【英语生活】让人生气的“环保日”

Last Friday, when others were toiling away as usual in the office, the 5,000 employees of the National Trust were at home changing light bulbs and making compost toilets on their allotments.

The stately homes charity decided to give all its workers February 29 off, and told them to spend it making their own, less-stately homes greener. Each was given a list of things they could do: insulate the loft; install a water meter; put a water hippo in the toilet cistern; turn the heating thermostat down and so on.

To ensure that staff were actually doing these things – rather than watching daytime television and getting pizza delivered – they were told to fill in a form saying what they had done, and to take photos of their efforts to prove it. Today, one assumes, they will all be passing around snaps, oohing and aahing over each others' pictures of water meters and close-ups of PVC sealant inserted into draughty gaps.

The scheme sounds a splendid thing. Goodwill is created twice: first by giving staff a day off, and then by getting them to do the things that they knew they ought to do but hadn't found time for. Hearts are warmed quite a lot and the planet is cooled an infinitesimally tiny bit. How many National Trust staff does it take to change a light bulb? Well, assuming they do one each, that means 5,000 low energy light bulbs, which is better than nothing.

Yet the more I think about this great green day, the more uneasy I feel. I like the idea of a day off on leap day: given that companies budget on a 365 day basis, on February 29 we are really providing our labour for nothing. What I don't like is being told how to spend it.

Particularly I don't like the idea of my employer having anything to do with my set-up at home. The state of my toilet cistern concerns me alone.

In fact, any suggestions on what I do outside work hours are unwelcome. I remember a few years ago all of us at the FT were given an additional £60 in recognition of our hard work, and were told to use the money to take our partners out to dinner to thank them for their patience.

Even this made me bridle. Don't you tell me what to spend my money on, I thought, and don't presume I have a partner at all, let alone a patient one. I'll spend the whole lot on Bacardi Breezers and drink them all myself, if I feel like it.

But at least it was meant kindly and we weren't asked to bring in receipts for the meal the next day or photos of us as couples smiling at each other across restaurant tables.

Yet at the National Trust the process may go further. The charity is working at ways of making compliance with green schemes part of its appraisal process. This could mean people who simply changed one lightbulb at home could get promoted more slowly than those who went the whole way and installed solar panels. The end goal – to use less energy – may be admirable. The means are not: this isn't North Korea.

The National Trust isn't alone in thinking leap day a good day for totalitarianism. Feelgood Drinks put out a press release last week saying that it had told staff not to come into work: “We can all have the day off if we want to . . . as long as we use it to spread some feelgoodness. Seems fair enough!”

Only it doesn't feel fair enough. This announcement makes me more than uneasy – it makes me queasy too.

The march of companies into our lives started a long time ago. Once upon a time the working day used to last from nine to five. But then working hours started getting longer and companies started arranging our childcare and delivering our dry cleaning.

More recently they have taken an interest in our health and fitness or “wellness”, as it is now called. This is sinister, though makes some sense in that sick workers are worse for profits than healthy ones. However, this latest foray into our moral lives is insupportable.

Big companies, especially banks and especially in the US, are leaning heavily on employees to support their charitable initiatives and punishing those that don't. One senior investment banker recently wrote to me in my capacity as office agony aunt complaining that at her annual appraisal she had been told off for not getting involved in the bank's charity work. She felt – quite rightly – indignant.

Two readers wrote in to say that this was mean-spirited and being a moral and rounded manager involved giving time to charity. That's as may be; but it isn't the employer's responsibility. Indeed, if banks really do start appraising employees on the grounds of who has given most time to charity they may find that they are in even greater financial trouble than they are at present.

Charity has a place in the office but only when it is closely related to the business. Then it is fine to get staff to join in, but only if they wish to do so. If they don't wish to, that should be fine too.

As for the National Trust, I wonder if combating global warming is absolutely central to what it does. Indeed, if the climate gets a little warmer, that surely will encourage more tourists to the UK, and with the sun shining down they can traipse in ever larger numbers around the stately homes and gardens of Britain

前一阵子，当其他人像往常一样在办公室埋头苦干时，英国国民信托(The National Trust)的5000名雇员正在家完成分派给自己的任务，或是换灯泡，或是把厕所改造成环保厕所。

这个豪华古宅慈善机构决定在2月29日给全体员工放假一天，让他们把自己不那么雄伟的住宅变得更加环保。每个人都收到一份清单，上面列出了他们可以做的事：隔出一个阁楼；安装一个水表；在马桶水箱里安一个节水器；调低空调温度；等等。

为了确保员工们确实是在做这些事（而不是大白天看电视、叫比萨外卖），公司要求员工填一张表，写明自己做了什么，还要拍下照片，以资证明。可以想象，3月份上班第一天，他们一定会互相传阅照片，对着彼此的水表照片和插入通风口的聚氯乙烯密封材料大特写，不停地发出啧啧赞叹。

这个计划听起来妙极了。善意得到双重体现：首先是给员工放一天假，然后是让他们做了一些知道自己应该做、但没有找到时间去做的事情。人心温暖了许多，地球的温度也有些许下降。换一只灯泡需要多少国民信托的员工？假设他们每人换一个，那就是5000个节能灯泡，总比无所作为要强。

然而，我越琢磨这个伟大的环保日，就越觉得别扭。我喜欢闰日放假一天这个创意：公司预算都是按365天做的，2月29日这天我们确实干活也是白干。我不喜欢的是让别人来告诉我该怎么过这一天。

我尤其不喜欢让雇主跟我家里的构造扯上关系。我的马桶水箱怎么样，只是我自己的事。

其实，任何涉及我工作之余该干什么的建议都很讨厌。我记得几年前，为表彰我们的辛勤工作，英国《金融时报》给每个人都多发了60英镑，并告诉我们要用这笔钱带伴侣外出用餐，以感谢他们的忍耐。

就连这件事也让我光火。用不着你来告诉我怎么花自己的钱，你凭什么假设我有个伴侣，而且伴侣还有耐心？如果我乐意，我可以把这笔钱都用来买百加得冰锐(Bacardi Breezer)预调朗姆酒，一个人都喝了。

不过，至少那还是出于好意，而且没人要求我们第二天带上餐费收据，或者是我们俩隔着餐桌相视而笑的照片。

然而，在国民信托，情况就不止于此了。这个慈善机构试图把是否遵守环保计划纳入了评估机制。这可能意味着，只在家换了一个灯泡的人，升迁速度可能远远赶不上那些全面贯彻节能措施、甚至安装了太阳能电池板的人。终极目标——减少能源使用——也许确实值得赞赏，手段却让人不敢苟同：这儿不是朝鲜。

并非只有国民信托才认为闰日是实行极权主义的好日子。好感觉饮料公司(Feelgood Drinks)上周发布了一篇新闻稿，宣布已经通知员工不用来上班：“如果我们愿意，这一天都可以放假……只要我们把它用来散布一些‘好感觉'就可以。这好像很公平！”

只是感觉并不很公平。这份声明不只让我觉得别扭，还让我感到恶心。

很久以前，公司就侵入了我们的生活。从前，工作日就是朝九晚五。但后来，工作时间开始延长，公司开始为我们安排子女的照管，还为我们送衣物去干洗。

更近一些时候，它们对我们的健康产生了兴趣。这可谓用心险恶，尽管从患病员工没有健康员工赚钱的角度来说，这样做是由一定道理的。不过，这种对我们道德生活的最新进犯是不能容忍的。

大公司，特别是银行，特别是美国的银行，严重依赖于雇员来支持自己的慈善行动，它们会惩罚那些不配合的员工。一位资深投资银行家最近写信给我的专栏《知心凯拉韦》，抱怨她的老板在她做年度评估时，责备她没有参加该银行的慈善活动。她觉得很愤怒（这种感觉很对）。

两位读者写信来说，这样做很卑鄙，花时间做慈善的经理是一位品行端正的经理。也许是这样吧。但是，这不是雇主的职责。实际上，如果各家银行真的开始根据从事慈善活动的时间来评估雇员，那么它们也许会发现，自己在财务上的麻烦要比现在还大。

慈善在办公室里有一席之地，但只能是在与公司业务有密切联系的情况下。如果是那样，就可以让员工参与，但必须要他们自觉自愿。如果他们不愿意，也应该随他们去。

至于国民信托，我不知道对抗全球变暖对它的业务是否真的非常重要。实际上，如果气候变暖一点，肯定会鼓励更多的游客来到英国，在阳光的照耀下，随着不断壮大的人流一起漫步游览英国的豪华古宅与花园。

译者/徐柳