2009年1月15日

Doing More With Less

最近有朋友開始領失業救濟金,正好是學習、休息的時間。前幾天碰巧又看到言論說救濟金會讓人不想回到職場,所以不該有。或許偏見使然,我總覺得台灣島上三不五時會出現不可思議的愚蠢,長時工作、努力工作、經常工作,大概就是最嚴重的爛觀念之一。

高導的文章「恭喜一位 "Loser" 老友終於出頭天」裡頭提到他的一位朋友寫了一篇"Doing More With Less",講述他如何大半靠失業救濟金生活了六年。這篇文章很適合全文翻譯然後拿來全台演講,最好翻譯成一個名詞大肆推行,假扮專家。其中我特別喜歡這段:
Every once in a while I’ll find myself downtown in the middle of the day and I’ll see all the drones hustling this way and that with their pinched little waddles, looking at their watches and pouring Starbucks into their faces, and I’ll think, my God, I’m the luckiest bastard alive. Maybe I’ll have to pay for it on the back end and work as a Wal-Mart greeter when I’m 85, but then again, I’ll have a lot of company.

At some point recently, probably while you were listening to a Dan Brown audiobook on your commute, those decadent pinko, Socialist, pacifist, cheese-eating, nap-taking, 25-hour-workweek Europeans became the dominant economic power in the world. The EU is the new United States, and the United States is the new...Mexico?

And it’s not my fault, it’s because of people like you! High-earning workaholic assholes like you who feel entitled to buy big houses with gimmick mortgages and drive huge cars that force our government to subsidize gas prices, who run up credit card debt buying products you saw on your Chinese-made big-screen television and then vote Republican so you can pay less than your fair share of taxes!...
試翻譯如下:
每隔一陣子,我會發現自己在大白天身處市中心,看著過往人群像工蜂般嘈嚷穿梭,擁擠搖擺著走路,瞄著手錶,吸幾口星巴客。這時我會想,天啊,我實在是個最幸運的混蛋。或許我最後要付出一些代價,例如在八十五歲時還得當沃爾碼超市的接待員,但至少我到那年紀還有很多同伴。

近來的某一剎那,或許就在你於通勤途中聽丹·布朗(達文西密碼作者)有聲書的時候,那些頹廢、左傾、社會主義、反戰、吃起司、午睡、一週只工作25小時的歐洲人已經變成世界經濟強權了。歐盟就是新的美國,而美國呢,也許是新的...墨西哥?

而這不是我的錯,是你的!就是像你一樣的高所得工作狂,覺得有權買大房子附加一堆貸款、開大型汽車迫使政府補助油價、花光信用卡額度買下那些從你中國製大型電視上看到的各種產品,然後投票給共和黨所以你就可以少付一些應付的稅。...
文中所述當然適用美國,但反觀台灣,會不會有一種悚然的啟發。我們喜歡吹噓自己的競爭力,但那是犧牲個人生命應有豐富、超時而無效率的工作,並且扼殺創造力的老鼠賽跑。我們愚蠢地守在舒適區中,與次級的對手們比賽著生產成本、流血競價、盲目跟隨推出規格更好、價格更低的產品,卻總是抓不到神髓。那麼多首屈一指的人才,困守在故步自封的企業中浪費才能,在跟隨業界而不是讓業界跟隨的懶惰大學教授指導下封印自身發展,拼命熬夜賺錢然後拿去買相機,用處是在資訊展的時候拿來拍追不到的女模特兒。再不就是砸錢買貴到離譜的腳踏車,用來說服自己週末運動可以彌補一週爆肝。是不是該退後一步,看看這一切究竟出了甚麼問題?

外國管理階層當著我面鄙夷的說,"There is no Apple in Taiwan for good reasons." 而我發現無法反駁。從教育著手,並且做得對的話,也許下個十年這些都會不同。經濟蕭條,正好給我們一些空間回顧自身,若不做些改變,還是守著拼命工作蒙頭亂衝的老路,總會有拿得更少、做得更拼的國家跳進來,把惡性循環變得更糟。

最後把以前看到的一段話拿出來分享:

There are three ways to do anything faster:
  1. Work harder.
  2. Work smarter.
  3. Get help.
共勉之。

延伸閱讀:
Really really interesting story

1 則留言 :

  1. There are no Apple in Taiwan for good reasons.
    Right. But IMHO, I think we need to think more what we are good at. We do not need to follow Apple, but creating our own style.
    We had solid basic education in Taiwan.
    However the education also put a lot of mental lock on us.
    Breaking the lock and using the advantage we have. We also can do something strong and good, in our way, with our style.
    I still believe we can change the environment.

    The world is changing, I think the wealthy western countries were the result of credit bubble and labor piracy of the developing world. The world is changing, I believe as the result of globalization, people having good idea, and able to implement the idea will get more chance. It may not happen very fast, but it is changing gradually.

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