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On most things about working life, most people agree. Diversity is good; bankers’ bonuses are bad; creativity is good, box ticking is bad, and so on.
关于职场生活的绝大部分事情，绝大部分人的意见是一致的。多样性是好的，银行家的超高奖金是不好的；创意是好的，形式化的程序是不好的；等等。
But there is one thing on which there is no agreement at all: whether it is OK to check emails while on holiday.
但是有一件事人们的看法各不相同：在休假期间查看邮件，到底好不好？
Last week’s news that staff at Daimler can free themselves of this holiday tyranny has got the two sides fighting again. The carmaker’s novel scheme means that all messages landing in the inbox of someone who is away automatically destruct, and the sender is told to contact someone else instead.
不久前传出的新闻——戴姆勒(Daimler)员工可以从这种邮件暴政中解放出来，让观点相左的双方重新争执起来。这家汽车制造商的新方案意味着，所有发送给休假中员工的邮件都会被自动删除，发件人会被告知联系他人。
Hooray for Daimler, said some people. At last, a chance of getting a proper break. Madness, said others. It is crazy to be so doctrinaire when spending a couple of minutes a day checking what is happening at work is so easy and so efficient.
一些人为戴姆勒欢呼——至少，这样就有机会真正休息了。其他人说，这简直是疯了。每天花几分钟查看工作上发生了什么是这么的简单有效，如此教条化的处理方式实在不可理喻。
Which side is right?
哪一方是正确的？
I have just passed this summer in violent disagreement with myself on this matter. Three years ago I wrote a column coining the word “worliday”, and declaring myself to be a great fan of it. A worliday is where you do light work when away, with the result that you can take longer breaks from the office than you would be able to take otherwise.
在这个问题上，我刚刚以非常自我矛盾的态度度过了这个夏天。3年前，我写了一篇专栏，造出了一个词"workliday"（“工作假期”），宣称我自己非常喜欢这种度假方式。所谓的“工作假期”就是在假期时做一些轻量的工作，这样的话，比起完全不做任何工作，你的休假时间可以更长。
If, like me, you enjoy your job, there seems nothing wrong with doing a little of it as the rain pelts down on the roof of a cottage in Cornwall. Emailing when away, I reasoned, is inevitable, mildly useful, and fine so long as you use the drug in moderation.
如果你像我一样热爱自己的工作，那么当你身处康沃尔(Cornwall)的小别墅里，雨点打在屋顶的时候，做点工作似乎没什么不好。我当时写道，在度假时收发邮件是无可避免的，只要把握好度，这样做挺有用，也挺好的。
On holiday this year, I changed my mind. I was sitting in the same Cornish cottage reading a new book by John Lanchester. In it, he quotes a surprising statistic: adults in the UK spend on average less than a quarter of their waking lives working – based on 45 years of working eight-hour days, five days a week with 28 days annual leave, and an 81-year lifespan.
今年休假时，我改变了看法。当时，我正在康沃尔的同一栋别墅里阅读约翰•兰彻斯特(John Lanchester)的一本新书。在书中，他引用了一个惊人的统计数据：除去睡眠时间，英国的成年人平均一生花在工作上的时间还不到四分之一。这个数据是根据81岁的寿命、45年的工作年限，一周工作5天、每天工作8小时，以及每年28天年假计算出来的。
If work takes up so very little of our lives, how come it feels as if it takes up so much?
如果工作占据我们生活的比例如此之小，为什么我们感觉工作占的时间那么多？
The answer was in my pocket, buzzing to tell me that I had an email. There was no reason for me to look at it, but I looked anyway.
答案在我的口袋里，设备震动起来，告诉我进来了一封新邮件。我没有任何理由需要查看这封邮件，但是我还是看了。
It was nothing – a request for a distant meeting. But even so, I noticed a tiny physical reaction, a tightening in the stomach, a rise in the pulse, a response that was greater than if I had seen the same thing in the office. There is an odd thing going on here: the further you are from work, the more its news disturbs you.
没什么重要的事情——只是一个远程会议请求。但即使如此，我还是注意到自己的身体起了小小的反应，我的胃部感到紧张、脉搏也加快了，如果我在办公室看到这封邮件，我根本不会有这么大的反应。一件奇怪的事情发生了：你越远离工作，工作上发生的事情就越会打扰到你。
I have now changed my mind altogether. There is never any excuse for emailing while on holiday – or rather there are lots of excuses, but all are bad ones. I can think of five straight off.
我现在完全改变了我的看法。休假时收发邮件根本毫无理由——或者说虽然有很多理由，但这些理由都不充分。我能立刻想到的有5条。
You are indispensable. There are decisions to be made and you are the only person who can make them. If you are chief executive and a takeover bid lands in your absence, you may need to do something. But that is not a reason for checking messages – it is a reason for leaving a contact number. Generally, if your employer can’t do without you for two weeks it has serious problems and it may be time to look for another one.
你是不可或缺的。有一些事情需要决定，而你是唯一能拍板的人。如果你是首席执行官，在你休假的时候有人出价收购公司，你可能必须去处理一些事情。但这不是让你查看邮件的理由，而是让你留下一个联系电话的理由。通常情况下，如果你离开两周，你所效力的公司就无法正常经营了，那么说明这家公司有严重问题，你可能应该考虑跳槽了。
