【英语生活】美妙假期为何不休？

With any luck, around the time this article appears I shall be striding lustily along a windswept beach in Northumberland in the north-east of England. Starting out from the village of Craster, we will walk round the bay to Dunstanburgh castle, and be back in time for a pint of beer, crab sandwiches and a quick visit to Robson's to pick up some oak-smoked kippers.

Thoughts like these can help you get through the day. As the old saying goes, all work and no play makes for a really boring columnist. But with the holiday season (and survey season) approaching, the evidence suggests that overworking managers are, as usual, resisting the appeal of the beach or the mountain top in favour of the in-tray, the personal computer and the BlackBerry.

It is worse than you think. Even Australians are working too hard. "The serial non-leave takers are35- to 49-year-old males," according to Scott Morrison, managing director of Tourism Australia. In May his organisation published research that claimed that Australian employees have accrued an astonishing 70m days of leave, or 14m weeks.

Together with the Australian Human Resources Institute, the Aussie tourist board has launched a "No Leave, No Life" pilot programme with 11 employers, to find ways to encourage staff at all levels to take their full allocation of holiday.

This project coincides rather neatly with the tourist board's global television campaign that you may already have seen. The advertisement shows spectacular examples of Australian fauna and flora, culminating with a charming young woman standing in her bikini on a beach, who asks: "So where the bloody hell are you?" "Still in the office" would seem to be her compatriots' most likely answer.

In Britain the picture, if not the scenery, is the same. A survey last month from the Chartered Management Institute revealed that63 per cent of managers are failing to take all their holiday. Indeed, since the chances of claiming a full 25-30 days of holiday seem so slim, nine in 10 of those surveyed said they would like to trade in part of their holiday allowance for cash or other flexible benefits. Even when managers do get away, one-quarter check e-mails and voicemail messages, and 13 per cent call the office at least once a week.

Too many of us are working too hard - and too inefficiently - for too long. Whatever happened to the great "leisure society"? It seems that you have to put in a high pressure, 60- to 70-hour week just to afford a little piece of it.

This is a worldwide phenomenon. Even those supposed holiday addicts in Germany and France are having to reconsider their approach, with large employers such as Siemens and Volkswagen renegotiating working hours, while French public opinion turns against the restrictions of the 35-hour week. As far as the US is concerned, the concept of "25-30 days of holiday" mentioned above will have had unsuspecting readers falling off their chairs.

The Japanese term for "No Leave, No Life" is karoshi - literally, death from overwork; and the Japanese are arguably the world champion overworkers. On average, they take less than half of their annual holiday, and that figure is falling year by year. "Service overtime" is a Japanese euphemism for unpaid overtime - of which there is plenty.

But as the Financial Times reported last month, the Japanese ministry of health, labour and welfare (a revealing departmental name) has decided to try to call time on the culture of overwork.

In a policy paper to be presented to parliament next year, the ministry suggests that workers who put in more than 40 hours of overtime a month should earn an extra day off the following month. Employers should also have to pay a higher rate for overtime above 30 hours, the paper argues.

There is a wealth of evidence that overwork can do serious harm to individuals' health and personal lives - never mind the damaging effect that tired bodies and minds will have on a business's attempts to raise productivity levels or improve customer satisfaction.

Wrse, there may be a conspiracy of silence that prevents corporate leaders from finding out how serious the company's health problems may be. Another CMI survey from earlier in the year revealed that only one in three managers who suffered ill health told their boss about it.

On average, managers in the UK take just 3.19 days off a year due to sickness - around half the rate recorded by other staff. But intriguingly, the absence rate for managers who worry most about their productivity levels - the ones who are prepared to admit that they have been less productive - was much higher, at over nine days a year.

"Health is wealth", as they say in India. You don't have to tell Michael O'Neill that. Remember the name? The former marine and Bank of America executive was due to take over from Martin Taylor as chief executive of Barclays Bank in 1999, when he declared himself unfit to take up the post after learning that he had an irregular heartbeat - although in hindsight Barclays' shareholders may not have been too disappointed by his replacement, Matt Barrett.

Relax. Take it easy. Take a chill pill. Take your holiday. And remember the wise words of Ronald Reagan, the former US president: "I know they say hard work never killed anyone, but I figure, why take the chance?"

幸运的话，在这篇文章发表之际，我将健步走在英格兰东北部诺森伯兰郡海风吹拂的沙滩上。我们将从克雷特村(Craster)出发，沿着海湾走到邓斯坦伯城堡(Dunstanburgh)，然后及时返回，喝上一品脱啤酒、吃几片蟹肉三明治，最后匆匆去一趟罗布森商店(Robson's)，买一些橡木熏鲱鱼……

这样的想法能帮你打发日子。就像古老谚语所说那样，成天工作、没有娱乐将造就一个真正乏味的专栏作家。但随着假日季节（和调查季节）的临近，有证据表明，操劳过度的经理人们正一如既往的抵制着海滩或山顶的诱惑，而选择了文件盒、个人电脑(PC)和黑莓(BlackBerry)。

情况比你想象的还要糟糕。甚至连澳大利亚人都在不要命地工作。澳大利亚旅游局(Tourism Australia)行政总裁斯科特•莫里森(Scott Morrison)表示：“连续不休假的人都是35岁至49岁的男性。”该机构5月份发表的一份研究报告显示，澳大利亚员工总共积累了令人吃惊的7000万天（或1400万周）假期。

澳大利亚旅游局与澳大利亚人力资源协会(Australian Human Resources Institute)联合11家雇主，推出了一个名为“没有假期，就没有生活”(No Leave, No Life)的试验计划，以设法鼓励所有级别的员工修满假期。

与上述计划同步进行的还有该旅游局发起的全球电视宣传活动。后者你可能已经看到过，它的广告有展示了澳大利亚部分引人入胜的动植物景观，在广告结尾处，一位年轻迷人的比基尼女郎站在海滩上问道：“嘿，你到底在哪？”——“还在办公室”，这似乎会是她的同胞们最可能说出的答案。

在英国，虽然度假的风景不同，但度假的“情景”也一样。英国特许管理学会(Chartered Management Institute)上月进行的一项调查披露，63%的经理人不能休掉全部的假日。实际上，由于全部休完25至30天假期的几率似乎很小，有90%的受调查者表示，他们愿意用部分休假来换取现金或其它较为灵活的福利。即使经理人真的去度假，其中也有四分之一要查阅电子邮件和语音留言，还有13%的人至少每周要给办公室打一次电话。

在我们中间，有太多的人太过努力地工作了太长的时间——而且效率太过低下。伟大的“休闲社会”(leisure society)到底怎么了？似乎你必须承担沉重的压力，比如一周工作60至70小时，才能享受一点点的“休闲”。

这是一种全球性的现象。即便是那些被认为是休假有瘾的德国人和法国人，也不得不重新考虑他们的生活方式。西门子(Siemens)和大众汽车(Volkswagen)等大型雇主都在就工作时间进行重新谈判；而法国的公众舆论也反对将一周的工作时间限制在35小时。就美国而言，上文提到的“25至30天假期”的概念，会把深信不疑的读者惊得从椅子上掉下来。

“没有假期，就没有生活”的日语说法就是“过劳死”——从字面上解释，就是工作过度导致死亡。虽有争议，但日本人在工作过度方面可能是世界冠军。平均下来，他们休的年假还不到应休天数的一半，而这个数字还在逐年下降。“超时服务”是日语中对于无报酬加班的一种委婉说法——在日本，这种情况非常之多。

不过，正如英国《金融时报》上月报道的那样，日本健康、劳动和福利省（这个部门的名头可真有启迪意义)已经决定，将努力叫停这种过度工作的文化。

在一份将于明年呈送日本国会的政策文件中，该部门建议，每月加班超过40小时的员工，应该在后一个月额外得到一天休假；此外，雇主应该为30小时以上的加班时间支付更高的补贴。

大量证据表明，过度工作对人的健康和个人生活有严重损害。此外，身心俱疲对企业提高生产力水平或客户满意度的努力具有破坏性影响，这就更不用说了。

雪上加霜的是，工作环境中可能会出现一种“集体失语”现象，使企业领导无从发现公司的健康问题到底有多严重。今年早些时候公布的另一份英国特许管理学会调查表明，只有三分之一健康状况不佳的经理人会将这种情况报告老板。

平均而言，英国经理人每年只休3.19天病假，约为其它员工的一半。但令人好奇的是，最担心自己生产力水平的经理人——那些随时准备承认自己的生产效率一直比较低的经理人，其缺勤率要高得多，每年在9天以上。

印度人有句话叫“健康即财富”。你用不着把这话告诉迈克尔• 奥尼尔(Michael O'Neill)——还记得这个名字吗？1999年，这位前海军军人、美国银行(Bank of America)高管本来要接替马丁•泰勒(Martin Taylor)，出任巴克莱银行(Barclays Bank)首席执行官，但在得知自己有心律不齐的毛病后，他宣布自己不适合担任该职位——从事后来看，取代他的马特•巴雷特(Matt Barrett)也没有令巴克莱的股东们太过失望。

放松点，悠着点，歇一歇，休个假。请记住美国前总统罗纳德•里根 (Ronald Reagan)睿智的名言：“我知道他们说过，从来没有人因为拼命工作而丢掉性命，但是我觉得，干嘛要冒这个险呢？”

译者/ 何黎