也不用說，甚至轉一下眼珠也不行，”他寫道。“最輕微的嘆息都會像初吻一樣牢牢地釘在他們的記憶裏，只不過是以一種不好的方式。”If all this makes curmudgeons sound tough to please, that's because they usually are. But, Murray points out, there's an important upside: They often make great mentors. To get ahead fast, he writes, "you want to be assigned to a successful curmudgeon, the more demanding the better."
如果這些建議讓性情乖戾者聽起來難以被取悅，那是因爲他們通常本來就難以被取悅。但是，默裏指出，這包含着一個重要的優點：他們通常是偉大的導師。他寫道，爲了迅速進步，“你會想要被分配給一個成功的乖戾者，要求越苛刻越好。”Why? Because, Murray writes, he or she is "more likely to have a gimlet eye for mistakes -- and by the same token is more likely to notice when they don't occur … [and] to be in love with excellent performance." Deliver it, and your curmudgeonly boss is "your best bet to become your self-appointed advocate" to other higher-ups. And whose career, entry-level or not, couldn't use one of those?
爲什麼呢？默裏說，是因爲他或她“更可能具備發現錯誤的犀利眼光——同樣也更容易注意到沒有犯錯的情形……並欣賞那些出色的表現。”利用好這點，你乖戾的老闆就會在其他上級那裏成爲“你的最佳推薦人”。在職場上，無論是新鮮人還是經驗豐富的老手，有誰會拒絕這樣一個最佳推薦人呢？（財富中文網）
