羨慕soho? 如何說服老闆讓你在家上班

Dear Annie: I work at the headquarters of a Fortune 500 company in a major city. The suburb where I live is not that far away as the crow flies, but the horrendous traffic (even in the predawn hours) means my commute often takes more than an hour each way, and it is a huge drain on my energy. Then, when I get to work, my day is so full of stupid little interruptions that it's hard to focus on one thing long enough to finish it.

親愛的安妮：我在一家財富500強公司的大城市總部上班。我住在郊區，離公司總部的直線距離並不算太遠，但可怕的交通狀況（甚至在黎明時分）意味着，我上下班一個單程往往就需要花費一個多小時，這極大地消耗了我的能量。當我終於抵達公司，開始一天的工作時，各種愚蠢之極，非常瑣碎的干擾，又讓我很難保持足夠長時間的專注度，進而導致我無法完成工作。

For both of these reasons, I would be a lot more productive if I worked from home at least a couple of days a week -- no commute, no distractions. The problem is my boss. When I have approached him about this, he always says, "If I can't see you, how do I know you're working?" He says it jokingly, but actually I think he means it. Also, he has brought up the fact that Yahoo (YHOO), Best Buy (BBY), and HP (HPQ) have limited or banned telecommuting, and expressed concerns about data security if people are working from home. Any ideas about how to persuade him to let us try it anyway? -- Roadblocked

出於這兩個理由，我認爲，倘若我每週至少有一兩天在家辦公——無需上下班，沒有分心之事，我的工作效率肯定會大幅提升。問題在於我的老闆。每當我向他提及此事時，他總是說，“如果我看不見你，我怎麼知道你在工作呢？”他說話的口吻像是開玩笑，但我覺得這其實是他真實的想法。此外，他還提到雅虎(Yahoo )、百思買(Best Buy)和惠普( HP)等大公司都限制或禁止遠程辦公這一事實，並且擔心大家都在家工作或將危及數據的安全性。請問我究竟該如何說服他呢？——受阻者

Dear Roadblocked: Next time your boss brings up Yahoo, Best Buy, and HP as paragons of policy, says David Heinemeier Hansson, you might point out that "all three are in trouble, so they need all hands on deck. Why would any company want to join that club?"

親愛的“受阻者”：下一次，當你的老闆把雅虎、百思買和惠普奉爲政策典範時，你或許有必要援引大衛?海涅邁爾?漢森的看法，向他指出，“所有這三家公司目前都陷於困境，所以他們需要全體員工各就各位。爲什麼還有公司想要加入這個俱樂部呢？”

Far more relevant is that telework has quietly become the rule, rather than the exception. According to a survey this past July by HR trade group WorldatWork, 88% of U.S. companies now allow or encourage telecommuting. Some, like IBM (IBM), insist that most of their people work remotely most of the time. In a new book, Remote: Office Not Required, Hansson cites a white paper from Big Blue that estimates telecommuting has saved the company more than $100 million in real estate costs.

更中肯的理由是，遠程辦公已悄然成爲業界規範，而不是特殊案例。據人力資源團體美國薪酬管理協會(WorldatWork)今年7月份的一次調查，88%的美國公司現在允許或鼓勵遠程辦公。以IBM爲代表的一些公司始終堅持大多數員工在大多數時間內遠程工作的做法。漢森在其新著《遠程辦公革命》(Remote: Office Not Required)中援引了“藍色巨人”( Big Blue，IBM公司的綽號)發佈的一份白皮書。這份白皮書預測稱，遠程辦公已經爲該公司節省了超過1億美元的房地產成本。

Remote is packed with other compelling reasons for telecommuting's rise. Cutting out commutes is better for the ozone layer than having millions of people sitting in traffic jams, spewing carbon monoxide, for hours on end. It allows companies to source top talent from anywhere in the country or the world, without regard for how much face time they can put in at the office.

《遠程辦公革命》一書還爲這種工作方式的崛起列舉了其他一些令人信服的理由。相較於讓數百萬人堵在路上，連續數小時不停地噴涌一氧化碳，省掉通勤顯然更有利於保護我們的臭氧層。遠程辦公可以讓公司廣納天下英才，並且根本沒必要考慮這些來自美國或世界某個地區的精英們能夠在辦公室停留多長時間。

Working from home or on the road, at least some of the time, also tends to make people more productive. Hansson agrees with you that "the modern office has become an interruption factory, and interruptions are not free. There is a cost in productivity to constantly demanding people's attention immediately for little things that are not really urgent," he says. "People who can't concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time are almost certainly not doing their best work."

此外，至少在某些時候，在家或旅途中工作往往使得人們的工作更富有成效。與你一樣，漢森也認爲，“現代化寫字樓已經成爲一個紛紛擾擾的工廠，但干擾並不是沒有代價的。不斷要求人們立刻注意一些其實並不緊迫的小事情，的確會拖累生產率，”他說。“無法持續幾分鐘以上集中精神的人，幾乎肯定做不好他們的工作。”

Hansson offers three suggestions for winning over your reluctant boss. First, the idea that you'd be able to get more work done, and do it better, without distractions (and without the wearying commute) makes a good starting point for the discussion. "Don't frame it as a request for a perk, as if this is a favor you're asking the company to do for you," Hansson says. "Instead, emphasize how much better it will be for the team and the company if you are able to work without interruptions. Having you at your most productive benefits the boss at least as much as it benefits you."

漢森就如何說服你那位不情願的老闆提供了三項建議。其一，你或許應該開門見山地告訴老闆，在沒有分心之事，並且無需經受通勤折磨的情況下，你能夠更好地完成更多工作。“不要把遠程辦公說成一種額外待遇，好像你正在要求公司幫你一個忙似的，”漢森說。“相反，你應該強調指出，如果你能夠不受打擾地工作，那就將爲團隊和公司帶來更大的好處。讓你處在最富成效的工作狀態，對於老闆的好處至少跟對於你自己的好處一樣大。”

Second, "you'll need to address his concern about data security," Hansson notes. "But data is not necessarily secure just because people are working in an office together. Employees take laptops home, they carry company data in their personal smartphones, they go on business trips. If there are security gaps the company needs to address, that is a serious issue whether you are working at home or not." Before bringing up telecommuting with your boss again, ask your in-house techies for help in hack-proofing the devices you plan to use.

其二，“你需要解決他對於數據安全性的關切，”漢森指出。“但僅僅因爲人們一起在辦公室工作，並不一定能夠保證數據的安全。員工往往把筆記本電腦帶回家，他們的智能手機也攜帶公司數據，而且還經常出差。如果公司存在亟需填補的安全漏洞，那的確是一個嚴重的問題，但這跟你是否在家工作並無關係。”再次向你的老闆提出遠程辦公要求之前，先尋求公司內部技術人員的幫助，讓他們爲你打算使用的設備安裝防黑客軟件。

And third, Hansson suggests enlisting more of your colleagues to the cause. "Trying out telecommuting with just one or two people is doomed to fail, because that one person, or two people, will become too isolated from the group," he says. "A better way is to have all the people on your team work remotely some of the time, so everyone gets a taste of it, and no one is the 'odd man out' who's always calling in on the conference line at meetings." At some companies, he adds, teams or departments start with "work-at-home Wednesdays," so everyone gets at least one distraction-free day per week.

漢森提出的第三個建議是，爭取拉攏更多的同事加入這項事業。“僅僅一兩個人嘗試遠程辦公，是註定要失敗的，因爲這一兩個人將與團隊嚴重分離，”他說。“一個更好的辦法是，讓團隊成員在某些時候全部遠程辦公，讓每個人都有機會體驗這種工作方式，這樣就不會有人成爲那個總是佔據公司會議線路的‘離羣索居者’。”他補充說，在一些公司，團隊或部門開始實行“週三在家工作”制度，這樣每個人每週至少可以有一個不受干擾的工作日。

The hardest argument to counter is, "If I can't see you, how do I know you're working?" Says Hansson, "It reflects a deep-seated fear of losing control. Fighting that requires that you go slowly and start small -- 'I worked from home on Tuesday and look at all the great stuff I got done' -- and then gradually increase the amount of time you telecommute."

最難反駁的觀點是，“如果我看不見你，我怎麼知道你在工作呢？”漢森說。“這反映出一種根深蒂固的恐懼感——老闆害怕失去他對公司的掌控力。反駁這種觀點，需要你放慢腳步，從小處着手——‘我週二在家工作，您瞧瞧，我已經出色地完成了這麼多工作’——然後逐漸增加你遠程辦公的時間。”

Hansson says that at his company, Chicago-based collaboration software maker 37signals, where most of the staff works remotely, "the biggest problem we have had is not people goofing off while working at home, but people overworking. They get into a state of flow and just keep going. Sometimes, to keep them from eventually burning out, you have to protect employees from themselves and insist that they take some time off." But of course, your boss may have to see that to believe it.

漢森說，在他供職的芝加哥協同軟件製造商37signals公司，大部分員工都採用遠程辦公的工作方式。“我們的最大問題不是在家工作的員工故意磨洋工，而是他們過於操勞了。他們的心智進入了一種流暢狀態，一刻不停歇地忘我工作。有時候，爲了防止他們最終精疲力竭，你還必須保護自己的員工，堅決要求他們休息一段時間。”當然，除非親眼所見，你的老闆或許不相信天底下還有這樣的事情。