如何避免職業生涯陷入停滯

The Museum of Modern Art is a temple of useful design. It has sponsored chair-making competitions, turned a vacant lot into a showcase of prefabricated housing and exhibited paper clips as if they were Rothkos. Its retail arm, the MoMA Store, is filled with beautiful but sensible objects.
現代藝術博物館（Museum of Modern Art，簡稱MoMA）是實用設計的殿堂。它贊助過椅子製作比賽，將一塊空地變成活動板房的陳列場，還展出過回形針，彷彿它們是羅斯科（Rothko，抽象表現主義藝術家——譯註）的作品似的。在其零售部門MoMA藝術品商店(MoMA Store)裏，擺滿了美觀而實用的物件。

So I was surprised to find the Helicone among the store’s spring introductions.
所以，當我發現MoMA藝術品店推出的一款春季新品竟然是螺旋鬆果(Helicone)時，我很驚訝。

The Helicone is made of paddle-shaped wood pieces arrayed around a metal rod. Depending on which way you spin it, the pieces rearrange themselves into two shapes: a helix and something like a pine cone.
螺旋鬆果是由槳形木片圍繞着金屬棒排列而成。根據不同的旋轉方式，木片會排列成兩種不同的形狀：要麼變爲螺旋，要麼形似松果。

This is to say that the Helicone is delightful to look at and manipulate, but has no obvious purpose.
也就是說，螺旋鬆果雖然賞心悅目，把玩起來樂趣十足，但是卻沒有明顯的用途。

Ditto for the Crookes Radiometer, which MoMA also just began selling. An updated version of a late-19th-century invention, it is a glass globe encasing thin squares of mysteriously whirling metal. (The effect depends on the way the squares respond to light). Looks: 10; utility: questionable.
MoMA即將開售的另一件新品，是克魯克斯輻射計的仿照版(Ditto for the Crookes Radiometer)，模仿19世紀末的一項發明製作而成，外面是一個玻璃球，裏面包裹着旋轉的超薄方形金屬片，頗具神祕感（其視覺效果取決於方形金屬片對光線的反應）。美觀度：10分；實用度：有待商榷。

“Do my eyes deceive me,” I asked Emmanuel Plat, the museum’s director of merchandising, “or are these executive toys?”
“我沒看錯吧，”我問博物館採購總監伊曼紐爾·普拉特(Emmanuel Plat)，“難道這些是辦公室玩具(executive toy)？”

Mr. Plat is French, but he had no trouble understanding my question. In French, the phrase is “gadget de bureau.” In German, it is “managerspielzeug.”
普拉特是法國人，但是他聽得懂我的問題。辦公室玩具“在法語中稱爲gadget de bureau，在德語中稱爲managerspielzeug。”

“They have something poetic about them,” he said of both.
“它們蘊含着某種詩意。”他這樣形容那兩件設計。

In any language, “executive toy” refers to an object that sits on a desk in a workplace or home office and is fiddled with. One thinks of Magic 8 Balls delivering gnomic messages. Or Zen gardens with little rakes. Or Newton’s Cradle, a row of dangling metal spheres that knock against one another, sending the end members flying in demonstration of Newton’s law of conservation of momentum.
在任何語言中，“辦公室玩具”都是指擺放於（工作場所或家庭辦公室的）辦公桌上、用於把玩的物件。說起辦公室玩具，人們想到的是能夠占卜吉凶的魔法8號球（Magic 8 Ball，裏面裝滿藍色液體，還有一個窗口，通過它可以看到一個漂浮在液體中的多面體，每一面上都是一個問題的答案——譯註）；或者桌上禪園（Zen Garden，在小盒子裏擺上石頭、沙子和小耙子，需要放鬆的時候只要拿起小耙子在沙子上輕輕移動即可——譯註）；或是牛頓擺(Newton's Cradle)。牛頓擺是一排懸掛的金屬球，它們互相碰撞，將末端的球彈出，展示了牛頓動量守恆定律。

Far from lacking functionality, such objects are said to offer diversion, provoke dialogue and relieve stress.
據說，這些物件遠非缺乏用途的擺設，它們能夠轉移注意力，引起對話，緩解壓力。

But wait. Don’t executives have email for distraction now? Isn’t Twitter enough of a conversation starter? Doesn’t a treadmill workstation alleviate tension?
不過等等。上班族不是可以查看郵件來轉移注意力嗎？難道Twitter還不足以引起對話嗎？難道在跑步機上健身就不能緩解緊張的情緒嗎？

And how much longer will the roomy executive desk be supporting tchotchkes before it gives way to the communal worktable or cubicle farm? Even now, bosses are laboring alongside their subordinates in the people’s republics of architecture studios and tech start-ups. At some point we may all be working on our sofas. (As I type this, I'm lying in bed.)
再說，寬敞到足以擺放玩具的辦公桌用不了多久就得退出歷史舞臺，讓位給公共辦公桌或者小隔間了。即使是現在，在實行“人民民主制度”的建築工作室和科技初創企業，老闆們都已經在跟着下屬一起勞動了。有些時候，我們都得在自己的沙發上工作。（我在打這些字的時候，正躺在牀上。）

Why are executive toys still around?
爲什麼辦公室玩具依然存在呢？

Adrienne Appell, a representative of the Toy Industry Association, which is holding its annual Toy Fair in New York starting Feb. 14, sees nothing incongruous about desktop gewgaws in the digital age.
玩具行業協會(Toy Industry Association)自2月14日起，在紐約舉辦了年度玩具展(Toy Fair)。該協會的代表阿德里安娜·阿佩爾(Adrienne Appell)認爲，辦公室玩具可以在數字時代中生存，其實不足爲奇。

“With today’s extended work hours, multiple screens and multiple devices, it’s even more important for people to step back and take that moment to de-stress,” she said.
“現在工時很長，屏幕多，設備也多，所以對於人們來說，能夠退後一步，享受片刻的輕鬆，甚至是更加難能可貴的。”她說。

Scott G. Eberle, vice president for play studies at the Strong museum in Rochester, said another benefit of desktop toys is the way they lull you into a meditative state.
斯科特·G·埃伯利(Scott G. Eberle)是羅切斯特(Rochester)斯特朗國家玩具博物館(Strong museum)的副館長，負責研究玩具。他表示，辦公室玩具另一個好處是，它們能誘導你進入冥想狀態。

Mr. Eberle, who edits the Strong’s American Journal of Play and has written extensively on subjects like daydreaming, sees creative value in objects like Newton’s Cradle, which enact physical laws in mysterious, implacable ways. The detachment that comes from watching them is fertile soil for thought.
埃伯利(Eberle)是《斯特朗美國玩具雜誌》(Strong’s American Journal of Play)的編輯，撰寫過大量關於白日夢等話題的稿件。他認爲，牛頓擺能夠以神祕、客觀的方式展示物理定律，像這樣的物件具有創意價值。觀察它們時，你可以體會到超脫感，這種超脫感爲靈感的滋生提供了肥沃的土壤。

“Ideally, you need to move yourself into a state where your mind is offline,” he said, adding that lava lamps, plasma globes and fish tanks provide similar services.
“在理想情況下，你需要讓自己的精神轉入離線的狀態。”埃伯利表示。他還補充說，熔岩燈、等離子燈和魚缸也有類似的效果。

In the case of the Magic 8 Ball, where 20 seer-like phrases (“Without a doubt,” “Outlook not so good,” et cetera) present themselves in a little window, Mr. Eberle sees a corollary to the mind. The answers “float to the surface out of the deep dark recesses,” he said.
再來說說魔法8號球，此球上會列出20種預言（比如“毫無疑問”，“前景不妙”等等），將它們展示在一個小窗口上。埃伯利認爲，這是心靈感應的必然結果。問題的答案“從藍色的液體深處浮了上來。”他說。

For John Edmark, the designer and artist who invented the Helicone in 2008, our diminishing awe of digital tools is exactly what attracts us to desktop toys.
設計師兼藝術家約翰·埃德馬克(John Edmark)在2008年創作了螺旋鬆果。在他看來，人們之所以會被桌上玩具吸引，恰恰是因爲人們對數字工具的敬畏感日益淡薄。

“We know anything can happen on that computer screen, and it may be beautiful or magical,” he said. But objects in the analog world are bound by physical constraints. When they appear to defy the laws of nature, they seem all the more remarkable.
“我們知道，在電腦屏幕上，任何事情都有可能發生，而它可能是美麗或者神奇的，”他說。但是現實世界中的物件受到物理定律的約束。如果它們可以呈現出違背自然規律的假象，那就更加讓人覺得難能可貴。

Mr. Edmark added that he didn’t set out to design a desktop toy with the Helicone. He didn’t even mean to make something that would “spin and activate with a flick of the wrist.”
埃德馬克還說，他一開始並沒有打算把螺旋鬆果設計成桌上玩具。他的本意甚至不是要創作一件“動動手就可以旋轉、並且煥發活力”的作品。

In search of unexpected behavior in the physical world, which he considers a form of beauty, he imagined a pine cone shape unfolding from the device when users turned the topmost element with a finger. It was only after the rotating mechanism jammed and he was trying to fix the problem that he accidentally discovered the motion that produced its striking effect.
他認爲，在現實世界中，不期而至的行爲是一種美，在探尋這種美的過程中，他想象出了一個裝置，當使用者用一根手指轉動其最上面的部分時，一個松果的形狀就會展開。旋轉裝置卡住後，他試圖解決這個問題。就在這時，他才意外地發現了那個具有驚人效果的運動機制。

The short, unplumbed history of executive toys appears to be largely a tale of happenstance.
辦公室玩具擁有一段短暫而未經探索的歷史，其中似乎包含着許多偶然的故事。

If there are any true forerunners to this genre, said Noel Barrett, an antique-toy dealer and “Antiques Roadshow” regular, they would probably be the cast-iron mechanical banks popular from the 1860s to World War II. Such objects mesmerized beholders with their movements and, though whimsical, were not children’s playthings. (One of the biggest sellers, Mr. Barrett noted, was the Tammany bank, featuring Boss Tweed inserting a coin in his pocket.)
諾埃爾·巴雷特(Noel Barrett)是古董玩具經銷商，也是電視節目《鑑寶路演》的常客，他表示，如果這個門類有什麼真正意義上的先驅，那便應該是在19世紀60年代到二戰期間流行的鑄鐵存錢罐(cast-iron mechanical bank)了。這些存錢罐以其妙趣橫生的設計，迷惑觀賞者的眼睛。雖然設計風格異想天開，但它們不是孩子們的玩具。巴雷特指出，其中最熱銷的款式之一，是坦慕尼存錢罐(Tammany bank)，其造型是特威德老大（Boss Tweed，特威德是美國曆史上著名的貪腐人物，曾任坦慕尼協會的會長。坦慕尼協會是紐約市民主黨的執行委員會。特威德等人任會長後，協會開始政治腐敗——譯註）將一枚硬幣塞進口袋裏的樣子。

Then came the drinking bird, a toy that dipped its beak incessantly into a glass of water. The technology (based on temperature differentials created by the evaporation of liquid from the bird’s head) dated to 1910, Mr. Barrett said, but the object became a hit after World War II.
後來流行的是飲水鳥，這個玩具是一隻不斷俯下身子、將喙伸入一杯水中的小鳥。其技術原理是，鳥頭的液體蒸發會造成溫度差。巴雷特表示，這項技術可以追溯到1910年，但是這個玩具在二戰後風靡了起來。

The clearest expression of the executive toy, however, emerged in the late 1960s, with the popularization of Newton’s Cradle. Though a few people deserve credit for its proliferation, it was Simon Prebble, a British actor, who designed an early version out of wood in 1967 and named it after its resemblance to the strings in a cat’s cradle game.
不過，有關辦公室玩具的明確表述始於20世紀60年代末，當時正值牛頓擺的風靡時期。雖然有好幾個人爲牛頓擺的普及做出過貢獻，但是英國演員西蒙·普雷柏(Simon Prebble)是第一人，因爲他在1967年用木頭設計出了早期版本的牛頓擺。由於牛頓擺的整體造型酷似cat's cradle string（即翻花繩），普雷柏將其命名爲“Newton's Cradle”（即牛頓擺）。

As Mr. Prebble recently recalled, he knew nothing about classical mechanics when he found a sketch of the pendulum sequence in a book, but he enjoyed building models. After experimenting with different ball bearings, he took his design to Terence Conran, the founder of the London store Habitat. Mr. Conran considered stocking it, but balked at the cost. And the British Design Council, from which Mr. Prebble sought support, denied him a grant because the invention “hadn’t improved on Newton,” he said.
普雷柏最近回憶道，當年，他在一本書上看到擺球序列圖時，對經典力學一無所知，但是他喜歡建造模型。他試驗了不同的滾珠軸承後，帶着自己的設計，去找了著名設計師特倫斯·康倫(Terence Conran)——倫敦家居用品店Habitat的創始人。康倫曾經考慮過備貨，但是因爲成本問題而猶豫不決。普雷柏向英國設計委員會(British Design Council)尋求支持，但是對方不予資助，據他說，理由是這項發明“並未在牛頓的基礎上有所改善”。

An enterprising buyer at Harrods was not so picky. Mr. Prebble described hand-delivering the first units to the store because he hadn’t figured out a way to package them without tangling the threads. He customized a black van with pictures of his creation, causing bystanders to gape and snap photos. At one point, he created a giant version that, he said, knocked a small child unconscious when it was displayed in a shop.
哈洛德百貨公司(Harrods)的一個商戶買主就沒有那麼挑剔了。普雷柏先生記得，他把第一批貨親自運到了那家店，因爲他想不出有什麼方法可以在不纏結纏結的情況下，將貨物包裹好。他定製了一輛黑色麪包車，在車身上張貼了作品的圖片，引得旁觀者目瞪口呆，紛紛拍照留念。

It was all going pretty well until the competition heated up. In 1968, Richard Loncraine, a British actor and director who had been trained as a sculptor, produced a version in chrome. Less expensive to make, that design helped drive Mr. Prebble’s company out of business. Mr. Prebble went on to a distinguished career as a voice actor with a specialty in audiobooks (he has recorded about 600). He now lives in Manhattan.
一切都很順利，直到競爭開始升溫。1968年，他一度創作了一個巨型版本。他說，這個巨型版本在一家商店裏展出時，曾經把一個小孩撞到不省人事。理查德·隆克萊因(Richard Loncraine)是一位英國演員和導演，受過雕塑訓練。他製作了一個鉻合金版的牛頓擺。這種設計方案成本更低廉，最終將普雷柏的公司逼入倒閉的境地。後來，普雷柏作爲一名配音演員，在職業生涯中取得了光輝的成就。他的專長是有聲讀物（他錄製了大約600部有聲讀物）。普雷柏現居曼哈頓。

“I always remember people saying, ‘What’s it for?’ ” he recalled, adding that his stock response was: “If you have to ask, it’s not for you.” Newton’s Cradle was never intended for offices, he said. Its status as an executive toy simply evolved.
“我記得，總是有人跟我說，‘這東西有什麼用？’”他回憶道，然後表示，他的標準答案是，“如果你還得問這個問題，那就說明它不適合你。”他說，牛頓擺從來不是爲辦公室的人準備的，它作爲辦公室玩具的定位只不過是後來慢慢演化出來的。

And yet the time was ripe for artifacts that gave personality to a workplace. The design curator Donald Albrecht, who organized an exhibition in 2000 called “On the Job: Design and the American Office” at the National Building Museum in Washington, pointed out that Newton’s Cradle was finding an audience around the same time (1971) that the designer Alexander Girard was creating Environmental Enrichment textiles to enliven Herman Miller’s latest office cubicle system.
不過，用個性化的工藝品來裝點辦公室的時機已經成熟。設計策展人唐納德·阿爾布雷希特(Donald Albrecht)曾於2000年在華盛頓國家建築博物館(National Building Museum)舉辦了一場展覽，名爲“在職場：設計與美國辦公室”。他指出，牛頓擺尋找受衆的時間與設計師亞歷山大·吉拉德(Alexander Girard)創作Environmental Enrichment系列紡織品的時間（1971年）差不多。Environmental Enrichment的創作宗旨，是爲了給家居公司赫曼米勒(Herman Miller)的最新辦公隔間系統注入活力。

For Mr. Albrecht, executive toys are “aspirational,” as he put it — less tools for provoking creativity than foghorns of identity and status in a sea of corporate homogeneity.
用阿爾布雷希特的話來說，辦公室玩具在他的眼裏很“勵志”——與其說它們是激發創造力的工具，不如說它們是我們在企業同質化的海洋中彰顯自身身份和地位的霧號（霧號是指，爲警告霧中航行的船隻而鳴的號角——譯註）。

But if the ’60s introduced nonconformity to the office, later efforts weren’t always judged as benign. A 1971 segment of the British television show “Tomorrow’s World” featured James Burke contemplating desktop diversions like kinetic sculpture and a motorized drink holder on the executive floor of the BBC. “What is a lonely, redundant human being to do all day,” he mused, “while the computer’s doing the work downstairs?”
不過，如果說60年代的玩具給辦公室注入了桀驁不馴的活力，那麼，後來的辦公室玩具在人們的眼裏並非總是善類。在1971年的一期英國電視節目《明日世界》(Tomorrow’s World)中，詹姆斯·伯克(James Burke)在BBC的辦公室裏琢磨着活動雕塑、自動置杯架這類桌上玩具。“既然計算機在樓下幹活，”他若有所思地說，“那麼孤獨而多餘的人該怎麼度過一天呢？”

And in a 1990 cartoon in the British humor magazine Punch, a manager asks an employee, “Do you like my new executive toy, Simpkins?” On his desk, alphabet blocks are stacked to create the message: “YOU RE FIRED.”
在英國幽默雜誌《Punch》1990年發表的一幅漫畫中，一位經理問他的員工，“你喜歡我的新辦公室玩具嗎，辛普金斯(Simpkins)？”在他的辦公桌上，有一條由字母塊堆疊而成的信息：“你被解僱了。”

What clearly sustained executive toys through the ’90s and beyond was tech culture. The offices of start-ups were designed like frat houses, and there was a fair chance that the chief executives were barely out of adolescence. What wasn’t a toy?
辦公室玩具之所以能夠在90年代生存下來，並且延綿更長的時間，顯然是因爲科技文化的緣故。創業公司的辦公室被設計得像大學聯誼會使用的房子，而首席執行官們很可能還稚氣未脫。還有什麼不是玩具呢？

In 2004, Roger von Oech, who had been writing and consulting on workplace creativity since the ’70s, developed a puzzle that was a 30-sided polyhedron assembled from 30 tiny magnetic pyramids. The point was not just to reassemble the object once it was dismantled, but to reconfigure the pieces in interesting ways. In 2006, he began to market the toy as the Ball of Whacks.
羅傑·馮·厄克(Roger von Oech)自70年代以來一直從事職場創意方面的撰稿和諮詢。2004年，他開發出了一種益智遊戲——將30個小巧的磁性棱錐組裝成一個30面體。其重點並不僅僅在於將玩具拆除重裝，而是要以有趣的方式重裝。2006年，他開始向市場推出這款玩具，稱爲Ball of Whacks。

“I basically created this product for cubicle geeks, people working with their minds, coming up with ideas,” he said. “They need to take a five- or 10-minute break, now and then, to pick up a physical object.”
“我創作這款產品，基本上是爲了服務於辦公隔間裏的怪才，他們用自己的頭腦工作，想出創意，”他說，“他們需要時不時休息個五到十分鐘，把玩一下實體物件。”

Mr. von Oech found his market: Three years ago, Google bought 7,000 Balls of Whacks for its programmers and developers. He also appealed far beyond, selling around a million of the puzzles and their offshoots. He will introduce his latest, a more intricate version called the Big Ball of Whacks, at Toy Fair next week.
馮·厄克找到了他的市場：三年前，谷歌爲其僱傭的程序員和開發人員訂購了7000個Ball of Whacks。他遠未止步於此，而是售出了大約一百萬件產品和副產品。他將在下週的玩具展上推出最複雜的最新版本，稱爲Big Ball of Whacks。

A final reason executive toys linger, my sources said, is that adults are reluctant to sever ties with childhood. In more than one way, they can’t leave home without them.
我的採訪對象表示，辦公室玩具之所以經久不衰，其終極原因在於，成年人不願意割捨童年的紐帶。從多種角度講，他們不能在沒有童年紐帶的情況下離開家。

Donald M. Rattner, founder of the Creative Home, a blog and design store centered on the role of creativity in the modern home, said, “The things people have out on their desks are interesting signifiers of what’s important to them and what they want to maintain in their memories.” He called that attachment “the Rosebud phenomenon.”
創意家居(Creative Home)是一家博客和設計商店，其創始人唐納德·拉特納(Donald M. Rattner)表示，“人們擺在桌面上的東西都是一些有意思的符號，這些符號象徵着人們想要保留在記憶中的珍貴事物。”他把這種情結稱爲“玫瑰花蕾現象”。

Scott Eberle at the Strong museum also saw a model in Charles Foster Kane, whom he described as “the ultimate movie tycoon.” In “Citizen Kane,” he said, the snow globe that Kane holds on his deathbed “is meant to evoke a nostalgia for a time he could never get back to. He’s trying to recover his lost, playful self.”
斯特朗博物館的斯科特·埃伯利也在查爾斯·福斯特·凱恩(Charles Foster Kane)的身上看到了這樣的例子。用他的話說，凱恩是“終極電影大亨”。他表示，在電影《公民凱恩》(Citizen Kane)中，凱恩在臨終前所拿的雪景球“就是爲了喚起懷舊情結，追懷一段永遠回不去的時光。他是在試圖喚起那個失去的、俏皮自我。”

And what plaything does Mr. Eberle have at hand?
那麼埃伯利手頭有什麼玩物呢？

“The only one I have in my office is a yo-yo,” he said. “If I run into a sentence that’s knotty, the yo-yo will get me out of it.”
“我唯一的辦公室玩具就是溜溜球，”他說，“如果我碰上了棘手的句子，溜溜球就會幫我走出困境。”