商務禮節美語第185期:健身計劃 Fitness Program(2)

公司高管Peter，Jason和Helen開會討論員工保健項目。大家都贊成把地下室改成健身中心。然而，Peter提出了一個棘手的問題。

P: Now comes the sensitive part—setting standards and setting penalties for non-compliance.

H: Oooh. That is tough.

P: Take smoking for example. Smoking tobacco is legal—of course—but our records show we pay roughly 25% more in medical costs for our employees who smoke. Is that fair to the other employees or to the company?

如果員工不按規定做，該怎麼辦。這個問題很敏感sensitive。Take smoking for example. 比如說吸菸。Peter說，公司爲吸菸員工支付的醫療費用比不吸菸的人多25%，這種情況對其它員工、對公司公平嗎？

H: That's an interesting point. A person's actions really do have a bigger effect than we think they do.

J: As they say: "No man is an island."

P: That's right. 's an even more delicate situation. What do we do with people who are seriously overweight or obese?

No man is an island，沒有人是孤島，意思是說你的行動一定會影響到別人。除了吸菸的員工外，還有一類員工也很讓人頭疼。那就是體重超重或是肥胖的人。 Overweight，是超重的意思，如果更嚴重的話，就變成了obese, 肥胖。

J: me?

H: You're not that bad, Jason!

J: Well, I'm certainly overweight. I've been carrying around an extra 20 pounds for years now.

P: Well, you're certainly not alone. Weight is a serious problem faced by many in this country. But again, our records show that obese people also cost a great deal more to insure and their medical conditions are much more expensive to deal with. We don't want to be callous, but it's affecting our bottom line.

J: Well, I'd personally love to lose some weight and the new gym might help.

Jason承認自己體重超標。他說，I've been carrying around an extra 20 pounds for years now. 很多年來，我的體重一種超標20磅。Peter說，you are certainly not alone，意思是超重絕不是你一個人的問題。

雖然我們不想不盡人情，we don't want to be callous，意思是冷酷無情，但是這個問題已經影響到了公司的bottom line. Bottom line，指的是公司的利潤底線。Jason說，他個人其實很想減肥，新開的健身房說不定會對他有幫助。