前輩們給辦公室潔癖的箴言

I am an instructor at a private university in the US which has directed that wastebaskets and recycling stations will be emptied once a week as an austerity move. I took it upon myself to empty my trash, but discovered there were no clean plastic liners to replace the dirty ones. What should I do? Contact the dean or university president? I am on a yearly contract, so if I complain I may be labelled a troublemaker and my contract not renewed. Lecturer, 55

我是美國一所私立大學的老師，學校推出了節約措施，規定垃圾桶和回收站每週一清。於是我就自己去倒垃圾，但找不到乾淨的垃圾袋把髒的替換掉。我應該怎麼做？聯繫院長或校長？我的合同是一年一簽的，所以，如果我抱怨的話，就可能被貼上愛找事兒的標籤，合同也不會獲得續簽。

Lucy Kellaway’s answer

露西•凱拉韋的回答

On reading your problem, many FT readers decided that I was having a joke at their expense. It was, after all, first published on April Fools’ Day.

讀到你的問題時，《金融時報》的許多讀者以爲我在逗他們。畢竟你的問題最早是在4月1日愚人節那天發表的。

I can now reveal that it was no joke of mine — and I have no reason to believe that you, Lecturer, 55, think there is anything funny about your situation either.

現在我可以透露，那絕不是我的玩笑，我也沒有理由相信，作爲55歲講師的你，會認爲自身處境有何可笑之處。

The few who recognised it to be a real question were scornful, judging you to be a pathetic specimen, hooked on triviality.

當時有少數幾個讀者認爲這是個真實的問題，他們的態度是輕蔑的，認爲你是個可憐的怪人，糾結於雞毛蒜皮的小事。

By contrast, I judge them pathetic in their lack of imagination. Haven’t they worked in offices? Don’t they know that office life is the sum of a thousand trivialities? Don’t they realise that one of the most annoying things is being at the receiving end of piddling austerity measures?

相比之下，我覺得缺乏想象力的他們纔可憐。難道他們沒在辦公室裏工作過？難道他們不知道，辦公室生活就是一千件瑣事的總和？難道他們沒有意識到，最惱人的事情之一，就是無關緊要的節約措施落到了自己頭上？

Indeed in my experience of the workplace the thing most guaranteed to upset people is not when management axes half the workforce, it is when it axes free biscuits. Then all hell breaks loose. I can easily see that for neat freaks, eliminating rubbish collections can be just as upsetting as eliminating biscuits is to the rest of us.

實際上，以我在辦公室裏工作的經驗來看，保準會讓人心煩的事，不是管理層裁掉一半員工，而是砍掉免費餅乾供應。免費餅乾一取消，一下就天下大亂了。我能輕易看出，對有潔癖的人而言，減少垃圾回收頻率，就像取消免費餅乾對我們其他人而言一樣，可能令人心煩意亂。

In both cases the best course of action is the same. The first rule is that while it is fine to complain blue murder to your colleagues it is not fine at all to complain to your superiors. So for you to talk to the dean or the president would be an exceedingly poor idea. Management is not going to back pedal, and so all you would achieve would be to make a nuisance of yourself.

對這兩種情況而言，最佳行動方針是相同的。頭一條原則是，跟同事大聲抱怨沒關係，但向上司抱怨是絕對不行的。所以，對你而言，跟院長或校長談此事將是個非常糟糕的主意。管理層不會收回成令，所以你這樣做徒然惹人厭。

Instead, you have to find a way of finding your new rubbish-strewn office as un-annoying as possible. So buy your own bin liners, if emptying the rubbish is less annoying than seeing it full. But I suspect that you would be better advised to do what everyone else does, and go on cramming more rubbish into full bins and leave it up to someone else to sort out.

相反，你必須想辦法，讓到處新冒出垃圾的辦公室儘可能不礙你眼。所以，如果看到滿滿的垃圾桶，比倒垃圾更討厭，你就自己買垃圾袋吧。但我覺得，更好的建議是，跟大家保持一致，繼續往滿滿的垃圾筒裏塞垃圾，把這個問題留給別人去解決。

You might also be grateful that you work somewhere that still has individual bins. All modern offices have abandoned them in favour of communal recycling collection points, so that every time you want to get rid of anything you have to walk some distance to do so.

你或許也應心懷感激，因爲你工作的地方仍在提供個人垃圾筒。所有現代辦公室都已用公共回收站取代了個人垃圾筒，所以每當你想把什麼東西扔掉，都必須走上一段距離才行。

In time, you will adapt, but in the meantime, best to concentrate on getting that yearly contract renewed. Being an unemployed 56-year-old lecturer is even more of a problem than being employed in an office where the bins are always overflowing.

你遲早肯定會適應新情況，不過，與此同時，你最好把主要精力放在讓自己一年一簽的勞動合同獲得續簽上。跟在一間垃圾筒總是裝得太滿的辦公室上班相比，成爲一名56歲的失業講師是件更大的麻煩事。