教你怎麼樣向老闆毫不心虛地請假
Dear Annie: What can you say to coworkers who give you a hassle about taking time off for a family problem? The department where I work is under a lot of pressure to meet deadlines, and in the five years I've been here, I've done my share of the workload and then some. Now, however, I'm faced with having to move my widowed father, who lives halfway across the country and has Alzheimer's, into a nursing home. I also have to clean out the house where he's lived for 40-plus years and put it up for sale. I'll need at least two weeks, or possibly three, to do this and, believe me, I wish it wasn't necessary.
親愛的安妮：如果你因爲家庭問題需要休假，可你的同事爲此對你嘮嘮叨叨，你會如何應對他們？我所在的部門爲了趕上項目截止日期而面臨巨大壓力。我在這裏的五年間，做完自己份內的事情之後，還會幫其他人。但現在，我必須把獨自居住的老父親送到養老院。他住的地方與我相隔了半個美國的距離，而且他還患有老年癡呆症。此外，我還得把他住了40多年的房子打掃乾淨，然後掛牌出售。我至少需要兩週到三週的時間來處理這些事。相信我，我自己也不希望花這麼長時間。What's making the whole situation even worse is the attitude of coworkers and, to a lesser extent, my boss. People have said things to me like, "Isn't there someone else who can do this instead of you?" (there isn't) and "Can't it wait until we've met our July project deadline?" (no, unfortunately, it can't). But I feel like I'm letting the team down. How should I respond? -- Torn in Tacoma
更糟糕的是我的上司，尤其是同事們的態度。他們對我說：“沒有其他人去做這些事嗎？”（確實沒有），或者“就不能等到我們七月份的項目結束之後再去嗎？”（很可惜，不行）。我感覺我讓整個團隊失望了。我該怎麼回答呢？——T.T.Dear T.T.: As you probably already know, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 entitles you to up to 12 weeks per year of time off — unpaid, but without losing your benefits, or your job -- to deal with a health-related issue, either yours or a close family member's. New Labor Department rules, which took effect about six weeks ago, require employers to put up posters in workplaces, spelling out what the FMLA says (and, not incidentally, reminding everybody that it exists).
親愛的T.T.：你肯定已經知道了，1993年的《家庭醫療休假法》（Family and Medical Leave Act）明文規定，你每年可以獲得最多12周的假期——無薪假期，但不影響福利，也不會失業——來解決與自己或親人健康有關的問題。美國勞工部的新規定將於六週後生效，規定要求僱主在工作場所張貼海報，宣傳《家庭醫療休假法》的規定（此外，專門提醒所有人這部法律的存在）。
But pointing out that you have a legal right to do what you need to do isn't likely to get you very far with your colleagues, or your boss. Moreover, you're far from the only one struggling with this. "A lack of support from peers has a tremendous effect on employees' feeling that they can legitimately take time off," notes Justin Boren, a communications professor at Santa Clara University and an expert on social structures within organizations.
但指出你享有休假的法律權利，並不是要讓你與同事或上司疏遠。此外，你並不是唯一一個面臨這種問題的人。聖克拉拉大學（Santa Clara University）傳播學教授、組織社會結構專家賈斯丁•博倫說：“如果缺乏同事的支持，會嚴重影響到員工對於合法休假的認知。”Boren is co-author of a study in the April issue of Southern Communication Journal showing that "messages of peer resentment" often stop people from taking the family-leave time they're entitled to. Those messages -- some subtle, some not -- made most employees in Boren's research "feel guilty for taking their full complement of benefits, if it meant leaving their colleagues to 'pick up the slack.'"
博倫曾與人合著過一篇研究文章，發表在四月份的《南方傳播雜誌》（Southern Communication Journal）上。研究顯示，“同事表現出的怨氣”通常會讓人們放棄本應有權享受的家庭假期。這些信息或隱晦或直接，使博倫研究的大多數員工“認爲，如果享受完整的福利意味着讓其他同事接手他們留下的工作，他們會爲此而感到內疚。”Often, coworkers' resentment "stems from unstated expectations about performance that are embedded in the culture of the organization," he adds. "The stress of trying to balance work life and family life is really exacerbated when colleagues say you're letting the team down."
通常情況下，同事的怨氣“源自公司文化中內在的、對於員工表現未做出明確說明的預期，”他補充道。“如果同事們認爲你令整個團隊失望了，那麼，平衡工作與生活的壓力會進一步加重。”So, how can you defend yourself? "In every relationship at work, there is a quid pro quo," says Lois Frankel, head of Pasadena-based Corporate Coaching International, whose clients have included executives at Disney (DIS), Lockheed Martin (LMT), BP (BP), Amgen (AMGN), and many other big companies. "You have to give at least as much as you get."
那麼，到底應該如何維護自己的權利呢？國際企業培訓公司（Corporate Coaching International）位於帕薩迪納市，客戶包括迪士尼（Disney）、洛克希德馬丁公司（Lockheed Martin）、英國石油公司（BP）、安進製藥（Amgen）等大公司的高管。這家培訓公司的總裁路易斯•弗蘭克爾說：“每一種工作關係中都存在交換條件。一個人在得到的同時，必須同樣付出。”A family crisis "often preoccupies us so completely that we forget to think much about how our absence will affect the people around us at work," Frankel observes. "That's where the resentment from colleagues comes in."
弗蘭克爾表示，家庭危機“通常會讓我們耗盡心神，常常忘記考慮我們的缺席會對其他同事產生怎樣的影響。這正是同事產生怨氣的原因。”Before you leave to take care of your father, she suggests you sit down with your teammates, either as a group or one-on-one, and work out what you can contribute to the next project deadline before you take off, how reachable you'll be while you're away, and what additional work you'd be willing to handle when you get back.
她建議，在你休假前去照顧父親之前，與同事們坐下來，通過一對一或小組的形式，向他們說清楚在下一個項目中，你可以做出哪些貢獻，保證即使在你離開期間也能提供幫助，同事表明等你回來之後，你願意額外處理哪些工作任務等。"It's important to make clear that you don't intend to just leave everybody in the lurch," Frankel says. "So discuss with them ways to make their jobs less difficult and stressful despite your absence. It's also a good idea to explicitly offer to help fill in for anybody else who may need to take a leave in the future.
弗蘭克爾說：“明確告訴大家，你並不是有意置所有人於不顧，這一點非常重要。因此，即便你不在公司，也要與他們共同討論如何降低他們的工作難度，減少工作壓力等。此外，明確提出如果未來其他人需要請假，你也可以幫忙頂替他們的工作，這也是很好的做法。”"Also, don't forget to manage up," she adds. "Have the same kind of conversation with your boss. Find out what concerns him or her most about your being gone for a while, and see if you can figure out how to address those concerns."
“此外，別忘了與上司的關係，”她補充說。“與上司進行同樣的對話。明確你臨時離開最讓他（她）擔憂的事情是什麼，同事儘量想辦法解除這些擔憂。”Frankel has a few words of advice for anyone who hasn't yet needed to take FMLA leave, but who may have to someday (which, with the aging of the population, might well include most of us, sooner or later). "It's human nature to cut people more slack, and empathize with them more, when we know them well and like them," she says. "So it helps to build warm, collegial relationships at work, and have those loyalties in place, before you need them." Noted.
也許你現在還沒有必要仰仗《家庭醫療休假法案》獲得休假，但未來你可能需要這樣做。爲此，弗蘭克爾提出了一些建議。她說：“如果人們彼此瞭解，也喜歡對方，那麼，相互之間就會變得輕鬆一些，而且更能爲對方的遭遇感同身受。這是人類的天性。因此，不要等到有需要的時候，在平時的工作中就要注意培養和睦、友好的同事關係，這將非常有幫助。”至理名言。Talkback: If you've ever had to take time off for family reasons, how did your coworkers react? Have you ever been left in the lurch by a colleague on FMLA leave? Leave a comment below.
反饋：如果你因爲家庭原因而不得不請假，你的同事會有怎樣的反應？你是否曾因爲同事請假而陷入困境？歡迎評論。
