職場老手:不回郵件的新藉口

Last week I received an automatic reply from a man I had tried to contact saying  he was “away from the office with limited access to email”. I ignored it.
不久前我收到了一封自動回覆的電子郵件，來自一個我曾試圖聯繫過的人。信中稱，他“不在辦公室，不方便使用電子郵件”。我對此選擇了無視。

The same day Adam Parker, head of US equity research at Morgan Stanley, received a similar message, only he didn’t ignore it. He sent out a cri de coeur to all clients, explaining that it was his job to interpret the world for them and he was ruling that the “limited access to email” excuse was baloney. There is virtually nowhere left on earth, he pointed out, unreachable by email. What the phrase actually means is: I’m feeling tired or lazy and think I’ve earned the right not to reply.
就在同一天，摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)的美國股票市場研究主管亞當•帕克(Adam Parker)也收到了一封類似的郵件，只不過他沒有選擇無視。他向所有客戶發出了一封表示強烈抗議的郵件，信中說，爲客戶闡釋這個世界是他的工作，在他看來，“不方便使用電子郵件”的藉口簡直扯淡。他指出，在這個地球上，其實沒有什麼地方是電子郵件到達不了的。“不方便使用電子郵件”的言下之意是：我累了或犯懶了，並認爲我已經有權不回覆郵件了。

Mr Parker is right – this excuse does not work any more. But he is wrong to be so disapproving about it. We all are sometimes tired or lazy or on holiday or otherwise disinclined to do something we have been asked to do. What we need are better excuses.
帕克是對的——這種藉口已經不再管用了。但他不應該如此不滿。每個人都難免有時會因爲疲倦、或犯懶，或正在度假，或其他原因，而不想去做他人要求我們做的事。我們所需要的不過是更好的藉口。

The problem is that technology is steadily ruining all the old favourites. “The cheque’s in the post” doesn’t work now that no one writes cheques any more. “The dog ate my homework”, a little fragile at the best of times, works even less well now that so much homework is done online. “The boiler has exploded and I’m waiting for the plumber” is hopeless, since – provided the laptop didn’t also explode – you can work at home.
問題在於，技術的進步使得人們過去常用的各種藉口都逐漸失效。“支票在郵局”這招已經不管用了，因爲已經沒有人再使用支票。“我的作業被狗吃了”，這個藉口在最容易取信的時候都有點不可信，而如今很多家庭作業都在網上完成，這個理由就更不管用了。“鍋爐爆炸了，我在等水管工來修”，這個藉口簡直無可救藥，因爲只要你的筆記本電腦沒有跟着爆炸，你完全可以在家工作。

Even the new excuses created by technology are starting to look threadbare. “Your email must have got caught in the spam filter” is a handy white lie that I have often used to get me out of scrapes, but as filters go on getting better its value is diminishing.
即便是技術創造出的新藉口也開始顯得老套。“你的郵件一定是被垃圾郵件過濾器攔截了”，這個方便的善意謊言是我常常用來爲自己解圍的，但隨着垃圾郵件過濾器變得越來越精準，這一招也越來越不靈了。

So which excuses do still work?
那麼還有哪些藉口仍然管用呢？

A trusty standby is to say you are too busy – which has the added bonus of making you look important. “Terribly sorry I didn’t reply, I’ve been snowed under”: I used to use this a lot, but am trying to wean myself off it. For a start, I’ve noticed really important people never send out messages saying they are snowed under. Moreover, practically everyone thinks they are busy (although, as I pointed out recently, none of us is as busy as we fancy ourselves to be). To plead busyness does not suggest you are important. It suggests you are inefficient.
一個可信的應急辦法是說自己太忙了——這還能帶來一項額外好處，就是讓自己顯得重要。“非常抱歉我之前沒能回覆郵件，我忙暈了”：這個藉口我以前經常用，但我正試圖克制自己不再使用這一招。首先，我發現，真正重要的人物從來不會發郵件聲稱他們忙得昏天黑地。此外，幾乎每一個人都認爲自己很忙（雖然正如我最近指出的那樣，其實每個人都沒有自己想象的那麼忙）。以忙爲藉口並不能凸顯你地位重要，反而顯得你效率低下。A second way out is to invoke a prior engagement. This sometimes does the job, but can backfire. Too often I’ve said “I’m afraid I can’t make the 27th” – only for the other person to come back and say the event has been moved to the 29th. And then you are stuck with it.
另一個解圍辦法是聲稱自己之前已與人有約。有些時候這種方法可以奏效，但也可能適得其反。這樣的情況經常發生：跟別人說，“很抱歉27號我沒有空”，結果後來別人又回來告訴你活動改到了29號。這下你就沒法推了。

Better is to claim to be in the middle of a family emergency. This excuse works particularly well for men, for whom kudos is to be gained by playing the family card occasionally. However, to claim an emergency when there isn’t one may seem even to the unsuperstitious like an invitation to providence to visit something truly calamitous on the entire family.
更好的辦法是，聲稱自己家裏有急事。男性運用這個藉口的效果格外好，對於男性來說，偶爾打家庭牌可以加分。但即便在不迷信的人看來，其實沒事卻聲稱有事，或許就好像是向天意發出的一份邀請，請求它向全家降下真正的災禍。

The ultimate family emergency is, of course, death, and this is the most robust excuse of them all – timeless, final, and untouched by technology. But even this excuse is becoming a little less effective than it once was. A friend, poleaxed with grief after the death of her mother, has found after a couple of weeks that her get-out-of-jail-free card has stopped working so well. A return to normality is expected.
當然，終極的家庭不測是死亡。這是最強有力的藉口——不受時間限制，不受技術影響的終極武器。但即便是這個藉口的效力相比以前也有所下降。一個朋友在她母親死後以悲痛爲藉口，無往不利；但幾周之後她發現，自己的免罪金牌變得不那麼好用了。在旁人看來，過了這麼久她應該回歸正常狀態了。

The best excuse I have come across recently was made by a senior executive who cancelled an important meeting with a colleague, claiming that “a legal issue has come up”. The genius of this is that it sounds both very serious and very forbidding. Much as my colleague wanted to, he refrained from replying: Gosh, what sort of legal issue? A spot of fraud? Bankruptcy? Murder?
我最近見識到的最佳藉口來自一名高管，他取消了和一個同事的重要會議，聲稱“出現了一個法律問題”。這個藉口的天才之處在於，它聽起來既非常嚴肅，又令人不敢質疑。我的同事很想回復說，我的天啊，什麼法律問題？欺詐？破產？還是謀殺？但他最終還是剋制住了自己，沒有這樣做。

In the absence of any legal issues of my own, I am increasingly seeking refuge in the truth. So when asked last week if I wanted to go on a news show broadcast live at 10.30pm, I didn’t pretend to be busy, I just said it was past my bedtime. When asked if I wanted to attend an awards evening, I explained that awards evenings didn’t bring out the best in me. Such bluntness is a three-way win: you don’t have to feel bad about telling a white lie; there is no comeback and you don’t get asked again.
由於我自己沒有遇到過任何法律問題，我越來越傾向於用實話爲自己解圍。因此，不久前被問到是否願意參加一個晚上10:30的新聞節目直播時，我沒有假裝太忙，我只是說，那個點我已經要睡覺了。在被問到是否願意出席一個頒獎晚會時，我解釋道，我在頒獎晚會這種場合通常發揮不佳。這種坦率能夠創造三贏的局面：你不必因爲撒了一個善意的謊而心懷愧疚，別人無法反駁，你也不會被再次問及。

The same approach works best for out-of-office replies. There is no need to claim limited access to email. Either you are the sort of person valued by the Morgan Stanley boss and work on holiday – in which case you don’t need an out-of-office email at all. Or you view holiday as holiday: in which case the best approach is to say “I’m away until X. I’ll read your message when I’m back” – thereby cunningly not committing to ever replying.
同樣的策略最適用於“不在辦公室”的回覆郵件。沒有必要聲稱自己不方便使用電子郵件。如果你是那種受摩根士丹利老大重視、假期也工作的人，那麼你根本不需要“不在辦公室”的回覆郵件；抑或你是那種覺得假期就是假期的人，那麼最好的辦法就是說，“我在幾號之前都不在辦公室。我將在返回辦公室後閱讀您的郵件”——如此還巧妙地避免了承諾將回復郵件。