Too often they are written by people who confuse insight with jargon, the types who love to call a spade a "manual horticultural utensil". 这些书的作者常是那些用专业术语故弄玄虚，喜欢将直言不讳称作“手工园艺器具”的人。

At the other end of the scale are tomes containing a plethora of pithy platitudes about "breaking the mould" and "worshipping the kill". 与之形成对比的是那些包含大量“打破固有模式”以及“崇拜精英”的陈词滥调。

The choice, in short, is between the incomprehensible and the inconsequential. 总之，就是介于令人费解和毫无逻辑之间。

So it was a joy for Bartleby to read "It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work", by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, 对本专栏作者而言，阅读贾森·弗里德和戴维·海涅迈尔·汉森的书籍《It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work》是一种乐趣，

who run a software company in Chicago called Basecamp. 他们在芝加哥开了一家软件公司Basecamp。

Their book is funny, well-written and iconoclastic and by far the best thing on management published this year. 他们的书很有趣，写的也很好，还打破了人们的传统模式。到目前为止，这本书是今年出版的管理类最佳书籍。

The authors argue that it is perfectly possible to run a business with consistently growing profits (as they do) without requiring employees to work madly long hours. 两位作者争论称在不要求员工疯狂加班的前提下，公司保持利润增长是完全有可能的。

Tired workers will not be productive since "creativity, progress and impact do not yield to brute force". 疲惫的员工不可能高效工作，因为“创造力、进展和影响不会屈服于蛮力”。

Sleep-deprived managers are likely to be counterproductively impatient. 睡眠不足的经理们可能会变得没有耐心，结果适得其反。

Basecamp employees have a 40-hour week, except in the summer when the company runs a four-day, 32-hour week. Basecamp的员工们一周工作40个小时，除了在夏季，公司一周工作四天，每周工作时长32小时。

They also get three weeks' holiday every year (subsidised by the firm to the tune of $5,000 per person), 他们每年还有一次为期三周的假期（由公司资助，金额多达5000美元每人），

a month-long sabbatical every three years, and a monthly massage at a spa. 每三年有一次为期一个月的休假以及每月有一次温泉浴场按摩。

Those are the right sort of perks, say Messrs Fried and Heinemeier Hansson. 那些是额外津贴，弗里德和海涅迈尔·汉森表示。

The wrong kind, found in many offices, include free dinners, games rooms and snack bars, which are all devices to keep employees at the office for longer. 很多公司都设有免费午餐、游戏室和小吃部，这些设施都是为了让员工在办公室待久一点。

Workers should also beware of companies that declare "we're all family here"—a ruse to get workers to put their employers ahead of the needs of their real families. 员工们也应该警惕公司宣称的“在这里我们是一家人”—这种策略是为了让员工将雇主置于他们真实的家庭需求之上。

Another criticism of corporate culture levelled by the book is that offices have become interruption factories. 书中批评的另一种同等的企业文化是办公室已经成为了中断式工厂。

People are working longer and later because they cannot get stuff done at the office any more. 人们工作时间越来越长，工作到越来越晚，因为他们再也无法在办公室完成任务。

At a conference attended by 600 people, the authors asked how many had recently enjoyed 3-4 hours of uninterrupted work; only 30 hands went up. 在一个600人的会议上，两位作者问到，近期有多少人能在不受打断的情况下，连续工作3到4个小时；仅有30个人举手。