酷兔英语


I had to make a doctor's appointment for an annual check-up and ask for a prescription refill yesterday afternoon. Simple? Not where I work.


昨天下午,我必须打电话和一名医生预约年度体检,并要求继续按处方拿药。简单吗?上班时可不这样。



For most people, that involves a quick phone call. For me, it entails furtive glances to my left and right, muttering in a muffled voice into the phone and general awkwardness.


对大多数人来说,那不过是一个速战速决的电话。可是对我而言,那涉及一系列鬼鬼祟祟地左顾右盼,压低嗓音含混不清地讲电话,可谓尴尬不已。



You see, I work in an open-plan newsroom, where almost nobody has a private office, let alone the pseudo-privacy of cubicle walls. I sit about three feet from my editor and there are six additional employees within a five-foot radius. Add to that another five or six people who are still within earshot when I speak with an 'inside voice.'


你知道,我在一个开放式的新闻编辑部工作,这里几乎没人有私人办公室,更别说提供伪私密空间的隔 了。我坐在离我编辑不到一米的地方,并且方圆1.5米内另有六名同事。再加上还有五六个人坐在即使我窃窃私语他们也能听到的范围内。



Now you can understand why scheduling certain kinds of appointments and otherwise doing anything personal is, well, not at all personal.


现在你明白,为什么安排私人预约或是做其它私人事务在这里完全没有私密性可言了。



And it works both ways: Whether they want me to or not, I know when a fellow reporter has big dinner plans, when my editor's son is sick, when a colleague is fighting with their cable company.


而且这是相互的:不管他们是否愿意,我也知道一个记者同事有丰盛的晚餐计划,编辑的儿子生病了,另一名同事正和他们的有线电视公司闹纠纷。



Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly fine sharing some personal information with my coworkers. They know the basics about my family and my background, and hear funny anecdotes from the weekend. But not everyone needs to know everything. And likely, they don't want to.


别误会,我完全不介意和同事分享一些我的个人信息。他们了解我的基本家庭情况和背景,也知道我周末遇到的一些有意思的奇闻轶事。但并不是每个人都需要知道我所有的事情。并且很可能他们也这样认为。



Sometimes the close proximity of neighbors pays off. I'll pick up snippets of a phone conversation from another reporter, recognize that I have a source that could help with what they're working on, and pass along the information. Or I can turn 90 degrees and ask my editor a quick question.


当然,有时候办公室同事间的邻近也会有裨益之处。我会偶然听到另一名记者讲电话时的只言片语,然后发现我有渠道帮助他们解决遇到的问题,并将相关信息转告给他们。或者我也可以转个90度,向我的编辑询问一个简短的问题,假装没听到他们的谈话。



But more often than not, it's a burden rather than a blessing.


但大部分时候,这是一种负担而非幸福。



Readers, how do you handle personal calls at work? What personal topics should be off-limits for conversations in the workplace?


读者朋友,你是如何处理工作时的私人电话呢?对你而言,什么样的个人话题是工作场所谈话的禁忌呢?



Melissa Korn


Melissa Korn