Why Do People Waste So Much Time at the Office?

By Alec Woodfred

幾年前，媒體報道了一個員工因為過度勞累死在辦公室，卻五天沒人發(fā)現(xiàn)的事件，這讓人們心神不安。雖然該事件最終證實為虛構(gòu)，但它卻體現(xiàn)了工作對于現(xiàn)代人生命的掌控。然而，如今的人們已經(jīng)遠遠偏離了工作的初衷，盲目地為了工作而工作，真正“做實事”的時間卻微乎其微。人們沒有意識到的是，也許在不久的將來，科技將會取代一切人類可以完成的工作，工作將沒有存在的必要。到那時候，我們又該如何面對呢？

The workplace is where people go to work. But much of the day is increasingly padded out1. pad out: 拉長，塞滿。with less productive activities.

A few years ago a disturbing story appeared in the media that seemed to perfectly capture the contemporary experience of work and its ever increasing grip over our lives:2. disturbing: 令人不安的；capture:（用文字或圖片）記錄，描述；contemporary: 當(dāng)代的；grip: 支配，控制。“Man Dies at Office Desk—Nobody Notices for Five Days”.

The case was unnerving3. unnerving: 使人緊張不安的。for one reason mainly. People die all the time, but usually we notice. Are things so bad in the modern workplace that we can no longer tell the difference between the living and the dead?

Of course, the story turned out to be a hoax4. hoax: 騙局。. An urban myth5. myth: 虛構(gòu)的事。.

We might even embellish6. embellish: 潤色，修飾。the story ourselves. Perhaps the dead accountant not only went unnoticed for five days but was rewarded with a promotion for all the extra hours and loyalty, possibly making vice president. In all variants7. variant: 不同的版本。of the myth the worker is never a woman which is interesting for its own reasons.

Why does it resonate8. resonate: 共鳴。so well with our experiences of employment today? A number of reasons might be behind this.

First, it reminds us that the otherwise crazy idea of working nonstop for hours or even days on end9. on end: 連續(xù)地，不斷地。has quietly become the new normal. Behaviour that our grandparents would have deemed insane is now rather pedestrian.10. 這些我們祖父輩會認(rèn)為是瘋狂的行為，現(xiàn)在來看卻司空見慣。pedestrian: 平淡無奇的。

The average British worker spends 36 days a year answering work emails. London workers in particular receive close to 9,000 emails each year. As a result, work spills over11. spill over: 向……的外面擴展，蔓延。into private time. One recent survey revealed that 80% of employers consider it perfectly acceptable to contact their employees outside business hours.

And then there’s the commute12. commute: 通勤。. British workers waste 18 months of their lives commuting, which is often expensive and stressful.

All of this work comes at cost.Job-related illness, for example,is a growing problem in the UK and elsewhere, exacerbated13. exacerbate: 使加劇，使惡化。by stress and more of us being overwhelmed by the “to do” list.

Making matters worse, in times of recession we are more willing to put up with horrible workplace environments, which adds to the pent-up frustration.14. recession: （經(jīng)濟的）衰退期；put up with: 容忍；pent-up: 被壓抑的。A recent study found that job burnout is more adverse to your health than chain smoking.15. job burnout: 職業(yè)倦怠；adverse: 不利的；chain smoking: 一支接一支不停地抽煙。

Only in this context could we ever see accounts16. account: 描述，報道。of having“worked to death” being reported in the corporate sector, as was the case with the Bank of America intern, Moritz Erhardt in 2013. He died of an epileptic seizure after working 72 hours straight.17. epileptic seizure: 癲癇發(fā)作；straight: 連續(xù)地。And let’s not even mention the new phenomenon of work-inspired suicides that has followed in the long wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

But the “Man Died at Desk and Nobody Noticed” urban myth strikes a chord18. strike a chord: 在（某人心中）引起共鳴。for another and more depressing reason. Yes, the of fice should have noticed the man was dead. Five days is a long time.But they also ought to have noticed that his work wasn’t actually getting done.

Unfortunately, this is not how the modern workplace functions today. Take those 36 days spent on email. It would be simply impossible to fill every minute online with only productive work. The same goes for the long hours put in at the of fice.

Apart from getting the actual task done, which is typically completed in short bursts, there is also a good deal of messing about,19. short burst: 短時間；mess about:浪費時間。chatting, paying the bills, surfing the net, daydreaming and waiting for the day to finish. Most importantly, much of our day is spent busy being busy rather than doing things that are socially useful.

This gives contemporary employment something of a ceremonial20. ceremonial: 正式的。feel about it. Not only are we working more now than ever (or searching for it if unemployed) but a good deal of it is unnecessary.

A recent study of overworked management consultants in the US found that 35% employed in this occupation actually “faked” an 80-hour work week. For various reasons these individuals pretended to sacrifice themselves for work and still got everything done.

In this respect, entire occupations might be considered phoney—from life coaches to“atmosphere co-ordinators” (people hired to create a party vibe in bars) to “chief learning of ficers” in the corporate world.21. in this respect: 在這一方面，就這點來說；phoney: 虛假的，偽造的；co-ordinator: 協(xié)調(diào)人；vibe: 氣氛。For those economists trying to figure out the present “productivity puzzle22. puzzle: 謎，難題。” in the UK, best start looking here.

None of this is to say there aren’t many of us working hard doing important things that society depends upon. But this sheer amount of time spent at work is totally disproportionate to the vital tasks that need to be achieved.23. 但是花在工作上的大量時間與必須完成的工作量根本不成正比。sheer amount: 巨大的數(shù)量；disproportionate to: 與……不成比例的；vital: 至關(guān)重要的。Disconnected too from the pay we receive for doing them.

In other words, work has become ritualised and detached from the practical things it was invented to accomplish.24. 換句話說，工作已經(jīng)儀式化了，偏離了它最初“做實事”的這個目的。detach from:從……分離。

Why do we work? The obvious answer is “to live”.But it’s not our actual job—giving a lecture, selling a car, nursing a patient or flying a passenger jet—that directly secures our life conditions. For sure, most occupations in the West have drifted far away from the baseline of biological self-preservation.25. occupation: 工作，職業(yè)；drift away: 逐漸偏離；baseline: 基準(zhǔn)，標(biāo)準(zhǔn)；self-preservation:自我保護。A job simply grants us access to man-made vouchers we call money.26. grant: 授予；voucher: 付款憑單，抵用券。We then redeem27. redeem: 將……兌換為現(xiàn)金（或物品）。these so we can then purchase life.

Like it or not we are moving into a post-work future. According to some estimates, half the eligible global workforce is currently unemployed.28. estimate: 估計 ；eligible: 符合條件的，合格的。Technical innovations are exponentially automating routine manual labour and now cognitive work too.29. 技術(shù)創(chuàng)新使日常的體力勞動日益自動化，如今，腦力勞動也日趨于此。exponentially:迅猛增長地；manual labour: 體力勞動，手工勞動；cognitive: 認(rèn)知的。Our workcentric society is swiftly becoming obsolete.30. -centric: 以……為中心的；obsolete: 過時的，淘汰的。No matter how much governments bribe the business sector with tax breaks and subsidies to keep people employed in needless jobs,31. bribe: 行賄，收買；tax break: 稅收減免；subsidy: 補貼。the necessity of work is rapidly disappearing.

As a society we probably secretly know all of this. But we have no idea what to do next.

Almost all of our institutions have been built around the mythology32. mythology: 錯誤的觀點。of work. Our very sense of self-worth is based upon it.It is almost taboo33. taboo: 禁忌。to even question work.

Regardless, the possibility of a jobless future might soon be a reality. It’s up to us to decide whether this future is going to be a nasty34. nasty: 令人不快的。nightmare or a beautiful paradise of play.