工作切忌埋頭苦幹，3點教你省煩惱

're Doing Someone's Else Job: When You Book a Vacation
1.你在做別人工作的情況一：即使在度假

Keeping track of vacation time, personal time and sick time was once management’s responsibility— often done by an HR representative. Then an “absencemanagement” software package gets installed, and suddenly it becomes each employee’s job to maintain the official record by submitting a formal request to his or her supervisor for time off, entering start and end dates, type of absence and so on via a website. Your job description now involves data entry for each of these events, including complicated procedures for corrections when circumstances change after a record is saved.
密切留意假期時間，私人時間以及生病時間曾是管理部門的責任，經常由一個人力資源代表來做。後來安裝了“缺勤管理”軟件，於是維持官方記錄就突然變成了員工們自己的工作。他們請假要通過網站向他或她的領導遞交正式的申請表，表裏註明假期開始，終止日期以及假期類型。如今你的職位職責，就包含了這些事件的數據錄入，包括記錄已存後，因情況變化而需改正的一些複雜程序。

If that were all, it might not be so bad. But “absence management” is just one of the technological initiatives and upgrades that intrude on today’s office. Each one brings with it a new learning curve and grafts new duties onto your job. These are instances of Shadow work: unpaid jobs that we do on behalf of businesses and organizations which pervade modern life at home, in the office and while shopping, traveling, even eating out. Frequently, someone used to get a paycheck for doing these things. Now, these tasks at work end up on your to-do list.
如果說僅此這些，還不算糟糕。然而“缺勤管理”只是一項進入辦公區的科技創新和升級產品。每一項都會帶來新的學習進度曲線，並植入新的職責到你的工作中去。這些都能造成員工的心理陰影。我們代表企業和組織所做的無薪工作，它們瀰漫在家裏、辦公室裏以及購物時，旅行時，甚至出去用餐時的那些摩登生活中。過去經常有人通過幫別人做這些事來賺錢。現在這些任務只會終止於你自己的代辦清單了。

Shadow work affects everyone; but for women, who already do most of the housework and childcare (70 to 80 percent, typically) while, oh yes, managing their careers, these extra, unpaid jobs can be especially burdensome. Even during the business day, when your job description expands or your workday gets longer — while your salary stays put — like it or not, that’s shadow work.
影子工作影響着所有人，不過對於女士們，她們已經有大把的家務事要做，還要照顧孩子（70%到80%的女士都是這樣）哦，是的，她們還要規劃自己的職業生涯，於是這些額外的無薪工作會成爲特別的負擔。甚至在工作期間，你工作量變大或者時間變長了，薪水卻不變，不管你喜不喜歡，那就是能夠造成心理陰影的工作。

2. You're Doing Someone's Else Job: When You Set Up a Meeting for a Client
2.你在完成別人工作的情況二：約見客戶時

How quaint it is to revisit the 1950s “Mad Men” world of Dictaphones, executive washrooms and, gasp, secretaries who type letters for their bosses. Well, women have a lot more career options now, and the good news is, they often are now the executives. The bad news is that today, executives do much of their own secretarial work, as technology has pushed aside the human assistants and given their jobs back to the boss as shadow work. (Computers let us all type our own letters, for example.) This democratizes the office environment, to be sure, but can also make you that manager feeding your meeting agenda into the photocopier.
重溫1950年代的那些事物時，感覺好怪啊！如：《廣告狂人》中的口述錄音機、行政衛生間、網絡以及那個時候爲老闆打字的祕書。當然，現代的女性有了更多的職業選擇，好消息是，她們如今成了決策者；壞消息是，決策者得做很多本屬於祕書的工作，因爲科技將人工助手推到了一邊，並將他們的工作返給了老闆。（例如，電腦迫使我們自己去打字。）可以肯定的是，這會使得工作環境民主化，但也可以讓你成爲那種把會議議程融入到複印機的經理。

Twenty-first century “secretaries” don’t say, “Good morning,” they beep. They’re smartphones, which do almost everything secretaries once did: keep appointment calendars, handle (and screen) telephone calls, maintain a file of contacts, send and receive email and texts, research information. The international technology-consulting firm Forrester Research, Inc. has a staff of 1,300 employees — and only five executive assistants. Getting support from an actual human is becoming a privilege restricted to those at the very top.
21世紀的祕書們不會說“早上好”，會發出嗶嗶聲。他們是智能手機，會做好以前的祕書們該做的幾乎所有的事情：記錄預約日期，處理（並檢查）來電電話，保存聯繫人資料，發送、接收郵件和文本，研究信息。國際諮詢科技公司Forrester Research, Inc擁有1300名員工，只有五個行政助理。現如今獲得人工助理正逐漸變成僅限於高層們的特權。

're Doing Someone Else's Job: When You're Doing Someone Else’s Job
3.你在完成別人工作的情況三：你真的在做別人的工作時

In business, there are only two basic ways to increase profit: raise revenue or cut expenses. In most cases, it’s far easier to reduce expenses, of which the biggest is personnel. Hence, “downsizing”: simply lay off some staff and give their work to those who remain. Another (perhaps familiar) scenario: someone leaves the company, and no one gets hired to replace her or him. Downsizing, or failing to hire new employees, has become so routine in recent years that we have begun to overlook the obvious. Any economic contraction — notably the meltdown of 2008 — gives a credible reason for layoffs. But why is it that an improving economy hasn’t produced a comparable surge in hiring? Quite often, the work of the departed employee becomes your job. (You’re supposed to be grateful that you still have a job.) So, again, you find yourself saddled with shadow work: doing more tasks without earning any more money. Regardless of whether the layoffs involve support personnel or professional staff, the jobs don’t go away, they’re simply getting done by fewer people. Like, you.
生意場上，只有兩種基本方法可以提高利潤：提高收益或者減少花銷。大多數情況下，減少開支更容易些，因爲大部分開銷都是人員問題，因此“裁員”即，簡單地解僱一些員工，然後把他們的工作給那些仍在崗的人。另一個（可能熟悉的）場景就是有人離開公司，也沒僱人頂替她或他。裁員或僱不到新員工最近幾年變得如此司空見慣以至於我們開始忽視它的存在。任何經濟萎縮的危機，尤其是2008年的那次，提供了一個可靠的裁員理由。可爲什麼經濟好轉並沒有創造相對而言招聘的激增呢？經常地，離職員工的工作成了你的工作。（你該感到慶幸還有一份工作。）因此，再一次，你會發現自己揹負了影子工作，即：做了額外的工作卻賺不到額外的錢。無論下崗涉及的是輔助人員還是專業人員，工作本身還在那，它們只不過是由更少的人來完成，比如：你。

Coping with these challenges can be upsetting or trying, but doing so is not an optional activity because shadow work is here to stay. Be creative in dealing with it: maybe suggest bringing in temps or interns to fill in for departed support staff. (If they don’t collect benefits, there’s at least a chance.) Given how much women already do, they need to diplomatically draw the line when shadow work gets dumped on their laps. As always, the first step in getting something off your lap is to stand up.
應對這些挑戰會令人不安或者厭煩，但做這些並不是一項可選擇的行爲，因爲對人造成心理陰影的工作本來就在那。那就發揮創造力來處理它們吧：或許可以建議引進臨時工或實習生來填離職的支持人員空缺。（如果他們不創造收益的話，至少還有一個機會。）考慮到女士們完成工作量如何，在那些對人造成心理陰影的工作落在他們的身上時，他們需要圓滑地畫條底線。一如既往地甩開一些事情的第一步就是站起來。