【英语生活】凯拉韦：办公室是个谎言堆

I am a liar. The statement doesn’t look pretty on the page, yet it is the truth. Like the Hungarian prime minister, I have lied in the morning, at night and in the evening – although mainly I lie during office hours. My lies are not necessarily whoppers, but are deceptions and distortions. So far today, I have congratulated someone on their new job, even though I think it a complete mystery how they ever got promoted. I e-mailed various readers thanking them for their interesting points, which I actually thought were tedious. I told someone on the phone to “send me the report by e-mail, and I’ll read it” when I knew I wouldn’t – and so it went.

More insidiously, today and every day, I lie to myself by pretending to be something I’m not: a humorous teller of truths, which, given the above, is almost funny.

Yet today I am telling this big unsayable truth by calling myself a liar. Even more unacceptably, I accuse my colleagues of being liars. I accuse my boss, too, and I accuse you, whoever you are. If you work in an organisation, I’d bet my shirt that you are a liar too. We lie individually, we lie in teams and we lie as companies.

Yet the truth about liars is one no one seems ready for. The Labour party conference was almost brought to a standstill last week by Cherie Blair allegedly saying: “Well, that’s a lie” when Gordon Brown declared what a privilege it had been working with her husband. The words were staggering because calling someone a liar is like saying that they are a murderer (odd, seeing that lying is ubiquitous and murdering is not, unless you live in Colombia). The words also shocked for being the only obviously true ones that anyone came across all week.

We may all be liars, but that doesn’t mean the world has gone to the dogs and that we will all fry in hell. Lies are necessary. Politicians have to lie as the electorate will settle for nothing less. Equally the corporate world demands lies. Indeed, it cannot function without them, so we should stop being so hung up about it.

Last week, I was sent a proof copy of a book by David Shulman, a US professor of anthropology, which reinforces the point that deception is a part of office life. From Hire to Liar argues that as most management theory fails to take the lying into account, it cannot therefore shed much light on the business world as we know it.

There are lots of reasons why lying (or distorting or dissembling) is necessary. Workplaces are hierarchies, which involves kissing up and kicking down. Offices are competitive, which means putting your best foot forward, and making yourself look better than you are. It means trashing the competition. Selling anything usually means stretching the truth and seeing things only from one side.

The rules of organisational life also invite workers to cover up any infringements. We lie about taking days off, being late for work or acts of skiving and slacking. Unrealistic targets and budgets make lying essential.

Lying about the work itself is also necessary to keep us doing it. Most jobs are pretty pointless, and confronting oneself with the futility of it all serves no purpose at all. Thus we claim to be passionate about what we do. In all, a corporate world without lies would collapse as fast as a world without money.

A friend who works at an advertising agency has a colleague who is an alcoholic. Recently he joined Alcoholics Anonymous and took various promises, including always to be truthful. When he returned to work he took it upon himself to tell a client during a meeting that they were being overcharged. In a team-building meeting he stood up and said that it was a great big waste of time.

The man became the corporate equivalent of the child who says loudly: look at that big wobbly bottom! and, as such, was far more dangerous as a truth-teller than he had ever been as a drunk.

This doesn’t mean that all routine corporate lying is good. In last week’s Economist magazine, Deloitte placed an ad for a senior job. “Un-economical with the truth” boasted the headline. Yet the very first sentence made a joke of this claim. “It’s no secret that Deloitte offers unparalleled depth and breadth of expertise in professional service”. This, I hope we can all agree, is a lie. It IS a secret that Deloitte offers unparalleled depth of service etc, and a damn well-kept one. Last time I looked, all the accountancy firms offered a parallel service. It is a competitive industry, which means that the big firms are much of a muchness.

The ad goes on: “The brightest sparks come to us for the challenges and rewards of a lifetime.” This isn’t an outright lie, but it isn’t anywhere near true either. I’ve met a couple of people from Deloitte, they weren’t bright sparks nor did they seem to be enjoying the challenges of a lifetime.

What is objectionable about this ad is not the fact that it isn’t true. It’s the fact that the lies fail to convince. The ad is for a “Corporate Eminence Leader” which is a make-believe title, and make-believe is not a good look if your business is audit.

So, here is the point about deception at work: it isn’t wrong per se, it is necessary. But it does need to be believable. If I say to someone I think is an idiot: “Congratulations on your promotion!”, I need to look as if I mean it. More than that, I need to understand the framework: I am not a bad or particularly disingenuous person. I am merely playing by a system of rules that cut across truth and falsehood. It’s a dangerous balance. The lies have to be believable, but somehow you must stop somewhere short of actually believing them. The most dangerous people in business are the ones who believe their own lies

我是一名撒谎者。尽管这一声明写出来有些不雅，但这是事实。同匈牙利总理一样，我早上、傍晚和夜里都撒过谎——尽管我主要在办公时间撒谎。我撒的不一定是弥天大谎，但足以掩人耳目、扭曲事实。今天，我恭喜某人升任新职，即使我认为他得到晋升完全是个谜。我给多位读者发了电子邮件，对他们的有趣观点表示感谢，而实际上我认为这些观点颇为乏味。我在电话上告诉某人“把报告电邮给我，我会读的”，而我知道我不会——诸如此类。

更隐秘的是，日复一日，我都对自己说谎，假扮成我并不是的角色：幽默、说真话的人。鉴于以上的作为，这几乎有些可笑。

但是，今天我称自己是撒谎者，说出了这个难以言表的天大事实。更令人难以接受的是，我指责我的同事们也是撒谎者。我的老板也包括在内，还有你——不管你是谁。只要你在一家机构工作，我可以拿我的衬衫跟你打赌，你也是一个骗子。我们自己撒谎，我们的团队撒谎，我们的公司也撒谎。

但对于撒谎者这一事实，似乎所有人都不愿接受。在上周的工党大会上，当戈登•布朗(Gordon Brown)宣称与切丽•布莱尔(Cherie Blair)的丈夫共事是何等愉快时，据称后者说：“哦，这是谎话”，从而使大会几乎陷入停滞。这句话令人惊愕，因为称某人是一个撒谎者，无异于说他是一名杀人犯（奇怪了，说谎无处不在，而谋杀并非如此，除非在哥伦比亚）。另一个令人震惊之处在于，这是整整一周内唯一可听到的真话。

也许我们都是撒谎者，但这并不意味着世风日下，而且我们都将下地狱。撒谎是必要的。政客们不得不说谎，因为否则就无法使选民们满意。同样，企业界也需要谎言。实际上，没有谎言企业就无法运转，因此我们不必对此紧张。

上周，我收到了一本书的清样，作者是美国人类学教授戴维•舒尔曼(David Shulman)，这本书进一步印证了欺骗是办公室生活的一部分。《从雇佣到撒谎者》(From Hire to Liar)一书认为，由于多数管理理论都未能将说谎考虑在内，因此它们无法有效揭示我们所了解的商界。

必需说谎（或扭曲事实和掩盖真相）的理由有很多。职场等级分明，需要媚上欺下。办公室充满着竞争，这意味着要给上级留下好印象，设法让自己看上去要比实际更优秀。这意味着“唱衰”竞争对手。销售通常意味着夸大事实，只从一面看问题。

公司生活的规则还诱使员工掩盖任何违规行为。我们虚报休假天数，为上班迟到和磨洋工说谎。不切实际的目标和预算使谎言必不可少。

就工作本身撒谎，对保持其顺利进行也十分必要。多数工作并没有什么意义，但是，挑战工作之无聊更没有意义。于是，我们宣称对自己的工作富有热情。总之，如果没有谎言，企业界会很快崩溃，就像没了钱的世界一样。

我有一个朋友在广告公司上班，他一个同事是酒鬼。最近，这个酒鬼加入了戒酒匿名会(Alcoholics Anonymous)，并做出各种各样的承诺，包括始终诚实。当回到工作中，他毅然贯彻这条承诺，在一次会议上告诉一家客户，说他们被宰了。在一次“团队建设”活动上，他站起身说，这是对时间的巨大浪费。

他成了公司里“讲真话”的孩子，这样使他比酒鬼还要危险。

这并非说，企业的所有日常谎言都无害。在上周的《经济学人》(Economist)杂志上，德勤(Deloitte)登了一个高级职位招聘广告。广告以“真相无保留”为标题。但第一句话就跟这一标题开了个玩笑。“德勤提供深度和广度无与伦比的专业服务技能，这不是秘密。”这是句谎话，我想所有人都没有异议。要是德勤提供无与伦比的服务深度，那将是个秘密，而且是个保守严密的秘密。我一直以为，所有会计师事务所都提供类似服务。这是个竞争激烈的行业，这意味着大公司都大同小异。

广告接着说：“最聪明的人加入我们，寻求一生的挑战和回报。”这并不完全是谎言，但也绝对算不上真实。我见过几个德勤的人，他们并不聪明，也似乎并不享受“一生的挑战”。

这个广告的讨厌之处，并非它不讲真话的事实，而是它的谎言没有说服力。广告找的是“企业杰出领导者”，这是个“假装”的标题，在审计业，“假装”并不是好形象。

所以，工作中欺骗的要点是：它本身没错，是必要的。但它还需要看上去可信。要是我跟某个我认为是白痴的家伙说：“祝贺你高升！”，我需要装出诚心诚意的样子。更重要的是，我需要了解原则问题：我不是个坏人或特别虚伪的人。我只不过遵循一套游走于事实与谎言之间的规则体系行事。这是个危险的平衡。谎言必须可信，但你终究必须掌握好分寸，不能真的相信它们。企业里最危险的人，是相信自己所说谎话的人。

译者/朱冠华

作者信箱：lucy.kellaway@ft.com

相关专栏：《朝九晚五》