Why Do People Waste So Much Time at the Office?

By Alec Woodfred

几年前，媒体报道了一个员工因为过度劳累死在办公室，却五天没人发现的事件，这让人们心神不安。虽然该事件最终证实为虚构，但它却体现了工作对于现代人生命的掌控。然而，如今的人们已经远远偏离了工作的初衷，盲目地为了工作而工作，真正“做实事”的时间却微乎其微。人们没有意识到的是，也许在不久的将来，科技将会取代一切人类可以完成的工作，工作将没有存在的必要。到那时候，我们又该如何面对呢？

The workplace is where people go to work. But much of the day is increasingly padded out1. pad out: 拉长，塞满。with less productive activities.

A few years ago a disturbing story appeared in the media that seemed to perfectly capture the contemporary experience of work and its ever increasing grip over our lives:2. disturbing: 令人不安的；capture:（用文字或图片）记录，描述；contemporary: 当代的；grip: 支配，控制。“Man Dies at Office Desk—Nobody Notices for Five Days”.

The case was unnerving3. unnerving: 使人紧张不安的。for one reason mainly. People die all the time, but usually we notice. Are things so bad in the modern workplace that we can no longer tell the difference between the living and the dead?

Of course, the story turned out to be a hoax4. hoax: 骗局。. An urban myth5. myth: 虚构的事。.

We might even embellish6. embellish: 润色，修饰。the story ourselves. Perhaps the dead accountant not only went unnoticed for five days but was rewarded with a promotion for all the extra hours and loyalty, possibly making vice president. In all variants7. variant: 不同的版本。of the myth the worker is never a woman which is interesting for its own reasons.

Why does it resonate8. resonate: 共鸣。so well with our experiences of employment today? A number of reasons might be behind this.

First, it reminds us that the otherwise crazy idea of working nonstop for hours or even days on end9. on end: 连续地，不断地。has quietly become the new normal. Behaviour that our grandparents would have deemed insane is now rather pedestrian.10. 这些我们祖父辈会认为是疯狂的行为，现在来看却司空见惯。pedestrian: 平淡无奇的。

The average British worker spends 36 days a year answering work emails. London workers in particular receive close to 9,000 emails each year. As a result, work spills over11. spill over: 向……的外面扩展，蔓延。into private time. One recent survey revealed that 80% of employers consider it perfectly acceptable to contact their employees outside business hours.

And then there’s the commute12. commute: 通勤。. British workers waste 18 months of their lives commuting, which is often expensive and stressful.

All of this work comes at cost.Job-related illness, for example,is a growing problem in the UK and elsewhere, exacerbated13. exacerbate: 使加剧，使恶化。by stress and more of us being overwhelmed by the “to do” list.

Making matters worse, in times of recession we are more willing to put up with horrible workplace environments, which adds to the pent-up frustration.14. recession: （经济的）衰退期；put up with: 容忍；pent-up: 被压抑的。A recent study found that job burnout is more adverse to your health than chain smoking.15. job burnout: 职业倦怠；adverse: 不利的；chain smoking: 一支接一支不停地抽烟。

Only in this context could we ever see accounts16. account: 描述，报道。of having“worked to death” being reported in the corporate sector, as was the case with the Bank of America intern, Moritz Erhardt in 2013. He died of an epileptic seizure after working 72 hours straight.17. epileptic seizure: 癫痫发作；straight: 连续地。And let’s not even mention the new phenomenon of work-inspired suicides that has followed in the long wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

But the “Man Died at Desk and Nobody Noticed” urban myth strikes a chord18. strike a chord: 在（某人心中）引起共鸣。for another and more depressing reason. Yes, the of fice should have noticed the man was dead. Five days is a long time.But they also ought to have noticed that his work wasn’t actually getting done.

Unfortunately, this is not how the modern workplace functions today. Take those 36 days spent on email. It would be simply impossible to fill every minute online with only productive work. The same goes for the long hours put in at the of fice.

Apart from getting the actual task done, which is typically completed in short bursts, there is also a good deal of messing about,19. short burst: 短时间；mess about:浪费时间。chatting, paying the bills, surfing the net, daydreaming and waiting for the day to finish. Most importantly, much of our day is spent busy being busy rather than doing things that are socially useful.

This gives contemporary employment something of a ceremonial20. ceremonial: 正式的。feel about it. Not only are we working more now than ever (or searching for it if unemployed) but a good deal of it is unnecessary.

A recent study of overworked management consultants in the US found that 35% employed in this occupation actually “faked” an 80-hour work week. For various reasons these individuals pretended to sacrifice themselves for work and still got everything done.

In this respect, entire occupations might be considered phoney—from life coaches to“atmosphere co-ordinators” (people hired to create a party vibe in bars) to “chief learning of ficers” in the corporate world.21. in this respect: 在这一方面，就这点来说；phoney: 虚假的，伪造的；co-ordinator: 协调人；vibe: 气氛。For those economists trying to figure out the present “productivity puzzle22. puzzle: 谜，难题。” in the UK, best start looking here.

None of this is to say there aren’t many of us working hard doing important things that society depends upon. But this sheer amount of time spent at work is totally disproportionate to the vital tasks that need to be achieved.23. 但是花在工作上的大量时间与必须完成的工作量根本不成正比。sheer amount: 巨大的数量；disproportionate to: 与……不成比例的；vital: 至关重要的。Disconnected too from the pay we receive for doing them.

In other words, work has become ritualised and detached from the practical things it was invented to accomplish.24. 换句话说，工作已经仪式化了，偏离了它最初“做实事”的这个目的。detach from:从……分离。

Why do we work? The obvious answer is “to live”.But it’s not our actual job—giving a lecture, selling a car, nursing a patient or flying a passenger jet—that directly secures our life conditions. For sure, most occupations in the West have drifted far away from the baseline of biological self-preservation.25. occupation: 工作，职业；drift away: 逐渐偏离；baseline: 基准，标准；self-preservation:自我保护。A job simply grants us access to man-made vouchers we call money.26. grant: 授予；voucher: 付款凭单，抵用券。We then redeem27. redeem: 将……兑换为现金（或物品）。these so we can then purchase life.

Like it or not we are moving into a post-work future. According to some estimates, half the eligible global workforce is currently unemployed.28. estimate: 估计 ；eligible: 符合条件的，合格的。Technical innovations are exponentially automating routine manual labour and now cognitive work too.29. 技术创新使日常的体力劳动日益自动化，如今，脑力劳动也日趋于此。exponentially:迅猛增长地；manual labour: 体力劳动，手工劳动；cognitive: 认知的。Our workcentric society is swiftly becoming obsolete.30. -centric: 以……为中心的；obsolete: 过时的，淘汰的。No matter how much governments bribe the business sector with tax breaks and subsidies to keep people employed in needless jobs,31. bribe: 行贿，收买；tax break: 税收减免；subsidy: 补贴。the necessity of work is rapidly disappearing.

As a society we probably secretly know all of this. But we have no idea what to do next.

Almost all of our institutions have been built around the mythology32. mythology: 错误的观点。of work. Our very sense of self-worth is based upon it.It is almost taboo33. taboo: 禁忌。to even question work.

Regardless, the possibility of a jobless future might soon be a reality. It’s up to us to decide whether this future is going to be a nasty34. nasty: 令人不快的。nightmare or a beautiful paradise of play.