【英语生活】人在职场 身不由己？

This is a horrible story about lies, death, shirking work and angry old women. Its anti-hero is Stephen Ireland who (fittingly) plays football for the Republic of Ireland, but missed an important match a couple of weeks ago as his much-loved maternal grandmother had just died. On reading about her own death in the papers, this old lady protested. Mr Ireland had another think, and decided it was his paternal grandmother who died instead. Alas, this old lady also found news of her death greatly exaggerated and she too told journalists that she was alive – though somewhat hurt. Now desperate, the footballer started digging a third bogus grave, this time for a step-grandmother. Finally, belatedly, he gave up and said sorry: “I would like to apologise to my grandmothers. I have learnt a valuable lesson from this.”

The lesson, surely, is that if one gets caught burying the living, one should stop digging at once.

A more universal lesson was drawn by the fibbing footballer's boss at Manchester City, Sven-Goran Eriksson: “Whatever your problem, keep to the truth. Don't tell lies because that is stupid.”

Sven's counsel might seem wise, but actually isn't. When it comes to explaining why one cannot work, it isn't always stupid to tell lies: it can make a lot of sense. The problem with the truth is that it can be shameful, embarrassing, alarming, too personal – or too implausible. The office is a straight-laced place, and its conventions don't mesh well with the messiness and curiosities of real life.

The real story behind Ireland's absence was that his girlfriend had had a miscarriage. If true, this was a good reason for skipping the game, but one can understand if he didn't wish to discuss the status of his girlfriend's womb with his Republic of Ireland boss, Steve Staunton.

Emotional and romantic things belong outside the office, though sometimes lay us so low they make us unfit for work. A friend who discovered her husband texting his mistress couldn't face the office for a day or two. Migraine was the handy, harmless lie that she chose.

The most common reason for lying about absence is probably alcohol. According to one survey, 10m working days a year are lost to hangovers in the UK – which means close to 10m lies. If you are vomiting and groaning and your skull is banging it makes no sense to go to work and every sense to lie and claim a stomach upset. It would make still more sense not to have got drunk in the first place – though that is a separate issue.

Children also encourage lying. A survey published last week of 1,500 mothers in the UK last week showed that more than half will always tell lies to their employer rather than say the nanny didn't show up. No one wants to make it look as if their children (who, like hangovers, are self-inflicted) make them less reliable workers.

Mental health, or lack of it, is a rich seam for dissembling. Depression, anxiety, panic attacks – all are unmentionable in the office in spite of being almost as common as children. If you make them sound minor – “I can't come in as I'm a bit low” – you sound like a shirker. If you make them sound major, you seem like a nutter.

More trivially, dog-ate-my-homework reasons don't wash either, as they sound so unlikely. A short-sighted acquaintance once took a day off in order to grope around his flat looking for his glasses. He phoned in with the truth, but wasn't believed. A lie would have served him better.

So if hangovers, broken hearts, black moods, children and lost glasses don't work as excuses, what does? The odd thing is that the excuses we use are less solid reasons for absence than the real ones, but they work better as they are mundane and raise no eyebrows.

In the survey, the women who refused to blame nannies for lateness happily blamed bad traffic and broken alarm clocks. Both are lame: if the traffic is bad at rush hour, you should have left earlier. If the alarm didn't work, you probably forgot to set it properly.

Minor illnesses are frequently invoked, and these are feeble too. Working with a cold is completely possible – much easier than with a hangover. But colds are not self-inflicted and it is not alarming or embarrassing to have one.

The best excuse of all is actually the one Stephen Ireland went for – the fake funeral. You don't have to feign illness, it doesn't reflect badly on you and everyone is sympathetic. According to a recent survey, one in five workers admit to having used this (which will put the true figure much higher).

It has two drawbacks. If you get found out you look not only a liar but a worthless worm. Also, if you are even a tiny bit superstitious, you may feel weird to be benefiting from the bogus death of a relative you would like to go on living.

There is a better way, thanks to the internet and BlackBerries. Today I am writing this very column at home as I slept badly last night and am exhausted and look dreadful. Did I phone up to say that I couldn't come in because I was too tired and ugly? No, instead my motto is never apologise, never explain. Just say you are working from home.

The only drawback is that it doesn't work so well if you are a footballer

有一个有关撒谎、死亡、逃避工作和愤怒的老妇人的故事。故事的主角名叫史蒂芬•爱尔兰(Stephen Ireland)，他为爱尔兰国家队踢足球，但却在几周前错过了一场重要的比赛，因为他深爱的外婆刚刚过世。不过，当这位老妇人在报纸上读到自己去世的消息时，她抗议了。爱尔兰先生有了另一个主意，于是宣布，是他的奶奶去世了。可惜，这位老妇人也发现了自己被大肆宣传的死讯，也对记者说，虽然她很受伤，但仍活着。如此之下，这位足球运动员绝望了，他开始挖掘第三座虚拟坟墓，这次是为一位教祖母准备的。姗姗来迟的最后结果是，他放弃了努力，并表示遗憾：“我要向我的祖母们道歉。我从这件事中得到了宝贵的教训。”

毫无疑问，这个教训就是，如果有人正在埋葬一个活人而被当场抓住，那他应该立即停止给人掘墓。

这个撒谎球员在曼城(Manchester City)队的老板斯文-戈兰·埃里克森(Sven-Goran Eriksson)则总结了一个更为普遍的教训：“不管你有什么问题， 一定要讲真话。不要撒谎，因为那是愚蠢之举。”

看起来埃里克森的忠告似乎是明智的，但实际上并非如此。在解释某人为何不能工作时，撒谎并不总是愚蠢的做法，它可能有很大的意义。真相的问题在于，它可能不体面、令人尴尬、令人担忧、太过私人化，或者太过似是而非。办公室是个一丝不苟的场所，这里的习俗与真实生活中的混乱、怪异并不契合得很好。

爱尔兰缺席比赛的真实原因是，他的女友刚刚流产。如果是真的，这是不参加比赛的好理由，但如果他不想与他在爱尔兰国家队的老板史蒂夫• 斯汤顿(Steve Staunton)讨论其女朋友子宫的状况，别人也是可以理解的。

感性和浪漫的东西不属于办公室范畴，虽然有时这些东西让我们如此低沉以至于无法工作。我的一位朋友发现她的丈夫给其情妇发短信后，一两天都无法安坐于办公室，于是她选择了一个方便而无伤大雅的谎言：偏头痛。

醉酒可能是用于掩饰缺席的最常见谎言。根据一项调查，英国宿醉者每年逃掉了1000万个工作日——这意味着有近1000万个谎言诞生！如果你吐了一地、满嘴胡话又头痛欲裂，那你去上班是没有意义的，撒个谎说你胃疼则意义非常之大。当然，如果之前就不喝醉那将意义更大，但这是另外一个问题了。

孩子也常是撒谎的起因。上周对1500位英国母亲进行的一次调查显示，超过半数的人总会向老板撒谎，而不是说保姆没有及时赶到。谁也不想给人这样的印象：她们的孩子(就象宿醉一样都是自己造成的)让她们成了不可靠的员工。

心理健康(或不健康)是被掩饰最多的内容。压抑、焦虑、恐慌发作等，都是在办公室不宜启齿的， 虽然它们和孩子问题一样普通。如果你的表达让它们听起来不算大问题——“我不能去上班了，因为我情绪有点低落”——那么听起来你就象一个开小差的人。

更一般的理由——比如狗把你的家庭作业给吃了之类的——也没什么用，因为它们听起来太假了。一位近视的熟人曾经停了一天的工作，以便在他住的公寓里找眼镜。他打电话请假时说了实话，但却没人肯信。对他而言撒个谎会更合适。

如果宿醉、伤心、情绪糟糕、孩子没人带和眼镜丢了等不能作为借口，那什么还能算借口呢？奇怪之处在于，我们使用的缺席托辞都比实际原因还不可靠，但它们却很管用，因为它们很平凡，不会惹人怀疑。

在上述调查中，那些拒绝责怪保姆迟到的母亲们都很恰当地怪罪于交通拥堵和闹钟失灵。但这两个理由都很蹩脚：如果高峰时段交通拥堵，那你应该早点出门；如果闹钟不闹了，那可能是你忘了将它设定好。

身体的小毛病也常被用作借口，这些理由也很无力。伤风感冒时去工作是完全可能的，这要比宿醉后工作轻松得多。但伤风感冒并不是自己造成的，它不会令人担心或尴尬。

实际上最好的理由就是史蒂芬·爱尔兰选择的内容——虚假的葬礼。你不用装病，对你不会造成很大影响，而且大家都会同情你。根据近期的一项调查，五分之一的员工(真实数字肯定更高)承认，他们曾用过这一招。

这一招有两个缺陷。一旦被戳穿，你将不仅看起来像个惯于说谎者， 而且还像个卑鄙的小人。此外，如果你哪怕有一点点迷信，你也可能会因为胡诌某位亲戚的葬礼而感觉厄运缠身。

感谢互联网和黑莓邮件系统(BlackBerries)让我们有了更好的方式。你正在看的这篇专栏是我今天在家里写的，因为昨晚我睡得很差，感觉精疲力竭，脸色难看之极。我要打电话去说因为我太累、太丑而不去上班吗？不，恰恰相反，我的信条是绝不道歉、绝不解释。只说一句：今天我在家工作。

这个办法的唯一缺陷是，如果你是足球运动员，那它就不大管用了。

译者/力文