To be filed under 'What Was He Thinking?' is Paul Glen's sardine sandwich.
有些东西会让人大为光火,比如银行职员保罗•格莱恩(Paul Glen)的沙丁鱼三明治。
After going on a high-protein diet, Mr. Glen brought sardine and tuna sandwiches to his bank-consulting job and ate them at his desk. He knew the food was stinky, but he figured people would tell him if they had a problem, he says.
格莱恩如今在总部位于洛杉矶的管理和教育咨询公司Leading Geeks任首席执行长,原先则是在一家银行从事咨询工作。自从开始高蛋白饮食后,格莱恩总是带沙丁鱼或是金枪鱼三明治到银行办公室,在办公桌前吃。他说,他知道这些东西味道很大,不过他觉得如果有人有意见,应该会直接告诉自己的。
Instead, a co-worker in the next cubicle
complained to her boss, who
complained to the chief information officer, who
complained to Mr. Glen's boss, who delivered the
complaint" target="_blank" title="n.抱怨;叫屈">
complaint to Mr. Glen.
但实际并非如此,邻座的同事向她自己的老板发出了抱怨,她的老板告诉了公司的首席信息长,后者则告到了格莱恩的顶头上司那里,最后格莱恩从他的老板那里得知了同事的怨言。
Mr. Glen says he apologized immediately to his
colleague in the next cubicle. From then on, he brought salads or ate lunch outside, says Mr. Glen, now chief
executive of Leading Geeks, a Los Angeles
management- and education-consulting company.
格莱恩说,他立即向邻座的同事道了歉,而此后,他只带沙拉去办公室,或者干脆出去吃午饭。
More than half of full-time employees in the U.S. eat at their desks at least once a week, according to a
survey last year of 4,498 employees by jobs website CareerBuilder.com. And in their quest to be super-productive, never-missing-a-beat workers at their desks, office havoc can erupt. Seemingly
otherwisenormal,
perfectly mannered, even buttoned-up
executives can slurp, lick their lips or leave grubby plasticware around the office.
就业网站CareerBuilder.com去年对4,498位公司职员进行了一项调查,其结果显示,全美国有超过半数的全职员工每周至少有一顿饭是在办公桌前吃的。这些职场人士的争分夺秒以及对效率的苛刻追求对办公室来说可能就是场灾难。那些举止得体、衣服纽扣会一丝不苟全部系上的管理者们居然会把食物吃得啧啧山响、舔着嘴唇、或是把脏兮兮的塑料餐具扔得到处都是,看起来真是有些不可思议。
Becki Holmes especially hates the fumes of artificial-butter
flavoring in microwave popcorn that
pollute the offices of a Seattle food and
beverage retailer where she works. 'And you can never find the person who made the popcorn,' she says.
贝基•霍尔姆斯(Becki Holmes)在西雅图一家餐饮零售店工作,她对办公室空气中弥漫的那股微波炉爆米花所散发出来的人造黄油味道尤其反感。她说,"而你从来也不可能找到是谁爆的爆米花。"
That smell, from shelf-stable additives that produce a buttery
flavor, can be
unpleasant and tends to
linger, says Pamela Dalton, an olfactory researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, a nonprofit that researches taste and smell.
嗅觉研究专家帕梅拉•道尔顿(Pamela Dalton)说,那些能够产生黄油味道的食物添加剂所发出的气味有可能让人感觉不快,而且这气味很难消除。道尔顿在费城一家专门研究嗅觉和味觉的非营利机构Monell Chemical Senses Center工作。
She ties bad smell to a much larger mood: Smelling others' lunches in the office can make people feel as if they have lost 'control over their personal environment,' Dr. Dalton says. A bad or unidentified smell can 'make us go on alert,
distract us from what we're doing and change our mood,' usually for the worse, she says.
道尔顿认为坏气味会引发更为复杂的情绪。她说,在办公场所闻到别人午饭的味道,有可能让人感觉失去了"对自己私人空间环境的控制"。她说,一种坏味道或是来历不明的味道有可能引起人们的警觉,让人分心,并改变人的情绪,通常都是让情绪变得更糟糕。
Patricia Norma once
accidentally spilled an apple pie on her
computer while
working through lunch at her desk at a sales and marketing training company in Houston. She dropped everything to try to salvage her keyboard, and several
colleagues jumped in to help.
帕特里夏•诺玛(Patricia Norma)在休斯敦一家销售和市场培训公司工作,有一次她在办公桌前吃午饭时,不小心将苹果馅饼的馅淌到了电脑上。为了抢救她的键盘,诺玛几乎将所有东西都碰倒了。好几个同事也跑过来帮忙。
Her boss, chief
executive Bert Martinez, describes the scene: 'All of a sudden, somebody else wants to lend a hand, and somebody else wants to lend a hand, and before you know it, we had three people
trying to clean up a $20 keyboard,'
wasting time.
她的老板、公司首席执行长波特•马丁内斯(Bert Martinez)描述当时的情形时说道:突然间,所有人都想来帮忙,不一会儿功夫,已经有三个人在试图清理一个价值20美元的键盘,其实很浪费时间。
Now, Mr. Martinez keeps a big roll of plastic wrap on hand and asks employees to cover their
computer keyboards when they eat. Nelson Morales, a
salesman and
trainer, covers his keyboard -- and his tie -- in plastic. 'It's very comfortable,' he says. He often brings in spaghetti and beans-and-rice dishes. The plastic has also reduced his dry-cleaning bill, he says.
如今,马丁内斯准备了一大卷塑料膜,他要求员工吃东西时将电脑键盘盖上。兼任公司销售和
培训师的纳尔逊•莫拉莱斯(Nelson Morales)吃饭时就将电脑键盘──还有他的领带──用塑料膜遮上。他说,"这样吃起来就很自在了。"他常常把意大利面、豆类和米饭带到办公室吃。他说,塑料膜还帮他省了不少干洗衣服的钱。
(Ms. Norma has since left the company for another job. Her
departure wasn't
related to any lunch-time spills, of course.)
(诺玛已经离开这家公司另谋高就了,当然她的离职与这次午饭事故没有任何瓜葛。)
When Mary Miller worked in human resources for a retailer, she would break to eat lunch and co-workers would
interrupt to
complain about problems with other co-workers or their bosses. 'People come in and plop down and start talking. They never stop to say, 'Excuse me, do you have a few minutes?' ' she says.
玛丽•米勒(Mary Miller)曾在一家零售企业的人力资源部门工作,那时候她会在中午休息一下并吃午饭,而她的同事却会不管不顾地跑来向她投诉与其他员工或是上司之间的问题。她说,"他们就这么闯进来、扑通一下坐在那里开始说了起来。他们从来不会停下来问一句'打搅一下,你有时间吗?'"
To get some
privacy, she started
holding up a paperback
romance novel in front of her face while she ate, she says. If co-workers 'see that I'm
reading, it tends to make them say, 'Oh,' and turn around.' (She now happily works and eats un
interrupted as an
executive coach and consultant from her home office in Annapolis, Md.)
据她说,后来为了获得一些私人空间,她开始在吃饭时用一本平装爱情小说挡在面前。"如果同事们看到我在看书,他们通常会说,'哦,'然后转身离开。"
Not to be forgotten are the munchers, the crunchers, the open-mouthed, finger-licking lip-smackers. Ashley Chase, an
associate editor for an environmental website in Atlanta, gets irritated when co-workers snack on 'chips, nuts, anything that is super-crunchy.' She says she knows
everyone isn't as
sensitive as she is, so she doesn't
complain. Instead, she puts on her headphones and listens to music.
(米勒如今是一位企业管理顾问,她在马里兰州安纳波利斯(Annapolis)的家中办公,工作吃饭都不会受到打搅,她很开心。)
As much as most desk lunchers say they get more done, productivity experts
challenge the idea. 'Squeezing out every possible moment' in the day for work
actually drains
energy and reduces
output, says Tony Schwartz, chief
executive of the Energy Project, Riverdale, N.Y., an author and consultant on employee engagement.
还有那些吃东西的时候狼吞虎咽、咯吱作响、大张其口、舔手指嘬嘴唇的人呢。
亚特兰大一家环境网站的助理编辑阿什利•蔡斯(Ashley Chase)对于同事吃"炸薯片、坚果或是任何嚼起来很大声的零食"都很反感。她说她知道不是所有人都像她那么介意,所以她没有投诉过。她会在同事吃东西时戴上耳机听音乐。
A better route would be to take a break for lunch and return to work energized, he says. Some 109 'Take Back Your Lunch' groups have formed on Meetup.com in
response to a
campaign he launched last year.
几乎所有在办公桌前吃午饭的人都会说,他们的工作效率会更高一些,但专家们对此提出了质疑。托尼•施瓦兹(Tony Schwartz)是一位员工敬业研究方面的作家和顾问,是纽约州里弗代尔市(Riverdale)Energy Project公司的首席执行长。施瓦兹认为,将一天之中所有可能的时间都挤出来工作实际上很耗费精力,而且会降低效率。
Allison Hemming, president of the Hired Guns, a 12-employee placement
agency for product
management, marketing, design and
advertising workers in New York City, gobbled lunch at her desk for years while
working as a marketing
specialist at two New York
investment banks.
他说,更好的方式是中午时候休息一下,出去吃个午饭,然而精神抖擞地回来工作。去年,在他发出午休出去吃饭的倡议后,社交网站Meetup.com上成立了大约109个"找回午休时间"小组作为响应。
Now, if she sees her employees
working through lunch, 'I get them out of their desks,' encouraging them to get outside, she says. 'We've seen a major boost in productivity' and sales as a result.
艾莉森•亨明(Allison Hemming)是纽约市Hired Guns就业中介机构的总裁,她的公司拥有12名员工,为产品管理、营销、设计和广告人员提供中介服务。此前她是纽约两家投资银行的营销专员,那几年里,她总是在办公桌前草草地吃掉午饭。