清洁工英文研究生英语泛读翻译第十三单元

2021年1月22日发(作者：巫宁坤)
With jobs, make sure it pays to play

工作，给钱才做

By Lucy Kellaway

About 15 years ago, when
Alan Clark
was still alive and when he was
Britain
’
s only entertaining MP, I rang him up and asked if I could interview
him.

He said he
’
d be delighted, but I would need to pay him for his time. Oh no, I
said, all prissy and shocked. The Financial Times would never consider such a
thing. In that case, he replied, no dice. Saltwood Castle, his medieval family
home in Kent, needed a new roof, and there was no way he was going to work
for nothing.

大约
15
年前，那时候
Alan Clark< br>还健在，当时他是英国娱乐界唯一的议员。我
给他打了个电话问他是否可以接受我的访问，
他说他非常愿意，
但是需要付给他
出场费，因为这占用了他的时间。哦，不，我说，全是讶异 和震惊。英国金融时
报对这种事情想都不会想。如果那样的话，他说，不行，因为他在
Kent
的中世
纪房屋
Saltwood
城堡需要换一个新的房顶，所以无偿工作是不 可能的。



At the time I took this as evidence of Clark
’
s solipsism and greed. But now I
have changed my mind. For him to ask for money was so reasonable there was
no need for him to invoke the leaking roof. He was selling his time and his
opinions, and he had the same right to charge for them as someone selling
soap powder.

当时我把这件事当成对
Clark
自私 与贪婪的佐证，
但现在我改变了我的想法。
对
他而言要钱是非常合理的，
但他 没有必要提起他那漏雨的房顶。
他在销售他的时
间和观点，就像那些卖洗衣粉的人一样，他也有 权对这此收钱。



I
’
m not suggesting that everyone who is interviewed by this newspaper
should immediately slap in a bill. It is clearly such a great honour to be
featured in the FT that no payment is needed. Instead I am talking more
generally about all the things people routinely and increasingly do for nothing,
flouting the labour supply curve that says that when no wage is offered, no
labour ought to be supplied.

我不是说当这家报纸采访你的时候你就应该立马塞过来

一份账单。
不过很显 然，
能免费成为英国金融时报专题人物是件无上光荣的事。
相反我更想说的是，
现在< br>很多人经常不求回报的做一些事情，而且这样的事情越来越

多。这难免让那些
证明没有工资就不能提供劳动的劳动供给曲线显得相形见绌。



There are, of course, the
interns who slog away for no payment
. This system
is exploitative, discriminates against those who don
’
t have rich parents and
is often illegal; but even so, it isn
’
t altogether senseless from the intern
’
s
point of view
–
they gain experience and doors may open.

当然也有些实 习生不求收入而努力工作。
这个体制充满了剥削和违法的行径，
歧
视那些家庭不够富裕 的人。但是，即使这样，从实习生的角度来看，这么做也不
是毫无意义的，他们可以从中获得经验和敲门 砖。



More of a mystery is the explosion in the unpaid work done by professional
people with lots of experience and with satisfying day jobs but who still insist
on filling their spare time with extra work for which they are paid zilch. They
blog and tweet for nothing. They talk on panels, go to conferences, give advice
and even write books
–
all for nothing. But why?

更神奇的地方是越来越多具有丰富经验和满意 工作的专业人士投身于这些无薪
酬的工作当中，
而且他们仍然坚持在他们的空闲时间做这些额外 的工作，
收入确
是那么微不足道。他们无偿的写博客、发
Twitter
，在 论坛上发言、提出建议甚
写书。这一切都是为了什么呢？



With Clark as my role model, I have taken to refusing all such things. Would I
like to go and give a talk to students at Oxford? No thank you. Would I like to
talk on a panel about corporate governance? No, I wouldn
’
t. Would I like to
write a blog for the Huffington Post? Certainly not.

有
Clark
做我的榜样，
我也学会拒绝这类事情。
如果让我去给牛津大学的学生们
发表演 讲，我会说，不！谢谢！如果让我去一个研讨会讨论企业管理，我会说，
不！我不去！如果让我给
Huffinton
邮报写博客，当然也会拒绝。



To all these invitations I explain that I don
’
t approve of working unpaid, and
invariably I get the same response I gave Alan Clark all those years ago. How
greedy and selfish, I can hear them thinking as they bustle off to find someone
happier to oblige.

对这些邀请，
我的解释是我不赞成无偿工作。
无一例外的，
他们的反应就如同多年前我对
Alan Clark
的反应一样，你太贪婪和自私了，当他们急匆匆的去寻找< br>那些乐于做这些事的人时，我听到了他们的心声。



I can think of only three situations in which it makes sense for professionals to
work for nothing. The first is when it
’
s for a good cause. But then it
’
s
voluntary work and the whole point is that you don
’
t get paid. The second is
if the work is truly fascinating or is something you
’
ve always wanted to do
but couldn
’
t do otherwise. Recently I was asked to talk on a panel in a West
End theatre, and as it
’
s not looking likely that I
’
m ever going to make it as
an actress, I snatched at my only chance to tread the boards on St Martin
’
s
Lane.

我仅 能想出
3
种情况来解释为什么那些专业人士愿意无偿工作。第一，这是一次
善举，而且 是份志愿工作，关键点在于它是无偿的。第二，这项工作真的令人着
迷或者由于某种原因你一直想做却没 能做的事情。最近，我被邀请在
West End
剧院的一次研讨会上进行发言，
看起 来不像是让我像女演员一样进行表演，
我抓
住我唯一的机会踏上圣马丁巷的地板。



The third reason is that it
’
s good publicity
（宣传、报道）
. This is why most
people work for nothing
–
they think it will help them sell books, or build
their brands, or be good for networking
（建立工作关系网）
. I can see that if you
are trying to be better known and you get invited on Oprah
（奥普拉
-
脱口秀主
持人）
, then you must go along with it. Or if you are asked to be interviewed in
the FT
–
that, as I
’
ve already pointed out, is gold dust. But many things
people do to help sell books or sell themselves are not obviously effective at all.
In this age of big data, it ought to be possible to calculate precisely what works
and what doesn
’
t. Most of the bloggers on HuffPo seem to have almost no
comments, so one can
’
t see them shifting many books as a result.

第三个原因，这样做是一种很好的宣传策略。也揭示了

为什么多数人愿意无偿
工作——他们认为这样做可以有助于书的销售、
品牌的创建和人脉的建立。
可以
看得 出，如果你想广为人知，你想被邀请到奥普拉的脱口秀节

目上去，那么你
必须这么做 。
当然如果你受英国金融时报邀请进行采访，
我之前已经说过，
那简
直就是中 了头彩。但是人们为了销售图书和宣传自己所做的那些努力

似乎不很