【英语社会】办公室停电记

First impressions count. At our office we are careful to make sure that every visitor is made to feel extremely welcome: they are greeted at the door, shown to a meeting room and offered tea, coffee or a cold drink. The person meeting them will be smartly dressed. He or she will smile and offer to take their coat or bag, will show them to the bathroom if required and will generally make them feel special. Even our coffee is special, since my team have long insisted on having those plunger-type filter coffee pots (which I have never worked out how to use), so that they can make it fresh each time.

But even the best-laid plans can sometimes go awry. One day last week the electricity provider for central London discovered a fault and told us at 6pm that we were going to be without power for the rest of the evening while it was repaired. Although I was staying in the office that night (yes, I have a bedroom in the office, how sad is that?), I was going to be out all evening reviewing the papers for the BBC, accompanied by our office manager who was going to stay in the spare room (even sadder). I have to be accompanied by someone as the papers are always full of football stories, which I don't understand at all. Once again, this proved a winning ploy as Thierry Henry had scored an own goal to help send France out of Euro 2008, and for some reason this event had made all the newspapers. Why?

We returned to the office at midnight and found our way upstairs to bed by torchlight. However, the office's emergency lights had all come on in the second bedroom where our office manager was planning to sleep, and couldn't be switched off. So we dragged a mattress to the floor below and she was finally able to go to sleep - only to be woken at 3.30am when the electricity came back on and all the printers sprang into life.

The power didn't stay on for long. At noon it disappeared again, this time with no warning. After being told that there was little chance of it being restored before midnight (leaving us without phones, a door bell and computer access), we decided to send everyone home who didn't have meetings that afternoon. This left a skeleton staff and our IT contractor.

Now, our IT contractor is very good at his job and has looked after us for years, but he has one major disadvantage. He doesn't speak English. I don't know what he does speak as I have never successfully identified it, but on being asked a question (e.g. Why am I suddenly getting spam again?) he replies at length in a language that I don't understand. I have learned to bypass these conversations directly and instead turn to others for translation services, including my office manager (on days when she has had a decent night's sleep).

So when our contractor came into a (darkened) meeting room later that afternoon, and explained that he had let someone in at the front door and what should he do with them, I realised that he had been, for that person, their first encounter with our company. Had he put them in a room? No. Had he offered them a drink? No. Had he even managed to communicate with them in English? I didn't dare ask.

A few days later, and with electricity miraculously restored, I had an early meeting arranged at the office. I was ready and waiting, opened the door myself and let the visitor in. I showed her to the meeting room and offered her a drink. She opted for coffee. I explained that as it was early, the Lovely Lucinda had not yet arrived, and so the coffee would be instant. The visitor looked slightly horrified and said that, in that case, she would prefer tea.

I convened an emergency meeting in the kitchen with the only other person in the office, the summer intern. As with most summer interns, she had a CV that puts mine to shame - a string of A*s at GCSE, straight As at A-level and on course for an impressive degree at Bristol. Plus a list of achievements that showed her to be impossibly musically talented. However, there was nothing to indicate that she might be able to operate a coffee plunger. I explained the problem to her. "Leave it to me," she said. "I was a waitress in my gap year." This last, of course, was not on her CV. First impressions may not be accurate.

第一印象很重要。在我们办公室，我们非常注意确保每位来访者都有一种非常受欢迎的感觉：会有人在门口迎接他们，把他们领到会议室，给他们上茶、咖啡或冷饮。与他们见面的人穿着会非常得体。他或她会面带微笑，主动接过他们的外套或手袋，在需要的情况下把卫生间的位置指给他们，而且一般都会让他们感到自己很特别。就连我们的咖啡也很特别，因为长期以来，我的团队一直坚持使用活塞式过滤咖啡壶（我从没学会如何使用它），因此他们每次都能煮出新鲜的咖啡。

然而，智者千虑必有一失。几周前的一天，伦敦中部电力供应商发现了一个故障，他们告诉我们将对线路检修，从晚上6点开始，我们这里将停电。尽管当晚我会呆在办公室（是的，我在办公室里有间卧室，多让人伤心啊？），但我整晚都将出门，与我们的办公室经理一起为英国广播公司(BBC)写报纸评论，她会住在客房里（这更让人伤心）。由于报纸总是充斥着足球报道，而我对足球又一无所知，因此必须有人陪我。事实再次证明，这是一个成功的策略，因为蒂埃里•亨利(Thierry Henry)把球踢进了自家球门，让法国无缘2008年欧洲杯(Euro 2008)，同时出于某些原因，这次事件登上了所有的报纸。怎么会这样呢？





我们在午夜时分回到办公室，打着手电筒上楼来到卧室。然而，在我们办公室经理计划睡觉的第二间卧室，办公室的应急灯全都亮着，而且还没法关掉。于是我们把床垫拖到楼下，她终于能睡觉了——但在凌晨3：30，她又被吵醒了，因为办公室来电了，所有的打印机都工作起来。





供电没有持续多长时间。中午，办公室再次停电，这一次没有警告。在得知午夜前恢复供电的可能性很小（电话、门铃和电脑都无法使用）后，我们决定让那天下午没有会的人都回家，只留下少数员工和我们的IT专员。





我们的IT专员非常能干，多年来一直在照顾我们，但他有一个很大的缺点。他不会讲英语。我不知道他讲的是哪种语言，因为我从来都没听懂过，但在被问到一个问题（例如，我为何突然又收到了垃圾邮件？）时，他会用一种我听不懂的语言详细解答。我学会了干脆不去理会他的话，而是请别人代为翻译，包括我的办公室经理（在她前一晚睡得很好的情况下）。





因此，当我们的IT专员那天下午晚些时候进入（黑漆漆的）会议室，向我们解释说，他让某人留在了前门，不知道该怎么办时，我意识到他是那些人在我们公司见到的第一个人。他领他们到房间里了吗？没有。给他们提供饮料了吗？没有。试着用英语跟他们交流了吗？我连问都不敢问。



几天后，在奇迹般地恢复供电后，我在办公室安排了一次早会。我提前做好准备等在那儿，亲自开门，把来访者引进门。我带她来到会议室，询问她喝什么饮料。她选择了咖啡。我解释道，由于时间还早，可爱的露辛达(Lucinda)还没有到，因此我只能提供速溶咖啡。这位来访者看上去有些吃惊，然后说，如果是那样的话，她更喜欢喝茶。





我在厨房与当时办公室唯一的另外一个人——一位暑期实习生——开了一个紧急会议。与多数暑期实习生一样，她的履历让我汗颜，她的普通中等教育证书考试(GCSE)是一连串的A，A-level每轮考试又都是A，现在正在布里斯托尔大学(Bristol)攻读学位。她还取得了很多的成绩，证明她有着不可思议的音乐才能。不过，履历里没有任何内容表明她也许能操作活塞式咖啡机。我向她解释了问题所在。“让我来吧，”她说道，“我曾在上学期间做过服务生。”当然，这一点没有写在她的履历上。第一印象可能并不准确。

译者/梁艳裳