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It is becoming harder to take off a sick day
请病假越来越难（上）
If you have a high temperature or are recovering from heart surgery, it is difficult to use machine tools. And if you are having a nervous breakdown, machine tools are best avoided.
如果你正值高烧，或者刚做完心脏手术还在恢复，操作机床就会很困难。而如果你处于精神崩溃状态，最好就不要使用机床。
Sick days are the remedy. They are meant to prevent people from hurting themselves, their co-workers, customers or passers-by on the job.
病假才是良药。病假的存在，就是为了防止有人在工作中受伤，不管是他们自己、同事、客户还是路人。
Working from home has flipped this logic on its head. If you can work from the kitchen table, today’s hybrid workers increasingly conclude, then why not from bed—so long as the brain is on and the Zoom camera off?
但居家办公却颠覆了这一逻辑。如今，越来越多的混合办公者得出了这样的结论：只要大脑醒着，摄像头关着，能在餐桌旁完成的工作，又为什么不能在床上处理呢？
The work-from-home revolution has raised the bar for what counts as being sick. At the height of the pandemic people worked from home even with nasty symptoms such as fever, shortness of breath or nausea. Many still do.
居家办公的革命提高了生病的门槛。在疫情最严重的时候，即使人们有诸如发烧、呼吸急促或恶心等严重症状，也会坚持带病居家办公。直到现在也有很多人还在这么做。
Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University has been tracking work-from-home habits since before the corona-crisis popularised them.
早在新冠危机让居家办公变得更为普及之前，斯坦福大学的尼古拉斯·布鲁姆就开始在研究这种习惯了。
In a recent working paper he presents the results of a randomised controlled trial at a large Chinese multinational company, where sick days fell by 12% for employees working from home two days a week relative to those coming in full time.
在最近的一篇研究报告中，他展示了在一家中国大型跨国公司进行的一项随机对照试验的结果：每周居家办公两天的员工病假天数比全职员工要少12%。
Your columnist, a guest Bartleby, can sympathise.
本文作者是巴托比专栏的客座作家，她表示这种现象可以理解。
In the past, while convalescing, she had no qualms about wrapping herself in a blanket with a hot toddy, toast and some tissues. When she got covid-19 early this summer, by contrast, she kept going with her phone and laptop sunk in the duvet.
之前养病的时候，她会心安理得地把毯子裹在身上，纸巾放在一旁，就着热棕榈酒吃吐司。但在今年夏初感染新冠肺炎时，她只能缩在羽绒被里，手机电脑忙个不停。
Her managers strongly urged that her work should be passed on to a colleague. For her, this was unthinkable, at least until she almost passed out. To be in bed not doing anything connotes not only physical discomfort but also cognitive impairment.
经理强烈要求她把工作转交给其他同事，但是对她来说，这简直无法想象，至少在她快要晕倒之前内心还是抗拒的。躺在床上无所事事不仅意味着身体不适，还暗含着认知障碍。
Salaried workers, who are often evaluated on the basis of their input rather than output, find it hard to say they are off the game for a few days now that they don’t need to worry about spreading germs in the office.
对受薪员工的评估通常是基于其投入而非产出，既然现在毋须担忧办公室里会有病菌传播，他们往往很难能够好好休息几天。
For high-achievers, putting in the hours is not a chore but a way of life. Unplanned breaks are antithetical to the pervasive anxiety to perform. As recession looms and puts future job security into question, showing yourself to be useful becomes even more important.
对于成功人士来说，加班并不是完成任务，而是一种生活方式。无计划的休息与普遍存在的工作焦虑背道而驰。随着经济衰退慢慢逼近，未来的工作保障成了问题，因此展示自己的有用性就变得更加重要。
Hybrid-work etiquette is fluid and many companies have yet to update their sick-leave rules for the new era.
混合办公的规矩灵活多变，许多公司都还没有为新时代更新病假规定。
