如何當好職場前輩 How to be an older colleague
Twenty years ago I started work as the FT’s most junior employee. I was on the foreign desk. Every day I had to phone an angry middle-aged foreign correspondent, based in a faraway city that he hated. I was straight out of university, didn’t know how to talk to adults, and swiftly got up this man’s nose. He’d shout at me. One day, when he was telling me again how stupid I was, I said, “Yes, but you needn’t shout.” He shouted some more, then told me to put him through to my boss, where he really let go.
二十年前我進入《金融時報》工作，成爲一名最初級的員工。我被分到國際部，每天都得給一個憤怒的駐外中年記者打電話，這位記者駐守在一個遙遠的城市，他非常討厭那座城市。那會兒我剛離開大學校園，不懂該怎麼跟成年人說話，於是很快就惹怒了這位中年人，他便開始訓斥我。有一天，當他又對我說我有多麼愚蠢時，我答道：“你說得沒錯，但你不必這樣大呼小叫。”結果他罵得更兇了，他還讓我把電話轉到我上司那裏，對我上司徹底發了一通光火。
Now middle-aged myself, I often recall the middle-aged colleagues I encountered back then. Some were awful, some wonderful, and combined they taught me the essential art of being an older colleague. The secret: treat ignorant junior employees as humans.
如今我也人到中年，我常常回想起當年遇到的那些中年同事。有些人很可怕，有些人則讓人如沐春風，而所有這些中年同事讓我瞭解到身爲前輩的基本藝術，祕訣就是：把無知的初級員工當做人來對待。
Juniors have loads to learn. At 5.30pm on my first day in the office, it dawned on me that nobody was even getting ready to go home. This is how grown-ups live, I suddenly realised, in offices where the windows don’t open. I was equally green about financial news. Once, excruciatingly, I asked on the internal messaging system whether anyone had heard of some ancient event called “the Guinness scandal”. Everyone had. It was the defining British corporate scandal of the 1980s. No matter that I was at school then.
初級員工有大量東西要學習。我第一天上班時，到了下午五點半，發現大家甚至沒有準備回家的意思。在窗戶緊閉的辦公室裏，我突然意識到這就是成年人的職場生活。當時我在財經新聞方面也完全是菜鳥。有一次我實在沒招了，只得在內部即時信息系統上問大家，有沒有人聽說過很久以前一起叫“吉尼斯醜聞”的事件，結果每個人都聽過。它指的是上世紀80年代英國最典型的企業醜聞，那會兒我還在上學呢。
Being a junior employee teaches you about your colleagues’ characters, because everyone can mistreat you if they feel like it. There were unsmiling pomposities who had swallowed a common fallacy among white middle-aged men: “I have a big job because I am a genius.” To them, it was an irrelevant factoid that almost all big jobs then went to white middle-aged men.
初級員工的身份可以讓你瞭解到同事們的性格，因爲每個人都可以虐你——只要他們樂意。有些人成天板着個臉擺架子，他們深信一種謬見，“我職責艱鉅，因爲我才華橫溢”，這在白種中年男性羣體非常普遍。他們有一種過時的錯覺——幾乎所有重要的工作都應交由白種中年男性負責。
My contemporaries at other companies suffered similarly. One friend, a gifted graphic artist, once politely reminded his boss that he was terribly paid. The boss replied, “You’re only 29, and you’re already working for this company. You should be proud just to be here.” My friend thanked him, left the office with the useful knowledge that his boss was an antiquated buffoon, and soon had a top job at a rival company.
我的同齡人在其他公司的遭遇也一樣。我有個朋友是個很有天賦的圖形設計師，有一次他禮貌地提醒上司，他的薪水實在太低了。而他的上司答覆道：“你才29歲就能進我們公司了。光是能來這兒上班還不夠你驕傲的嗎？”我朋友謝過了他，從中學到了一條非常有用的知識：他的老闆是一個愚蠢守舊的老古董。他辭了這份工作，很快在另一家競爭對手那兒找到了高級職位。
Our seniors were missing an important fact: even ignorant junior employees possess useful knowledge. In 1995 I was one of the only people in the building who had ever sent an email. I’d just learnt cutting-edge stuff at university. I had recently gone deep into foreign countries in a way that older colleagues with families couldn’t. One older colleague cannily took me to lunch and pumped me for information on a topic of mutual interest. We became friends. Today he is semi-retired, whereas I have the typical middle-aged man’s minor patronage powers. Recently, I put some work his way.
我們的前輩沒有意識到一個重要的事實：即使無知的初級員工也掌握着有用的知識。1995年時，我是那幢大樓裏少數曾經發過電子郵件的人。我剛剛在大學裏學到了一些最先進的東西。當時我剛結束了對幾個國家的深度旅行，而那些前輩們因爲拖家帶口是沒法做到的。一位有遠見卓識的前輩請我共進午餐，就我們共同關心的話題從我這兒汲取信息。我們就此成了朋友。現在他已經半退休，而我則成了典型的中年男子，擁有些許提攜後輩的權力。最近我也開始學這位前輩的做法。
But back then I desperately needed guidance, and a few senior colleagues provided it. One morning, my boss told me I’d made a mistake in the previous day’s paper. I almost burst into tears. She paused a few beats, then said, “It’s OK. I can see you know that making mistakes is serious.” She had taught me the FT’s underlying ideology, and earned my lasting loyalty.
但當年的我迫切需要指導，只有幾個前輩爲我指點了迷津。一天早上我上司對我說，我在前一天出版的報紙上犯了個錯誤。我當時差點哭了，她頓了片刻後說道：“沒關係。我看得出你已經知道出錯是很嚴重的事。”她教給我《金融時報》的根本理念，從此贏得了我長久的忠誠。
Gradually, I got an education in adult life. One evening in the pub, a senior colleague told me his marriage was collapsing because his wife had joined a cult. I asked all the wrong questions, and probably made him feel worse but, slowly, I discovered the unseen dramas of office life: cancer, alcoholism, affairs... people still having to show up at their desks the next morning and pretend.
逐漸地，我知道了什麼是成年人的生活。一天晚上在酒吧，一位前輩告訴我他妻子加入了一個邪教組織，他的婚姻快完了。我問了一切不該問的問題，可能讓他感覺更糟，但是慢慢地，我發現了辦公室生活裏看不到的情節：癌症、酗酒、偷情……但無論遇到什麼事，第二天早上人們還是得神色如常地出現在他們的辦公桌前。
Another senior colleague changed my career. Knowing I was unhappy writing corporate news, he advised me to quit the paper. (Commenters, please add witty zingers here.) I retorted: “You don’t like your job either. Why don’t you quit?” “I can’t,” he patiently explained. “I’ve got a mortgage and two kids. But you’ve got nothing, so go.” I needed the advice, because I was so inexperienced I didn’t know whether I was just unsuited to writing corporate news or to all work. (More zingers here, please.) I quit and, years later, rejoined the FT in a happier capacity.
另外一位前輩改變了我的職業生涯。他知道我不喜歡寫企業新聞後，建議我辭掉《金融時報》的工作。（看官們，請對此隨意發表你們的妙語點評。）我反駁道：“你也不喜歡你的工作，你幹嘛不辭職？”他耐心解釋道：“我要還抵押貸款，還要養兩個小孩。可你沒有任何後顧之憂，所以你就走吧。”我需要有人給我建議，因爲我當時毫無經驗，我不知道自己只是不適合寫企業新聞，還是不適合所有工作。（請隨意拍磚。）我辭職了，數年以後我重新加入《金融時報》，這次我接受了一個更滿意的職位。
That’s something else senior employees often miss: today’s junior employee is tomorrow’s senior, whereas today’s senior is tomorrow’s old reject. Back in 1995, most journalists still retired voluntarily, in their fifties, after decades of well-paid service. On Friday afternoons a drinks trolley would park by someone’s desk, and everyone would toast him, before he left the building for the last time, the mortgage on his London house paid off, his kids sent free though university, his contributions to journalism already almost forgotten by the time he got home. Such is the eternal cycle.
這也是資深員工們經常忽視的一點，現在的初級員工就是以後的資深員工，而現在的資深員工就是以後的退休員工。1995年時，大多數記者都是自願退休，在拿了幾十年豐厚的酬勞後，他們在五十幾歲時就選擇告別工作。在某個週五下午，某人辦公桌旁停了一輛飲品推車，然後大家輪番向他敬酒，然後他永遠地離開這棟大樓，他還清了倫敦住所的抵押貸款，他的孩子順利地上了大學，當他回到家時，他對新聞事業的貢獻基本已被人們拋諸腦後。這就是一名記者的輪迴。
It moves faster now, especially for middle-aged men. Bosses are keen to replace us with cheap millennials. The bitter fiftysomething male ex-employee is an icon of our time. The best way to avoid this fate: hug the juniors, pick their brains, and get their email addresses as you leave the building.
現在這個輪迴的速度更快了，尤其對於中年男性來說。老闆們熱衷於用便宜的千禧一代來換掉我們，五十幾歲被辭退的苦悶男性職員成了我們時代的一個特徵。避免這一命運的最好辦法是靠近後輩，徵求他們的看法，還有記得在你離開辦公樓前問他們要電郵地址。
