【英语生活】你会用保姆吗？

Rob Lowe and his wife Sheryl have been having bad luck with childcare recently. The actor, who played the gorgeous Sam Seaborn in The West Wing, has just filed lawsuits against two ex-nannies accusing them respectively of spreading “malicious lies” and of blackmail.

In a bizarre blog last week on the website The Huffington Post, Lowe claimed that one of the nannies had demanded $1.5m – or else she would publicise “a vicious laundry list of false terribles”.

This raises all sorts of questions, in particular, how a laundry list can be vicious and what “false terribles” might be.

Yet whatever they are, there is one comforting thing about them. If a nanny spreads false terribles you can sue and, with any luck, win.

What is more alarming is the laundry list of true terribles that nannies know. No man is a hero to his valet; and no woman is a heroine to her children's nanny.

The stars try to protect themselves against true terribles by making nannies sign confidentiality agreements. Madonna, Cherie Blair and the Beckhams have all moved to silence nannies who threatened to lift the apron on their domestic lives.

But for the rest of us, nannies sit on a stack of information that has a high potential price, if not to the media, then to our employers.

Corporate recruiters seem quite unaware of this. If I were choosing someone for a managerial position I would chuck out all the psychometric tests and references that reveal so little and go for the “nanny test” instead. There is only one problem with this test – it doesn't work with people who don't have nannies or with men who leave it all up to their wives. Otherwise it is perfect.

Managing a nanny is management at its most extreme. The stakes are gigantic: getting someone else to look after our children is the biggest act of delegation that any of us ever does. You need to find someone good, you need to get them to stay, and you need to keep them happy. This isn't easy in a job that is poorly paid, has no career progression and involves much wiping of bottoms.

Any candidate who has employed a succession of nannies fails my nanny test outright and should be rejected for any managerial position. They are either bad judges of people or bad at motivation. You don't want either type as a manager in your company.

Neither would you want to employ someone who has a spying nanny cam in their house. Such a person might be fine as a compliance officer on a bank's dealing floor, but otherwise should be turned down at once.

Likewise, candidates who force their nannies to fill in time sheets saying how the baby spent every minute of the day and how much avocado puree was spooned into it should be rejected. Micro-managers make terrible leaders.

By contrast, those who pass the nanny test are those who keep nannies happy for a long time. A friend recently phoned to say she had just bought a dog in order to give her long-serving nanny something to look after when the children were at school. The dog had eaten my friend's favourite leather coat and shat on the floor; but she said she didn't really mind. The nanny was happy and so it was worth it.

The nanny test proves my friend to be a woman who finds imaginative solutions to problems, who is clear about priorities and who knows how to compromise. I would offer her a top management job at the double, only she has a powerful one already.

As the developer of this test, I have made myself its first proper guinea pig. On paper I fare very well indeed. Our nanny worked for us for 15 years, and left last year only because she had moved out of London. We all loved her – both for herself alone and for her spaghetti bolognese.

Last week, I phoned her and told her about my test and asked her if she wouldn't mind commenting on my skill as a manager. She politely hummed and hawed and, after a lot of prompting, said she didn't like the haphazard way I arranged the food in the fridge. I took this on the chin, and she added that she didn't like the way I stacked the dishwasher either. Then, emboldened, she ventured that actually she wasn't mad about the “total chaos” of the house and the way that there were socks down the back of the tumble drier.

I was a little hurt, but said never mind the socks, what about my ability as a people manager? She said she'd have a think and get back to me. A few minutes later the phone went.

“I don't want you to take this the wrong way,” she said, which is never a good start.

“But I think the reason I stayed with you all those years was your total lack of involvement.”

I did feel a little inclined to take this the wrong way. I had hoped she would mention my skills as a mentor, friend, team player.

But then I thought about it and realised she was quite right. Indeed, in a couple of seconds, my nanny test had told me something about myself as a leader. Not only do I not micro-manage, I don't macro-manage either. I recruited someone I trusted with my children's lives and I let her get on with it. The nanny test offers conclusive proof that I am not a manager, and should be turned away if I applied to be one.

最近，罗伯•洛(Rob Lowe)和他的妻子谢乐儿•洛(Sheryl Lowe)在保姆方面遇到了坏运气。这位在《白宫风云》(The West Wing)中扮演帅哥山姆•希伯恩(Sam Seaborn)的电影明星刚刚将两名曾在他家工作的保姆告上法庭，指控她们散布“恶毒的谎言”及勒索。在Huffington Post网站上一篇非同寻常的博客文章中，洛宣称，其中一位保姆索要150万美元，否则她就会将“一个恶毒清单上的恐怖谎言”公之于众。

这一说法引发了各种各样的问题，尤其是清单到底如何恶毒，而“恐怖谎言”又可能是些什么东西。

然而，不管她们是谁，令人安慰的一点是，如果一个保姆散布恐怖谎言，你可以起诉她，有点运气的话，你还会赢。

更令人担忧的是，这两个保姆所了解的恐怖真相。对于贴身男仆而言，没有哪个男主人是英雄；对于孩子的保姆而言，也没有哪个女主人是十全好人。

明星们会通过让保姆签署保密协定来保护自己不受恐怖真相的伤害。麦当娜(Madonna)、切丽•布莱尔(Cherie Blair)及小贝夫妇(Beckhams)都已行动起来，去封住那些威胁公布其家庭生活情况的保姆的嘴。

但对于我们其他人而言，保姆坐拥一堆有着极高潜在价值的信息，就算媒体不感兴趣，我们的雇主也一定有兴趣。

企业招聘者似乎对此不太了解。如果我要选择一位经理人的话，我会摒弃那些价值有限的心理测试和推荐信，转而选择“保姆测试”。这里只有一个问题——这个测试不适用于那些没有保姆或是让自己妻子处理一切的人。否则，这个测试相当完美。

管理一名保姆是管理的极致。它代价巨大：让一个外人来照顾我们的孩子，是我们任何人一生中所能做出的最重要的委托授权行为。你需要找到一个不错的人，还要让她们留下来，并且保持开心。在一份收入不高、没有事业发展及需要擦很多屁股的工作中，这并不是一件容易事。

任何雇佣过好几个保姆的候选人，都会直接被我的保姆测试剔除，并且不应进入任何管理岗位。他们要么看人非常不准，要么不善于激励他人。这两种人都不是一家企业想要的经理人。

你也不会想要雇佣一个在家中安装了监控录像的人，这种人可能会胜任一家银行的交易区监察主任一职，但其它工作应该立刻将之拒绝。

同样，那些迫使保姆填写时间表，以描述婴儿如何度过当天每一分钟及吃了多少勺鳄梨羹的候选人也应落选。无所不管的经理人不会成为优秀的领导者。

相对而言，那些通过保姆测试的对象，是那些很长时间以来一直让保姆开心的人。我的一位朋友最近打电话说，她刚刚买了一只狗，目的是让长期以来为自己效力的保姆在孩子上学时有些事儿干。这只狗啃了朋友最喜欢的皮衣，还在地板上拉屎，但她说自己并不真的介意。只要保姆很高兴，这就是值得的。

这个保姆测试证明了我朋友是一个能为问题找到有创意性的解决方案的女人，她清楚事情的轻重缓急，也知道如何去妥协。（我要是老板的话，）我会用双倍工资雇她来担任企业的最高管理职务。不过，她已经有了一份权力很大的工作了。

作为这个测试的发明者，我把自己当成了它的第一个真正实验对象。在纸面上，我的表现很不错。我们的保姆在我们家干了15年，而她之所以会在去年辞职，是因为她离开伦敦搬去了其它地方。我们都很喜欢她和她做的意大利牛肉面。

上周，我打电话给她，向她解释了我的测试，并问她是否不介意就我的管理技能稍加评论。她礼貌地支吾了一会儿。在经过很多鼓励之后，她表示，不太喜欢我凌乱地将食物放入冰箱的方式。我坚强地接受了这一批评。然后，她又补充说，不喜欢我将盘碗放入洗碗机的方式。在胆子大起来之后，她干脆表示，不太喜欢房子里的“彻底混乱”状态，及滚筒烘衣机后面的那些袜子。

我感觉有点伤感情，但表示，别管那些袜子，谈谈我作为一位员工管理者的能力吧。她表示，自己需要想一想再告诉我。几分钟之后，电话响了。

她说：“我不想让你误会我的意思。”可这么开场一般都不是什么好事。

“但我想，自己之所以在你们家待了那么长时间，是因为你完全不会掺和到我所做的事情里来。”

我的确有点要误会她的意思。我本希望，她会提及我作为一名良师益友及团队成员的技能。

但经过考虑之后，我意识到她说的没错。的确，在几秒钟之内，我的保姆测试揭示出了我作为一名领导的情况。我不仅不会无所不管，我简直就是什么都不管。我聘用了一位我可以将孩子的生命交托在她手中的人，然后就放开了手。这个保姆测试确切地证明，我并非一位管理者，如果申请此类工作，应该立刻被拒绝。

译者/石水