【英语生活】给华尔街失业银行家支招

One of the least reported yet most remarkable market movements of the past week was the run on Mars and Snickers bars in the Lehman Brothers vending machines last Monday.For me, this was the image that most sticks in the mind: bankers jostling with each other to liquidate their positions on pre-paid vending cards and turn them into sugar, caramel and fat.

Here was the whole story writ in miniature. Panic, desperation, pettiness and every man for himself. These bankers had lost their livelihoods and were saying goodbye to colleagues, and their knee-jerk response on leaving the office was to storm the vending machines.

"Sickening," a friend said disapprovingly. "They were paid so much and there they were scrambling for the last Mars bar."

I don't agree that it was sickening. In its mad, upside-down way, it made perfect sense. In fact, I'd like to make a prediction: those who cashed in on Mars bars will be the ones who adapt best to their horrid new circumstances.

For a start they were behaving just as bankers should behave. Unwinding the catering contracts and taking delivery of confectionery showed a desire to balance books, an attention to detail, an abhorrence of waste and a desire to claim assets that rightfully belonged to them rather than let others claim them.

Concentrating on chocolate also made sense in psychological terms. To respond to something enormous and unmanageable by doing something small and precise is a sign of top mental health. And a shot of chocolate when things are bad is a tried and tested way of cheering oneself up.

"A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play," said the ad. But, on that black day, "work" was taken out of the equation, leaving rest and play for the bar to help with.

This strikes me as a good way to start; indeed, as an agony aunt, my advice to those who lost their jobs last week - at least to those with some money in their pockets - is to spend the immediate future on rest and play.

This advice runs counter to that being churned out by what I like to think of as the agony aunt community. Jack and Suzie Welch, the king and queen among purveyors of management wisdom, have been offering the newly unemployed a strong brew of folksy emotion and empty urgency. "We're really sorry for the sense of loss . . . The shock, sadness, anger and confusion."

Their suggestion? "Don't be hungry for the past. We urge you to thirst for the future instead." Then they point out that Wall Street isn't hiring and so suggest changing careers or moving somewhere else. "Start chasing leads today," they say.

Bad advice. Yes, we all know Wall Street is not hiring: that is what the fuss is about. And we know that some of the ex-bankers will find re-employment in other places and careers. But my advice: don't start chasing leads today. Have a bit of a think and work out if you really want to move to Dubai, or retrain as a priest, before doing anything silly.

Other career coaches have been producing industrial quantities of lame advice, too. Think what you are good at. Network like crazy. Dig out the old business cards. Dust down your CV. Assess your strengths and weaknesses. Build a better web presence. Be flexible. Read self-help books. And so on.

Ordinary job-seeking advice doesn't work in times like these. It is too late to do sensible things. Even if you have a great network it may not get you anywhere as everyone is in the same position. On Monday last week I had lunch with someone who works for a corporate finance boutique, and who might even have a job or two going. But since Sunday night his phone has rung and rung from people he knows well and has worked with. Sorry, sorry, he had to keep saying.

Even the advice being handed out to those who have not yet lost their jobs seems laughably wide of the mark. There is a solemn piece in the latest issue of Harvard Business Review giving three tips on how to hold onto a job in a downturn. First you have to "act like a survivor", then you have to show empathy to your boss and finally be a "good corporate citizen", which means turning up to absolutely everything. I can't see any of this helping much: its only effect would be to make doing your job so loathsome that you might not be sorry if you ended up losing it.

Unemployed bankers are in a world that has gone beyond pat advice. Only four things can help, none of which can be found in self-help books or learnt from an agony aunt.

The first is having a tidy pile of savings, safely stashed under the bed, or better, in gold bars. If you saved enough money for a rainy day you can now use it to take a long holiday in the sun.

Otherwise what you need is character. This terrific word is sadly out of fashion, but what it stands for is needed in tough times. It is about backbone and level-headedness.

Character will also help with the third thing you will need: perseverance. Finding another job may take a while and will cost a lot in shoe leather.

And finally the thing that will sort out winners from losers even more than a long position in Mars bars: luck. When the supply of labour vastly exceeds the demand, those that get work aren't necessarily the best. They are the luckiest.

最近，报道最少、却最引人注目的市场举动之一，是雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)自动售货机里的玛氏条(Mars)和士力架(Snickers)被抢购一空。对我来说，这场景最难以忘怀：银行家们争先恐后，纷纷把自动售货卡内的预付款变成糖果、焦糖和脂肪。

简言之，整个情形如下：恐慌、绝望、小气，每人都自私自利。这些银行家丢了饭碗，在与同事告别，而他们离开办公室时的第一反应，就是奋力冲向自动售货机。

我一个朋友不以为然地说：“真让人讨厌。他们薪酬那么高，最后却连几根玛氏条也要争。”

我倒不觉得很讨厌。虽然比较疯狂，有些本末倒置，但完全合乎情理点。事实上，我想做一个预测：将预付款兑现为玛氏条的那些人，将最适应他们身边这个可怕的环境。

首先，他们的行为正是一个银行家应有的。结清餐饮合同，拿走糖果零食，表明他们渴望平衡资产负债表，关注细节，憎恶浪费，希望拥有合法资产，而不是让其他人取走。

从心理角度看，关注巧克力也有一定的意义。做一些小而拿得准的事，来回应那些巨大而难以掌控的事，是心理健康状态最好的信号。经过验证，情况变糟时，一块巧克力可以让人变得兴奋。

玛氏条的广告语是“一天一根玛氏条，帮你工作、休息和玩耍。”不过，就在最近那个黑色星期一，“工作”已从等式中去掉，只剩下了休息和玩耍需要玛氏条的帮助。

这我倒是突然觉得是个开头的好办法。的确，作为知心姐姐，我对丢掉工作的人——至少是口袋里有一些钱的人——的建议是，把最近的时间用来休息和玩耍。

这个建议与我认为的知心姐姐群体给出的诸多建议相悖。管理智慧教皇皇后杰克•韦尔奇(Jack Welch)和苏西•韦尔奇(Suzie Welch)一直在给刚失业的人造成一种既平易近人的情绪、又让人觉得空落落的紧张感。“我们对失落感深表遗憾……震惊、悲伤、愤怒和慌张。”

他们的建议是什么呢？“不要沉湎于过去。相反，我们强烈建议你憧憬未来。”接着他们指出，华尔街不会招人，因此建议失业者改变自己的职业生涯，或者搬到其它地方去。他们说：“今天就开始找路子。”

建议真糟。不错，我们都知道华尔街不会招人：这就是问题的关键。我们也知道，某些失业的银行家将会在其它地方、其它职业领域重新找到工作。但我的建议是：今天就别开始找路子了。干蠢事前，先想一想，想清楚自己是否真的想去迪拜，或者重新受训成为牧师。

其它职业顾问也一直在不停地大量制造站不住脚的建议。想想你擅长什么。最大限度地利用人际关系。翻出那些旧名片。重新改装简历。评估自己的优势和弱势。建立更好的在线互动。灵活一些。阅读一些自助方面的书籍。诸如此类。

平常找工作的建议在当今行不通。现在做些明智的事已为时太晚。即使你人际关系非常棒，可能也无法帮上你忙，因为每个人的处境都一样。最近，我与某个在一家企业财务专业公司工作的人共进午餐，当时他或许还有一到两个职位缺人。近来，深交和往日同事就一直打他电话。他只好不停地抱歉。

就算是给那些尚未失业的人的建议，也似乎离谱得可笑。最新一期的《哈佛商业评论》(Harvard Business Review)上有一篇非常严肃的文章，给出了经济低迷时期如何保住工作的三条小建议。首先，你的行为举止必须“像一个幸存者”，然后你必须忠于你老板，最后你要做一个“良好的企业公民”——这意味着你必须对一切事物表示出热心。我看不出这些建议有多大帮助：它唯一的影响将会是使你的工作如此令人讨厌，如果你最终失去工作，你或许不会感到遗憾。

失业银行家现在所处的环境，需要的已不仅是敷衍了事的建议。只有四件事能有所帮助，而任何一个都不会在自助书或知心姐姐那里学到。

第一，有一笔数量可观的储蓄，安全地藏在床底下，或者更好一点，藏在金条内。如果你未雨绸缪时储存的钱足够多，你现在就可以用它去好好地度个长假。

否则你得很有个性。令人遗憾的是，这个非常好的词不再流行了，但它所代表的东西却是艰难时期所需要的，即个人的勇气和冷静。

个性还有助于第三个你需要的东西：毅力。再找一份工作可能会花上一段时间，并且会费掉不少皮鞋。

最后，要区分成功者与失败者，比拥有玛氏条购物卡更加重要的一点是：运气。劳动力供给大大超过需求时，那些得到工作的人不一定都是最棒的。但他们是最幸运的。

译者/董琴