Lloyds bank has found a new way of saving money. It has banned all staff from travelling in the third week of every month.

莱斯银行(Lloyds)发现了一个省钱的新办法。该银行已禁止所有员工在每月的第三周出行。

How pathetic, I thought when I first heard of this. Things evidently aren’t good at the half-nationalised bank if first the chief executive stays home for a couple of months because he’s exhausted and then it implements a hare-brained cost-cutting scheme that treats people like babies.

多可怜呀！刚听到这个消息时，我这样想到。先是首席执行官因为疲劳而在家呆了几个月，接着该行就实施了这样一项草率的成本削减计划，把员工当作婴儿一样对待，显然，这家半国有化银行的情况不妙。

The idea is nonsensical: if a trip matters, it ought to be taken at the right time; and if it isn’t, it ought not to be taken at any time at all. Most ludicrous of all, the bank says the policy is part of its “Smart and Responsible” initiative and is in accordance with one of its core values: “We Act Wisely”.

这项计划蠢透了：如果某一次出差很重要，那就应该选择恰当的时间；如果不重要，那就根本不应该出差，无论是什么时候。最荒唐的是，该行声称，此项政策是其“聪明、负责”举措的一部分，而且符合该行的核心价值观之一，即“我们行事明智”。

Yet Lloyds claims that this scheme has been a great triumph. Since it was put in place six months ago, 70,000 fewer trips have been taken. Each month the bank saves ￡1.5m in costs, and presumably much more in terms of management time. And far from travel being correspondingly higher in the other three weeks, it is falling in those too.

然而，莱斯银行声称，此项计划取得了巨大的成功。实施半年来，员工出差次数减少了7万次。每月该行可节省150万英镑成本，至于管理层节省的时间价值想必不止这个数。而且另外三周的出差次数非但没有相应增多，反而有所减少。

So maybe it is not such a stupid idea after all. Maybe it is necessary to treat grown-up staff like babies because, contrary to any We-Act-Wisely guff, all office workers act remarkably unwisely when it comes to travel. Everyone travels far more than makes sense – except perhaps to airlines and hotels. It is tiring and lonely to be stuck in a succession of anonymous hotel rooms, where you can’t figure out how the lights work and with only the minibar for company. It is also expensive. And bad for marriages. And the environment doesn’t like it either.

如此看来，这项计划或许并不是那么蠢。把成年的员工当作婴儿一样对待或许是必要的，因为，与“我们行事明智”之类的废话恰恰相反，在出差这件事上，所有坐办公室的上班族都表现得很不明智。大多数时候，出差是无意义的（或许只对航空公司和酒店有意义）。出差是件既累又孤单的事儿，你总是置身于一个又一个没什么特色的酒店房间。你没法搞懂灯是怎么亮起来的之类的事情，可供你消磨时间的也只有迷你吧台。住店还很贵。而且对婚姻不利。而且从环境角度讲也不是好事。

But still everyone goes on travelling. The ash cloud proved what bliss it was when managers were grounded but no sooner had the skies cleared than businesspeople were back in the air again.

可是大家还是在不断地旅行。那时候的火山灰是件多么欢乐的事儿啊，管理人员们都被困在了地面上。然而，天空刚刚重新变得晴朗，商界人士就又毫不迟疑地当起了空中飞人。

Most companies are trying to solve the problem by outlawing all but the most important trips. Even though this sounds sensible, it doesn’t work as it’s too vague: everyone responds by claiming that their trip is essential. If instead you treat everyone like babies and impose arbitrary rules, people have no choice but to comply.

为了解决这个问题，大多数公司都试图禁止不太重要的出差。这么做听上去很明智，实际上却不起作用，因为它太含糊：每个人都说他们出差是必要的。相反，如果你像对待婴儿一样对待他们，实行专制的规定，那么他们除了服从以外就别无选择。

Imposing such a structure on adults may be less alien than it sounds; history suggests humans rather like it. The very fact that we divide time into weeks and months suggests a willingness to do (or not do) particular things at particular times. One relatively popular part of religious cultures is the idea of a weekly holy day, where there is a ban not just on travel but on any work at all.

对成年人实行这样的制度听起来或许很新奇，其实不然，从历史上看，人类本身就相当喜欢这种做法。我们把时间划分成周和月，不就说明我们愿意在特定的时间做（或不做）特定的事情。宗教文化中有一个相当流行的现象，也就是规定一周有一个“神圣的日子”，这一天非但不能出行，而且任何工作都要放到一边。

And yet business has almost completely abandoned any such structure. There is no longer much that divides up our working lives. Days and evenings merge into each other, as do workdays and weekends. It’s supposed to be an age of flexibility and empowerment; actually it’s a great, undifferentiated expanse of frantic inefficiency.

然而，企业界已经几乎完全放弃了此类做法。分割工作时间的制度已经不复存在，我们不再区分日与夜、工作日与休息日。这被认为是一个机动灵活、权力下放的时代，而实际上是一个疯狂无效率的工作方式普遍、无差别存在的时代。

If weekly travel bans are a good idea, a similar system should be deployed for all the other ways in which We Are Not Wise with our time. Such a policy is surely the solution to the email problem, given that other approaches have clearly failed. The only remaining answer is to flip the master switch and say email is banned on Tuesdays.

如果说每周出行禁令是个好主意的话，那么，所有其他“我们没有明智地”使用时间的方面，都应该可以采用类似制度。这样的制度无疑可以解决电子邮件问题。既然其他办法都已宣告无效，最后剩下的办法就是关闭总开关，说周二禁止发电子邮件。

Equally, there should be designated days (or weeks) when there are no meetings, and other days when business lunches are outlawed. As for business breakfasts, they could be safely outlawed every day.

同样，在一些指定的日子（或周）要禁止一切会议，还有一些日子禁止工作午餐，至于工作早餐每天都禁止也不碍事。

The Lloyds experience suggests that all of these policies would change behaviour for the better. Now that people at the bank have been forced to stay put, they have discovered that not only has nothing bad happened but something rather good has: they have got their work done faster. Having proved this, they are now starting to wonder if the trips in the other weeks are really necessary after all.

莱斯银行的经验表明，所有这些政策都会促使行为发生积极的改变。被“禁行”之后，该行员工发现，不仅没有不良后果发生，而且还产生了一些有益的作用：他们的工作效率提高了。有鉴于此，他们现在开始怀疑另外三周是否真的有必要出差。

I can think of one final – and thrillingly radical – rule that could also be introduced to lift productivity. It would force people, perhaps just for one week a month, to leave the office on time.

我能想到的是：企业不妨也可以施行一条终极的、极其激进的规定，来提高员工的工作效率。那就是强迫员工“按时下班”，一个月可以施行一周。

It sounds extreme, but I have evidence that it works. When my children were young I had to get home at a fixed time every day to relieve the nanny. I had no choice in the matter, and so my work was miraculously always done in time. Now I have the option of working more flexibly – ie working longer and much more unwisely – and so I never fail to take it.

这听上去很极端，但我可以证明这招很管用。当孩子们还小时，我每天必须在固定的时间回到家中，以便让保姆下班。在这件事情上我别无选择，所以我总是奇迹般地按时完成工作。如今我可以选择更加灵活地工作，也就是更长时间、更不明智地工作，所以我就总是这么做。

But now I come to think of it, this super-radical, leave-work-on-time idea has been done before. It’s called working nine to five and, if memory serves, it used to be rather successful.

但现在我想起来了，这种超级激进的按时下班的做法已经曾经采用过。它被叫作“朝九晚五”工作制，没记错的话，它当初相当管用。

译者/何黎