It's been a jolly bad week for that most traditional of office pastimes — gossiping. First came a survey saying that Americans are exchanging 21 per cent less gossip around the watercooler than they were four years ago.
辦公室里最傳統的消遣莫過于八卦。不過，這周對于八卦而言，可真是糟糕透頂。先是有一項調查顯示，美國人在飲水機旁八卦閑談的時間比四年前少了21%。
Then, a couple of days later, one of the world's most rabid enemies of gossip, Ray Dalio, emerged as king of the hedgies, taking the crown from George Soros. Mr Dalio is famous for forbidding staff of his Bridgewater fund from gossiping and has warned them: "If you talk behind people's backs . . . you are called a slimy weasel."
隨之，幾天后，世上對八卦最為深惡痛絕的一位人士——雷?戴利奧(Ray Dalio)——從喬治?索羅斯(George Soros)手中搶走了桂冠，一舉成為對沖基金界的王者。戴利奧很有名的一個段子是禁止其橋水(Bridgewater)基金公司的員工講八卦。他警告員工：“如果你在別人背后說閑話……你就是只令人嫌惡的臭黃鼠狼(slimy weasel)。”
Even without these (dodgy) surveys and doctrinaire hedge fund bosses, I had already noticed something big was happening. There is simply a lot less gossip than there used to be. At least at my place, whole weeks can pass without me hearing anything juicy at all.
即使沒有這些（居心不良的）調查或者死板的基金老板，我也已經注意到現今形勢出現了重大變化。現在的八卦比以前少了很多。至少在我所處的辦公室，往往好幾周都聽不到一點小道消息。
You could say that this is a great thing, as it makes work more decent, more professional and more straightforward. But I think it's a catastrophe. Being an experienced, even distinguished, slimy weasel myself, I'd put Mr Dalio's diktat differently: if you don't talk behind people's backs, you are a prig and a bore and not sufficiently interested in the human condition to have any chance of success in a people business. Gossip is the thing that unites us and, even in hard times, makes coming into the office a constant pleasure.
你可能會說，沒有八卦了多好，這樣工作變得更體面、更專業也更加直接。可是我卻覺得這不啻一場災難。作為一名經驗老道、甚至可謂出類拔萃的“臭黃鼠狼”，我對戴利奧的命令不敢茍同：如果你不在別人背后講講閑話，那簡直就是個乏味的道學先生，對于“何為人者”毫無興致，壓根沒有機會在人際交往中勝出。正是有了八卦才把大家聯系在一起，即使在艱難時刻，走進辦公室也立刻充滿了樂趣。
The reason that the art of tittle-tattle is dying out has nothing to do with us becoming nicer, as we are surely just as horrible as they always were. Nor is it to do with autocratic bosses forbidding it (which tends to have the opposite effect, anyway). It is simply because the way we work is changing and there are far fewer gossip opportunities in an average working day than there once were.
閑話的藝術正在消亡，其原因不是人們變得更加高尚了——人們當然還是一如既往地可憎。也不是因為獨斷專行的老板禁止人們說閑話（其實往往帶來相反的效果）。原因很簡單，人們的工作方式變了，在普通工作日里八卦的時間比以前大大減少了。
First, there has been the tragic decline of the lunch hour and the eclipse of the office canteen. When I joined the workforce 30 years ago, the canteen was a temple to gossip, which was exchanged in a leisurely, convivial way over a plate of toad in the hole. Today for lunch I did what I tend to do when I don't have a date, and slipped out alone for an egg sandwich, which I ate at my desk.
首先，午餐時間可悲地減少了，企業食堂消亡了。30年前我參加工作時，食堂是八卦的圣殿。端上一碟子烤香腸，從容不迫、愉快隨意地交流著閑言碎語。現在，如果沒有約會，我的午餐時間就是用來吃午餐，而且是一個人溜出去，買個雞蛋三明治，回到辦公桌前獨自吃掉。
Virtual working is also a disaster for gossip. So is excessive working. The more people have to do, the less time they have for idle chatter. But far more than any of this, the thing that is killing the finest sort of gossip is the internet: email, Facebook and Twitter.
遠程虛擬工作和加班也成了八卦的殺手。人們干活越多，可以嘮叨閑話的時間就越少。不過，相比之下，在消滅一流八卦方面“居功至偉”的當屬互聯網：電子郵件、Facebook和Twitter。
As every slimy weasel will tell you, there is an art to being a good gossip. The most important thing is for it to happen face-to-face. You need to be able to see the other person and watch their pupils dilating as juicy scraps of news are given and received. You must be able to laugh, whisper and speculate together.
每位臭黃鼠狼都會告訴你，成為一流的八卦散布者是門藝術。其中最重要的一點是，講八卦要面對面地講。你得看得到其他人，隨著一條條刺激的消息傳來傳去，看著人們的瞳孔興奮地放大。你得會和別人一起哈哈大笑、竊竊私語以及臆度揣測。
All gifted gossipers possess three special skills. First, they have built up superb sources; second, they know how to tell a good story; and third, they have the self-restraint and judgment to stop before becoming too nasty. After all, the aim of the exercise is to leave the person you are talking to feeling titillated, not soiled.
任何有天賦的三姑六婆都得具備三種技能。首先，信息來源廣泛；第二，知道怎么講好故事；第三，有自制力和判斷力，能在造成傷害之前戛然而止。畢竟，八卦的目的只是調侃一下談論對象，而不能讓他們覺得受了侮辱。
The internet ruins all of this. It is mechanical and brutal and faceless and unsatisfyingly random. And much of what passes for gossip online is about people you have never even heard of, so where's the fun in that?
而互聯網則毀掉了這一切。互聯網呆板、無情、冰冷，隨機性很大。網上流傳的八卦大都是關于毫不相干的人，這有什么樂趣可言？
A perfect example of this was an email forwarded to me — and to every other worker in the western world — written by four spoilt ex-public school boys working at various City firms. They were organising a trip to watch the rugby in Dubai and bragging about how rich their parents were and how they were going to cheat on their girlfriends.
最典型的一個例子是轉發給我的一封郵件——也轉發給了所有西方國家的上班族。這封郵件的作者是四個被寵壞的男孩，以前在私立學校念書，后來在倫敦金融城(the City)的企業里工作。在郵件里，他們談到正在組織一次旅行，前往迪拜觀看英式橄欖球比賽，還吹噓自己的父母如何富有，打算如何背著女朋友亂搞。
As gossip, this fails every test. I don't know any of the subjects, I don't even really know the person who forwarded the email to me. As I sat alone by my computer reading their stupid messages, I felt half-bored and half-lowered — less by the vulgarity of the emails but by the whole exercise. The scale of the damage done to this feckless foursome by the mass forwarding of their emails seems out of proportion to the stupidity of their messages.
從八卦的角度看，這封郵件從哪個角度看都不合格。我對其中談論的主題一無所知，甚至不知道是誰轉發給我的。我坐在電腦前讀著他們的愚蠢郵件，心中感到煩躁又陰郁——倒不是因為郵件內容的粗俗，而是整件事情的荒唐。這四個人雖然不負責任，但是群體轉發他們的郵件對這四個人也造成了無法彌補的傷害，郵件內容的愚蠢之處反倒相形見絀了。
The saddest thing of all is how little it takes to be a top modern gossiper. You don't need contacts, you don't need judgment and you certainly don't need to know how to tell a good story. All you need is an index finger (or any firm object) so that you can press the forward button — or to click retweet on Twitter.
最讓人沮喪的是，在現代社會成為一流的八卦人士不必費吹灰之力。不需要聯系別人，不需要判斷力，當然也不用知道講好故事的技巧。只要動動食指（或者任何堅硬物體）按下轉發鍵就行了——或者在Twitter上點一下“轉貼”按鈕即可。 |
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