A Pair of Socks（II） 一双袜子
My amazement at his pride and joy in salesmanship will be easily understood by all who read this article. In many shops the customer has to wait for someone to wait upon him. And when finally some clerk does deign to notice you, you are made to feel as if you were interrupting him. Either he is absorbed in profound thought in which he hates to be disturbed or he is skylarking with a girl clerk and you feel like apologizing for thrusting yourself into such intimacy.
He displays no interest either in you or in the goods he is paid to sell. Yet possibly that very clerk who is now so apathetic began his career with hope and enthusiasm. The daily grind was too much for him; the novelty wore off; his only pleasures were found outside of working hours. He became a mechanical, he became incompetent; then he saw younger clerks who had more zest in their work, promoted over him. He became sour. That was the last stage. His usefulness was over.
I have observed this melancholy decline in the lives of so many men in so many occupations that I have come to the conclusion that the surest road to failure is to do things mechanically. There are many teachers in schools and colleges who seem duller than the dullest of their pupils; they go through the motions of teaching, but they are as impersonal as a telephone.
我对他推销时的自豪与欣喜所感到的诧异,读者诸君当不难理解，在很多店铺,顾客不得不等待有人来招呼?当终于有个售货员肯屈尊理你,那样子又让你感觉像是打扰了他，他不是陷于讨厌被人搅扰的深思之中,就是和女售货员嬉戏调笑;而你不适时的插入打断了他们的亲昵,为此你感觉好像需要道歉似的。
他显示出对你和他拿着工资去卖的东西毫无兴趣，然而,就是这样一个如此冷漠的售货员,或许当初也是满怀希望和热情开始工作的。天天枯燥乏味的苦差事令他不堪忍受,新鲜感磨去了,惟一的乐趣只能在工作之外找到，他成了一个机械的。没有干劲的售货员，机械呆板之后便是笨拙无能。随后,看到比他年轻。工作热情比他高的售货员得到了提拔,在他之上,他于是变得烦躁刻薄，此时便到了他职业生涯的最后阶段。他不再有用了。
我观察到,很多职业中的太多人在人生道路上都有这种可悲的堕落。由此我得出结论:机械地应付差事是离失败最近的路。大中小学里的许多教师,似乎比他们最最迟钝的学生还要呆滞;他们似乎也搞搞教学,却毫无人的感情,就如同一部电话机。 |