【英语生活】企业胡话岂能当真

Investment bankers have been having a terrific laugh this month at the expense of a solemn-faced Yale graduate called Aleksey Vayner. A few weeks ago he applied for a job at UBS and sent, along with an 11-page CV, a brief video explaining why he was so special.

Within days the link to the video, Impossible is Nothing, had been e-mailed all over the globe, and was playing on YouTube to huge audiences.

Just in case you are one of the half dozen people left in the working world who have not yet seen it, I can tell you that it involves almost as many changes of costume as the other workplace film I watched last week, The Devil Wears Prada. But while that film is mildly funny, Impossible is Nothing is uproarious. And while the fictional über-bitch boss in The Devil Wears Prada rings true, the real-life Mr Vayner beggars belief.

In the course of the video, we see him first in a grey suit, then in shorts lifting enormous weights, then in tennis whites demonstrating a fierce serve, then in a tuxedo dancing with a woman in a spangly bikini top, and finally in a karate outfit, chopping a pile of bricks with his bare hand.

As we watch these stunts, Mr Vayner shares his philosophy of success. “If people tell you you can’t, ignore the losers,” he says in a sinister monotone. “Failure isn’t an option. Always push yourself outside your comfort zone.”

Yet what is even funnier than the video itself is how funny bankers seem to find it. And what is even funnier than that is the fact that there is no queue forming to hire this most gung-ho of employees.

Instead of being snapped up, Mr Vayner has become the internet’s latest victim of mass global ridicule and has crawled away under a stone, from where he is muttering about privacy and law suits.

One might even feel sorry for him were it not for the fact that he is so irredeemably ghastly.

Yet that very ghastliness is what most top employers claim to want. Mr Vayner’s assertion that impossible is nothing, though an oxymoron, is a belief shared by many companies. Cadbury Schweppes recently issued a staff rule book in which employees were urged to do the impossible every day. Mr Vayner’s work-hard, play-hard line and his fitness obsession are standard for all employers of alphas.

A visit to the UBS website unearths the toe-curling You & Us campaign, which shows a glamorous young man and woman on a deck with snowy mountain beyond. “Freedom is the possibility of making my dreams come true,” it says. “I excel in what I do.”

Mr Vayner evidently excels at making his dreams come true too, so it is odd that UBS appears not to want him.

He would seem even better qualified for a job at JP Morgan, which, a few years back, ran a series of ads on the extraordinary qualities of individual employees. My favourite was an attractive young woman called Natasha Suakanova. Her personal mission read: “I have never settled for better, when best was within reach. I have zero interest in okay. I have frustrated cynics. I have lit fires. I work for JP Morgan.” Natasha and Aleksey are made for each other.

The reason Mr Vayner’s video has caused such merriment is partly because he looks a prat. It is also because there is a difference between corporate guff and personal guff: no one expects the first to be for real. When these motivational visions suddenly become flesh, they look not just weird but monstrous. Companies might want talent, but they don’t want weirdos.

Mr Vayner should serve as a warning to employers. They should be careful what they wish for. He is the logical consequence of an ever more far-fetched recruitment process.

For their part, companies make increasingly inflated claims of what they are looking for. Even fairly mundane jobs require candidates with unrivalled interpersonal skills and outstanding track records in delivering results. Many application forms require people to dream up the situations in which they showed exceptional leadership skills, which are further invitations to take boasting to the limit.

The result is that everyone is trying to stand out and trying to second-guess what they think is wanted. If one person says they are hardworking, the next says they are Stakhanovite and before long you have someone like Mr Vayner.

This isn’t just a US thing, though doubtless it started there. Thirty years ago in the UK children were still taught that it was rude to boast. Now they know better.

My 15-year-old daughter has recently filled in an application form on which she was asked for three adjectives that describe her. I suggested stroppy, volatile and square-eyed, and got a contemptuous look. Instead she toyed with creative, ambitious and brilliant, finally settling for something a shade more restrained. She already understood the trick – to pretend to be better than you are without raising too many suspicions.

This system of institutionalised boasting has two weaknesses. All of the claims are exaggerated, and all the same, both of which render them quite useless as a way of picking good people. When everyone claims to be a goal-oriented achiever and an outstanding leader, there is no way of sorting out the sheep from the goats.

My fear is that Mr Vayner is ahead of his time and that videos like this will soon be a mainstream way of getting a job. And then recruitment will be a cross between reality TV and video dating. Everyone will be groomed and polished and comfortable with the cameras. Everyone will have two minutes to stand out.

Before we know it, Impossible is Nothing will be nothing. Those who can leapfrog that without managing to look like a prat will be able to land whatever job they like.

投资银行家们在本月把某人取笑了个够。那个可怜虫是一位外表严肃的耶鲁大学(Yale)毕业生，名叫阿列克谢•韦纳尔(Aleksey Vayner)。几周前，他应聘瑞银集团(UBS)的一份工作，递交了一份长达11页的简历，并附上了一个解释自己“特别”在哪些地方的视频短片。

没过几天，这个名为“万事皆有可能”(Impossible is Nothing)的视频短片的链接就通过电子邮件发到了全世界，并在YouTube网站面向无数观众播出。

如是你是全世界上班族中没有看过该短片的最后六个人之一，我可以告诉你，这个短片中的服装变化，几乎与我上周看过的另一部办公室题材的电影一样多，那就是《时尚女魔头》(The Devil Wears Prada)。这部电影只是略有些滑稽，但“万事皆有可能”则令人捧腹大笑。而且，虽然《时尚女魔头》中虚构的风骚女老板似乎确有其人，但现实中的韦纳尔却令人难以置信。

在这部短片中，我们看到他最初身着灰色西服；随后穿着短裤举起巨大的杠铃；然后穿着白色网球服，展现自己猛烈的扣球动作；然后是燕尾服，与一位穿着比基尼的女士跳舞；最后是一身空手道装备，徒手劈开一摞砖头。

在我们观看他的这些绝技时，韦纳尔也与我们分享着他的成功哲学。“如果有人说你不行，不要理会那些失败者”，他阴沉沉地用一种单调的语调说。“失败不是一种选择。要不断地挑战自己。”

然而，比那个视频短片本身更有趣的，是那些银行家们对待这个短片的搞笑态度。更有趣的是，居然没有公司争相聘用这种最具雄心的雇员。

韦纳尔非但没有被迅速聘用，反而成了互联网上最新一个被全世界奚落的可怜虫，消失于某个角落，只听到他在低声嘟哝隐私权和诉讼之类。

事实上，如果他不是如此无可救药地可怕，也许还会有人同情他。

然而，这种“可怕”正是大多数顶级雇主宣称想要的。韦纳尔主张的“万事皆有可能”尽管是一种悖论，却是许多企业共同信仰的东西。吉百利史威士(Cadbury Schweppes)最近发布了一份员工守则，要求雇员每天做“不可能”的事情。韦纳尔的辛苦工作、痛快娱乐的豪言壮语，及其对健康的妄想，是所有一流员工的标准。

访问瑞银集团的网站，你会发现一个题为“你和我们”(You & Us)的吸引人的招聘行动，网页上有一对迷人的年轻男女坐在一个露台上，远处是连绵起伏的雪山。“自由使梦想成为可能，”下边的解说词说道。“我做什么都出类拔萃。”

很明显，韦纳尔在实现他的梦想时也表现出色，因此，瑞银集团不想聘用他，这让人觉得很奇怪。

他似乎更有资格得到一份JP摩根(JP Morgan)的工作。几年前，该公司在一系列广告中描述了个别员工的非凡品质。其中我特别喜欢一位富有魅力的年轻女性，她的名字是娜塔莎•苏瓦卡诺娃(Natasha Suakanova)。她的个人使命为：“当卓越是力所能及之时，我从不会止步于优秀。我对普通没有丝毫兴趣。我令怀疑者失望。我点燃火种。我为JP摩根工作。”娜塔莎与阿列克谢真是天生一对。

韦纳尔的视频之所以成为笑话，一定程度上是因为他看上去像个蠢家伙。另外一个原因是，企业的胡话与个人的扯淡不同：没人会把前者当真。但是，当有人真的成为这些宣传愿景的化身时，他们看上去不仅奇怪，而且可怕。公司或许想要人才，但它们不希望招来怪人。

韦纳尔应作为对雇主们发出的一次警告。它们应该仔细考虑自己想要什么。他是越来越做秀的招聘过程的必然产物。

就公司这方面来说，它们对自己寻求人才的描述越来越夸张。即便是非常平庸的职位，也要求候选者具备无与伦比的人际交往技能，以及出色的业绩纪录。许多申请表要求人们想象一种他们能够表现杰出领导技能的场景，这进一步促使大家极尽所能地吹嘘。

其结果是，大家都试图脱颖而出，都在努力猜测公司想要什么。如果一个人称自己工作努力，那么下一位就会说，他会像斯达汉诺夫（Stakhanovite，前苏联的一个矿工，由于在增产运动中出众的勤劳而受到表彰和奖赏——译者注）一样兢兢业业地工作。不久之后，你就会找到一个像韦纳尔那样的人。

这种情况并非仅在美国存在，但那里无疑是发源地。30年前，英国的孩子接受的教育仍然是：吹牛是粗鲁行为。如今，他们更为理智了。

我15岁的女儿最近填写了一张申请表格，其中要求她用三个词来形容自己。我建议用刁蛮、善变和沉迷网络，结果引来她不屑的表情。相反，她考虑用富有创造性、志向远大和聪明，最终接受了几个略微谦虚一些的词。她已经理解了这种把戏——在不引起太多怀疑的前提下，夸大自己的优秀程度。

这种机制化吹牛体系存在两个弊端。其一，由于所有的话都言过其实，并且千篇一律，导致它们无法用作挑选优秀人才的凭据。其二，当所有人均声称自己是目标导向型人才，是杰出的领导者时，就没有办法区分良莠。

我的担心是，韦纳尔将成为一个潮流的先锋，他的那种视频将很快成为求职的主流方式。届时，招聘活动将成为类似于电视真人秀与视频约会的事物。大家将会修饰打扮一番，并且在镜头之前坦然自若。每个人都将拥有两分钟时间来脱颖而出。

很快，“万事皆有可能”将真的成为可能。那些既能蹦蹦跳跳，又不至于让自己看起来像傻子的人，将能找到自己所喜欢的任何工作。

译者/何黎