2022年经济学人 做白日梦、散步和开小差都能带来丰厚的回报（1）

Business

商业

Bartleby -- Loafing can be work

巴托比专栏——游手好闲也可以是在工作

Daydreaming¹, promenading² and zoning out all pay rich dividends³

做白日梦、散步和开小差都能带来丰厚的回报

The familiar exerts a powerful subliminal⁴ appeal.

熟悉的事物会产生一种强大的潜意识吸引力。

The "name-letter effect" refers to the subconscious⁵ bias⁶ that people have for the letters in their own name, and for their own initials in particular.

“姓名的字母效应”指的是人们在潜意识中对自己姓名中的字母，尤其是首字母，存在的偏向。

They are more likely to choose careers, partners and brands that start with their initials (Joe becomes a joiner, marries Judy and loves Jaffa cakes).

他们更有可能选择以自己名字的首字母开头的职业、伴侣和品牌（乔成为一名木工，与朱迪结婚，喜欢佳发蛋糕）。

A related bias, the "well-travelled-road effect", describes the tendency of people to ascribe shorter travelling times to familiar routes than is actually the case.

与之相关的还有一种偏向叫作“熟路效应”，即人们倾向于认为熟路所需要的行程时间更短，而忽略了实际情况。

A bias towards the familiar shows up at work, too.

对熟悉事物的偏向也体现在工作中。

One such prejudice is about what exactly constitutes work.

其中一种偏见是关于工作的构成要素。

Being at a desk counts as work, as does looking at a screen above a certain size.

坐在办公桌前是工作，盯着较大尺寸的屏幕也是工作。

Responding to email and being in a meeting are indubitably forms of work.

回复邮件和开会毫无疑问都是工作的一种形式。

So is any activity that might elicit⁷ sympathy if performed on the weekend -- typing, taking a phone call from the boss, opening any type of spreadsheet.

所以任何在周末进行就可能会引发同情的活动——打字、接老板的电话、打开任何一种电子表格——都是工作。

This prejudice helps to explain worries about "proximity⁸ bias", the risk that white-collar employees who spend lots of time in the office are more likely to advance than remote workers who are less visible.

这种偏见有助于解释人们对“接近偏差”的担忧，即长时间待在办公室的白领员工比不常出现在人们视线中的远程员工更有机会获得晋升。

That is because being inside an office building is itself something that counts as work.

这是因为待在办公楼里本身就算是一种工作。

Pre-pandemic research showed that "passive face-time" -- the mere⁹ fact of being seen at your desk, without even interacting with anyone -- led observers to think of people as dependable and committed.

疫情前的研究表明，“被动的视频会面”——仅仅是被人看到坐在办公桌前这一事实，甚至不需要与任何人互动——会使观察者认为这些人是可靠且忠诚的。

But these familiar forms of work can deceive, for two reasons.

但这些熟悉的工作形式可能具有欺骗性，原因有两个。

The first is that what looks like a Stakhanovite effort may be no such thing.

首先，看似斯塔汉诺夫式（工作狂式）的努力可能并不是真的在努力。

Keyboard-tappers may just be updating their LinkedIn profiles.

敲键盘的人可能只是在更新他们的领英个人资料。

Attendees at a meeting are often present in body but not in spirit.

出席会议的人往往是身体出席，精神缺席。

Even when actual work is being done, it may not be the most productive use of people’s time.

就算当前的工作已经完成了，这可能也不是最高效的利用人们时间的方式。

The second is that things that look like the opposite of work -- loafing about, to use the technical term -- can be very useful indeed.

其次，那些看起来与工作背道而驰的事——用专业术语来说就是游手好闲——实际上可能非常有用。

Take daydreaming.

拿做白日梦来说。

In most workplaces, staring into space for hours on end is frowned upon; security guards and models can get away with it, but few others.

在大多数工作场所，连续几个小时盯着天看是不被赞成的；保安和模特可以这么做，但其它人几乎都不能这样。

Yet letting the mind wander is not simply part of being human; it can also be a source of creativity, a way to unlock solutions to thorny¹⁰ problems.

然而，允许思维漫游不仅仅是显示人性的一部分；它也可能是创造力的源泉，是解决棘手问题的一种方式。

1 daydreaming   

v.想入非非，空想( daydream的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Stop daydreaming and be realistic. 别空想了，还是从实际出发吧。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Bill was sitting and daydreaming so his mother told him to come down to earth and to do his homework. 比尔坐着空想， 他母亲要他面对现实，去做课外作业。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 promenading   

v.兜风( promenade的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• No doubt this "promenading" was not at all to her taste. 没有问题，这样“溜圈儿”是压根儿不合她口胃的。 来自辞典例句
• People were promenading about the town. 人们在镇上闲步[漫步]。 来自互联网

3 dividends   

红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金

参考例句：

• Nothing pays richer dividends than magnanimity. 没有什么比宽宏大量更能得到厚报。
• Their decision five years ago to computerise the company is now paying dividends. 五年前他们作出的使公司电脑化的决定现在正产生出效益。

4 subliminal   

adj.下意识的，潜意识的；太弱或太快以至于难以觉察的

参考例句：

• Maybe they're getting it on a subliminal level.也许他们会在潜意识里这么以为。
• The soft sell approach gets to consumers in a subliminal way.软广告通过潜意识的作用来影响消费者。

5 subconscious   

n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的)

参考例句：

• Nail biting is often a subconscious reaction to tension.咬指甲通常是紧张时的下意识反映。
• My answer seemed to come from the subconscious.我的回答似乎出自下意识。

6 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

7 elicit   

v.引出,抽出,引起

参考例句：

• It was designed to elicit the best thinking within the government. 机构的设置是为了在政府内部集思广益。
• Don't try to elicit business secrets from me. I won't tell you anything. 你休想从我这里套问出我们的商业机密, 我什么都不会告诉你的。

8 proximity   

n.接近，邻近

参考例句：

• Marriages in proximity of blood are forbidden by the law.法律规定禁止近亲结婚。
• Their house is in close proximity to ours.他们的房子很接近我们的。

9 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

10 thorny   

adj.多刺的，棘手的

参考例句：

• The young captain is pondering over a thorny problem.年轻的上尉正在思考一个棘手的问题。
• The boys argued over the thorny points in the lesson.孩子们辩论功课中的难点。