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Restore Work-Life Sanity
工作生活失衡不能怪老板
Working all hours? No time for family or hobbies? Stop blaming your employer and take responsibility for your own role in managing your work and life commitments, say a growing number of workplace and management experts -- most prominently Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in her new book Lean In.
你是不是每天从早忙到晚？你是不是没有时间照顾家庭，享受兴趣爱好？越来越多的职场和管理专家表示，这可不能怪东家，你得自己负责管好你的工作与生活的各项事务。这些声音中，最引人关注的是Facebook首席运营官谢丽尔•桑德伯格在她的新书《互依》（Lean In）中的最新表述。
After all, with technology and a global economy blurring the lines between the job and home, the corporation is no longer in a position to tell you when to stop working, which tasks to prioritize, or how to set personal boundaries, says Cali Williams Yost, flexible work consultant and author of Tweak It: Make What Matters to You Happen Every Day.
毕竟，科技和经济的全球化使得工作与家庭的界线变得越来越模糊，公司也不再承担这样的一个职责：告诉员工何时停下工作，优先处理哪些事情，以及如何设定个人空间界线等，《微调：一天一天实现梦想》（Tweak It: Make What Matters to You Happen Every Day）一书的作者、灵活工作咨询师凯利•威廉姆斯•尤斯特表示。
"We all have a completely different set of circumstances and goals and priorities, " Yost says. "We're reaching at a natural point where companies can't do much more than what they're doing: offering the flexibility and rolling it out well. Now we need to use it."
“我们都有完全不同的状况、目标和优先事项，”尤斯特说。 “我们正在接近一个自然的临界点，超过这个临界点之后，公司除了提供工作的灵活性，妥善执行灵活性之外，再也无能为力。如今，我们需要利用灵活性。”
To be sure, not every employer has developed a functional approach to flexible work. And plenty of workers are still struggling with out-of-date bosses who categorically oppose workplace flexibility or simply undermine it, despite the documented benefits such as higher productivity, lower turnover, and greater job satisfaction. (Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa Mayer's recent ban on telecommuting may come to mind.)
当然，并不是每家公司都已培育出有效的灵活工作方式。而且，很多员工还在和守旧的老板进行斗争。尽管灵活安排工作环境好处显而易见，比如，它可以提高生产率、降低人员流失和提高工作满意度等，但这些老板依然明确反对，甚至从中作梗。【这时，你或许会想起最近雅虎（Yahoo）CEO玛丽莎•梅耶尔禁止远程办公的禁令。】
In that case, you have two choices: work within your current restrictions or change jobs. Don't be like the 75% of people who, according to Yost's research, believe that their boss or employer must provide work-life flexibility in order for it to be possible, citing increased workloads and lack of time as obstacles.
在这种情况下，你有两种选择：要么遵从新的规则，要么换工作。不要像尤斯特调查的那75%的人一样，他们认为，老板或雇主必须提供工作与生活之间的灵活性，而且他们还将工作压力大和缺乏时间视为障碍。
"Whether you have a supportive workplace culture or you don't, at the end of the day the responsibility for making it work comes down to each of us, " says Brad Harrington, executive director of the Boston College Center for Work and Family. "You can only blame your employer for so long. Assuming you have marketable skills and that you have the courage of your convictions, at some point you have to say, 'It comes down to me to fix the situation.'"
“无论你是否拥有支持性的工作环境，归根结底，灵活工作那一套能不能够行得通，责任还是得落在我们每个人肩上，”波士顿学院工作和家庭中心（Boston College Center for Work and Family）执行董事布拉德•哈林顿说。“不能再把责任推给老板了。假设你拥有具有市场竞争力的技能，而且你拥有坚定的信念，终有一天，你必须告诉自己，‘我得自己来改变这个现状了。’”
To begin to restore work-life sanity, assess the demands on your time both personally and professionally, in the context of your aspirations for your career and home life. Make sure to capture a complete picture by combining your personal and work calendars, Yost says.
为了重建工作和生活的平衡，不妨根据你对职业和家庭生活的期望，从个人和职业角度对时间需求进行评估。尤斯特说，要结合个人和工作日程安排，全盘考虑。
Each week, she advises setting aside time to put on your calendar every task on your to-do list, whether that's a date night with your spouse, two hours of focused strategic planning, or a specific work project. If you can't find a block of time for certain items, you'll either have to put them off or delegate them to someone else. As you see commitments coming up that will require you to shift your work schedule, communicate with your family and colleagues to make it happen.
她建议，每周都划出一些时间把你要完成的工作排入日程表，无论这是与爱人的晚间约会、是两个小时专注的战略性规划，还是完成具体的工作项目。如果有些事情你找不到整块时间来做，要么延后，要么分配给其他人。如果你发现有些事情需要改变原有的工作安排，请与你的家人和同事沟通协调。
Anna Bradshaw, 38, a social work student in Madison, N.J., maintains overlapping Google calendars for her work, family commitments, and her husband's job. "At any time I can agree to staying late at work one night or saying no to something else because I know what's going on with his calendar, " says Bradshaw, who has three children aged 8, 5, and 3. "I am constantly managing competing priorities and concerns."
新泽西州麦迪逊现年38岁的社区工作学生安娜•布拉德肖表示，她一直使用谷歌（Google）日历表功能，综合安排自己的工作、家庭生活和丈夫的工作。“任何时候我都能立即同意某天晚上加班，或者回绝其他一些事情，因为我知道丈夫的日程安排，”有3个小孩（年龄分别为8岁、5岁和3岁）的布拉德肖表示。“我经常要管理相互冲突的优先事项和重要事情。”
Some of this comes down to what Facebook's (FB) Sandberg calls "leaning in, " or seizing opportunities for advancement rather than being held back by fear of what the new responsibilities will mean for family life.
其中一些可归为Facebook桑德伯格所谓的“扩大影响圈”，或者抓住前进机会，不会因为担心新职责可能影响到家庭生活而迟疑。
Sandberg's message has been subject to criticism. Workplace experts fear that glossing over the real tensions and difficulties of balancing work and family life lets employers off the hook.
桑德伯格的讲法已遭到批评。职场专家们担心，平衡工作和家庭关系方面存在的切切实实的困难，粉饰这种困难可能会让雇主藉此撇清关系。
"Part of the answer is people taking ownership, but let's not lower the bar too far," says Jessica DeGroot, founder of ThirdPath, a nonprofit that supports men and women with their career paths. "Without more courageous people standing up, corporate America often asks too much of employees, and it's hurting marriages and families."
“答案部分在于让雇员自己负责，但不要把标准降得太低，”提供职业发展支持的非营利组织ThirdPath的创始人杰西卡•迪格鲁特说。“如果没有更多有勇气的人站起来反对，美国企业就会给雇员提过多的要求，结果对婚姻和家庭造成破坏。”
Just look at the price that former Lehman Brothers CFO Erin Callan paid for giving her all to the job: Her marriage ended, and when Lehman collapsed she felt her entire identity was gone. "I didn't start out with the goal of devoting all of myself to my job. It crept in over time," she wrote in a recent New York Times essay. "My boundaries slipped away until work was all that was left."
让我们看看前雷曼兄弟（Lehman Brothers）首席财务官艾琳•卡兰全身心扑在工作上所付出的代价：她的婚姻结束了。雷曼倒闭时，她感觉自己整个人也消失了。“最初我并没有将全部投身工作作为自己的目标。这是日积月累形成的，”最近她在《纽约时报》（New York Times）的一篇文章中这样写道。“个人空间的界线逐渐消失，一直到最后只剩下了工作。”
Others note that the work-life debate often overlooks the challenges of working class families, which have even more limited choices -- if any. "There are millions of women who work just as hard as Sandberg, but who are barely scraping by on wages that amount to less than $15,000 a year," says Linda Meric, national executive director of 9to5, a nonprofit that advocates for low-wage earner women. "For those working full-time at low-wage jobs, 'leaning in' and other personal decisions and choices does not provide a path out of poverty. We need labor standards that provide a stable floor for all workers and families."
其他职场专家指出，有关平衡工作与生活的讨论通常忽视工薪家庭面临的挑战，因为他们的选择更有限——如果还有选择的话。“有数百万女性像桑德伯格一样努力工作，但她们每年辛辛苦苦赚的钱不到15,000美元，”为低收入女性代言的非营利组织9to5的全美执行董事琳达•美瑞克说，“对于那些全职的低收入工作，‘扩大影响圈'和其他个人决定与选择不会让他们找到摆脱贫困的出路。我们需要一个工作标准，为所有员工和家庭提供稳固的平台。”
Yost says it's up to individuals to make the leap from work-life inspiration to implementation. Sandberg also sees the importance of learning new workplace skills, whether that's negotiation or time management, according to Lean In documents published in the New York Times.
尤斯特说，要想实现工作-家庭平衡，达到这样的飞跃，具体取决于个人。根据《纽约时报》刊登的《互依》一书中的部分内容，桑德伯格还看到了学习新的职场技能的重要性，无论是谈判，还是时间管理。
"There is inspiration everywhere. It's not enough," Yost says. "With technology and globalization and demographic shifts, the old boundaries are gone, and something has to take its place. We are going to have to step into that breach. This is about men, women, young people, entrepreneurs, older workers. This is not about parents and not about women. This is about every single one of us."
“任何地方都有想法。光有想法还不够，”尤斯特说，随着科技、全球化和人口结构的转变，过去的界线已经消失，其他东西将取而代之。我们必须站出来。它关乎男性、女性、年轻人、创业者和年长的工作者。它不只关系到父母，不只关系到女性。它关乎我们每个人。”
