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Bartleby: Working under the weather

巴托比：带病工作

It is becoming harder to take off a sick day

请病假越来越难

If you have a high temperature or are recovering from heart surgery, it is difficult to use machine tools.

如果你在发高烧，或者正处于心脏手术恢复期，操作机器会很困难。

And if you are having a nervous breakdown, machine tools are best avoided.

如果你正经历精神崩溃，最好不要操作机器。

Sick days are the remedy.

病假才是良药。

They are meant to prevent people from hurting themselves, their co-workers, customers or passers-by on the job.

病假的存在，就是为了防止人们在工作中伤害自己、同事、客户或是身旁经过的人。

Working from home has flipped this logic on its head.

但居家办公颠覆了这一逻辑。

If you can work from the kitchen table, today’s hybrid workers increasingly conclude, then why not from bed—so long as the brain is on and the Zoom camera off?

如今，越来越多混合办公者总结道，如果在厨房的桌子上都能工作，那为什么不能在床上工作呢--只要大脑在工作，把Zoom会议的摄像头关了就行。

The work-from-home revolution has raised the bar for what counts as being sick.

居家办公的革命提高了生病的门槛。

At the height of the pandemic people worked from home even with nasty symptoms such as fever, shortness of breath or nausea.

在疫情最严重的时候，人们即使有发烧、呼吸急促或恶心等严重症状，也会在家工作。

Many still do.

很多人现在还是这样。

Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University has been tracking work-from-home habits since before the corona-crisis popularised them.

在居家办公因新冠危机变得更为普及之前，斯坦福大学的尼古拉斯·布鲁姆就一直在追踪这种习惯。

In a recent working paper he presents the results of a randomised controlled trial at a large Chinese multinational company, where sick days fell by 12% for employees working from home two days a week relative to those coming in full time.

在最近的一篇工作论文中，他展示了在一家中国大型跨国公司进行的一项随机对照试验的结果：每周居家办公两天的员工，病假天数比全职员工减少了12%。

Your columnist, a guest Bartleby, can sympathise.

本文作者是巴托比专栏的客座作家，她表示能够理解。

In the past, while convalescing, she had no qualms about wrapping herself in a blanket with a hot toddy, toast and some tissues.

以前，在生病康复期间，她会毫无顾虑地把自己裹在毯子里，纸巾放在旁边，就着一杯热棕榈酒吃吐司。

When she got covid-19 early this summer, by contrast, she kept going with her phone and laptop sunk in the duvet.

而在今年夏初患上新冠肺炎时，她一直把手机和笔记本电脑裹在羽绒被里工作。

Her managers strongly urged that her work should be passed on to a colleague.

她的经理强烈要求把她的工作转交给一位同事。

For her, this was unthinkable, at least until she almost passed out.

对她来说，这简直难以想象，至少在她快要晕倒之前是这样的。

To be in bed not doing anything connotes not only physical discomfort but also cognitive impairment.

躺在床上什么都不做，不仅会让身体不适，还会导致认知障碍。

Salaried workers, who are often evaluated on the basis of their input rather than output, find it hard to say they are off the game for a few days now that they don’t need to worry about spreading germs in the office.

对受薪员工的评估通常是看他们的投入而不是产出，既然现在他们不需要担心在办公室里传播细菌了，他们发现自己很难偷几天懒。

For high-achievers, putting in the hours is not a chore but a way of life.

对于成功人士来说，加班不是一件苦差事，而是一种生活方式。

Unplanned breaks are antithetical to the pervasive anxiety to perform.

计划外的休息对保持良好表现的焦虑很不利。

As recession looms and puts future job security into question, showing yourself to be useful becomes even more important.

随着经济衰退逐渐临近，并导致人们对未来的工作保障产生质疑，展示自己的有用性就变得更加重要。

Hybrid-work etiquette is fluid and many companies have yet to update their sick-leave rules for the new era.

混合办公的规矩不固定，许多公司还没有针对新时代更新病假规定。

Though all this is understandable, it is also troubling.

尽管这一切都可以理解，却还是会令人不安。

Tapping away at a laptop and smartphone from the discomfort of a sick person’s bedroom is not as dangerous as driving a forklift.

身体不适的病人在卧室里敲击笔记本电脑和智能手机，并不像开叉车那么危险。

It nevertheless carries risks—both for the ill-disposed individual and their employer.

但还是有风险的--无论是对病人还是他们的雇主。

And it isn’t just covid, whose common symptoms include brain fog.

不仅仅是常见症状包括脑雾的新冠病毒。

Any bug brings fatigue.

任何疾病都会让人疲劳。

Being even mildly sick can impair brain function as much as high altitude, whose effect can feel like a bad hangover.

即使是轻微的疾病也会损害大脑功能，就像高海拔一样，让人感觉经历了一场严重的宿醉。

It is difficult to exercise proper judgment if one cannot focus on the task at hand.

如果一个人无法专注于手头的任务，就很难做出正确的判断。

It is why people with lower oxygen concentration sometimes remove protective clothes atop Mount Everest; some freeze to death.

这就是为什么缺氧的人有时会在珠穆朗玛峰顶上脱下防护服；其中一些人甚至会因此冻死。

Firing off emails while feeling dizzy and depleted will put the body under further stress and also risk being incoherent.

在感到头晕和疲惫的情况下发电子邮件会让身体承受更大压力，还可能会让人语无伦次。

Soldiering on may make the employee both sicker and less productive for longer.

硬撑着工作可能会加重员工病情，还会延长工作效率低的时间。

Digital presenteeism, for that is what such persisting amounts to, is in no one’s interest.

数字出勤主义就是这种硬撑的后果，对任何人都没好处。

Resisting it is therefore important.

因此，避免这种后果很重要。

You don’t need to have a blood transfusion or liver transplant to feel that you have earned a bit of time off.

没必要去输血或做肝移植来获取一点休息时间。

Sleeping soundly can restore body and spirit.

睡个好觉就可以帮助身体和精神恢复。

Staring at the ceiling gives you time to take stock of your harried life.

盯着天花板可以给你时间审视繁忙的生活。

Do not worry about being judged to be shirking.

不要担心会被别人认为是在逃避工作。

True laziness cannot be disguised—if someone is malingering, chances are that their bosses already know.

真正的懒惰是无法掩饰的--如果有人装病，很可能他们的老板早就心知肚明了。

In the world of flexible working, managers can lead by example, taking the occasional day off when suffering from a cold.

在灵活办公的世界里，经理们可以以身作则，在感冒时偶尔请一天假。

Why not use it as an opportunity to delegate tasks?

为什么不把这作为委派任务的机会呢？

This tends to build trust in a team and helps appraise subordinates’ strengths and weaknesses.

这往往会在团队中建立信任，并有助于评估下属的优缺点。

The dust will eventually settle on work habits in the hybrid era.

混合办公时代的工作方式终究会尘埃落定。

When it comes to illness, they will hopefully settle somewhere close to where they were in pre-covid days.

病假规定有望与疫情前大同小异。

Being sick is part of the human condition.

生病无可避免。

It is not going away.

不会消失。

Nor should sick days.

病假也一样。

Bartleby remembers lying on the sofa recovering from a stomach bug in New York 17 years ago, undisturbed by colleagues and untroubled by thoughts of work.

笔者还记得17年前在纽约的时候，因为胃病躺在沙发上，既没有同事打扰，也不受工作困扰。

The next time she is ailing, she will not be on Slack.

下次她生病时，不会再用Slack软件工作了。

Instead, she will listen to her managers and sign off.

而是会听取经理们的意见，休病假。

来源：经济学人