第6课课文及课文翻译.docx

Thank God It’s MondayBy Jyoti thottam(1) As researchers in psychology, economics and organizational behavior have beengradually discovering, the experience of being happy at work looks very similar acrossprofessions. 从事心理学、经济学和组织行为学研究的人已逐渐发现, 各行各业的人们在工作中感受到快乐的体验看起来十分相似People who love their jobs feel challenged by their work but in control of it. 热爱本职工作的人会感到他们的工作有挑战性, 但自己能驾驭它；They have bosses who make them feel appreciated and co-workers they like. 他们既得到老板的赏识, 又有和自己投缘的同事；They can find meaning in whatever they do. 无论干什么他们都能发现其中的意义。

And they aren’t just lucky. 他们可不是仅仅凭着运气好It takes real effort to reach that sublime state. 要到达那种完美的境界需要切实下工夫才行2) An even bigger obstacle, though, may be our low expectations on the job. Love, family, 不过, 一个更大的障碍也许是我们对工作的期望值太低community — those are supposed to be the true sources of happiness, while work simply gives us the means to enjoy them. 爱、家庭和社区往往被看做快乐的真正来源, 而工作只是为我们提供了享受那一切的手段Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term flow, which adherents of positive psychology would use to describe the job-induced highs, says that distinction is a false one.米哈里· 奇凯岑特米哈伊认为这种区分是错误的。

他创造了“强感受〞 (flow) 这个说法, 信奉正面心理学的人常用此词来描述由工作而引发的兴奋状态Anything can be enjoyable if the elements of flow are present,〞 he writes in his book Good Business. 在?满意如意的工作?一书中他写道:“ 只要存在强感受因素, 任何事情都能给我们带来愉悦 “Within that framework, doing a seemingly boring job can be a source of greater fulfillment than one ever thought possible.〞 根据这一观点, 从事一份外表看上去枯燥的工作却会给人们带来想象不到的更大的成就感〞(3) Csikszentmihalyi encourages us to reach a state in which work is an extension of whatwe naturally want to do. 奇凯岑特米哈伊鼓励我们到达这样一种境界——在此境界中, 工作是我们本就想做的事情的一种延伸。

Immersed in the pleasure of work, we don’t worry about its ultimate reward.沉浸在工作的快乐中, 我们就不会为最终的报酬去操心If that sounds out of reach, take heart. 即便听起来很难到达这种境界, 我们也要树立信心You may soon get some encouragement from the head office. 也许你很快会从上司那儿得到某种鼓励A growing body of research is demonstrating that happy workers not only are happier in life but are also crucial to the health of a company. 越来越多的研究证明, 如果员工工作时心情愉快, 不仅其自身生活会更幸福, 而且对公司的健康开展也有着举足轻重的作用4) Thirty-five years ago, the Gallup Organization started researching why people incertain work groups, even within the same company, were so much more effective than others.35 年前， 盖洛普民意调查机构开始研究为什么某些工作团队( 甚至在同一公司内)的工作效率比别的团队高得多。

Donald Clifton, the Gallup researcher who pioneered that work, conducted a series of extensive interviews with highly productive teams of workers. 盖洛普此项调查的发起者唐纳德· 克利夫顿对许多高效的员工团队进行了一系列范围广泛的采访,From those interviews, Gallup developed a set of 12 statements designed to measure employees’ overall level of happiness with their work, which Gallup calls “engagement〞. 从中总结出了一套旨在衡量员工工作快乐感受——盖洛普称之为“工作投入〞 ——总体水平的12 条提法Some of the criteria reflect the obvious requirements of any worker (Do you have what you need to do your job? Do you know what’s expected of you at work?), while others reveal more subtle variables (Do you have a best friend at work? Does your supervisor or someone else at work care about you as a person?). Gallup started the survey in 1998, and it now includes 5.4 million employees at 474 organizations; Gallup also does periodic random polls of workers in different countries.盖洛普的调查是从1998 年开始的, 现在已经覆盖474 家机构里的540 万员工；它还对不同国家的企业员工定期进行随机民意调查。

5) The polls paint a picture of a rather disaffected U.S. work force. 对美国的调查反映出美国公司员工工作时情绪不佳In the most recent poll, from September 2022, only 29％ of workers said they were engaged with their work. 根据2022 年9 月开始的最新调查, 只有29% 的员工说他们对工作很投入,More than half, 55％ , were not engaged, and 16％ were actively disengaged. 而一半以上(55%) 的员工说他们对工作不投入, 16% 的员工根本就是消极怠工Still, those numbers are better than in many other countries. 尽管如此, 这些数字比许多其他国家还要好些The percentage of engaged workers in the U.S. is more than twice as large as Germany’s and three times as great as Singapore’s.美国对工作投入的员工的百分比是德国的两倍多, 是新加坡的3 倍。

But neither the late 1990s boom nor the subsequent bust had much impact in either direction, indicating that the state of worker happiness goes much deeper than the swings of the economy.但是20 世纪90 年代后期的经济繁荣和随之而来的经济萧条都没有对员工的两种工作态度产生多大影啊, 这说明工人在工作中是否能获得快乐感受有比经济形势更深层的原因6) James Harter, a psychologist directing that research at Gallup, says many companiesare simply misreading what makes people happy at work. 盖洛普指导这项调查的心理学家詹姆斯· 哈特说, 很多公司完全误解了工作快乐感受产生的原因Beyond a certain minimum level, it isn’t pay or benefits；it’s strong relationships with co-workers and a supportive boss. 高于某种最低水平之后, 工作中的快乐感受与收入或奖金的关系就不大了,关键在于是否有融洽的同事关系和支持自己工作的老板。

These are basic human needs in the workplace, but they’re not the ones thought by managers to be very important.〞 Harter says. 哈特说:“ 这是人们在工作场所的一些根本需求, 但往往得不到上司的重视〞Gallup has found that a strong positive response to the statement “I have a best friend at work〞, for example, is a powerful predictor for engagement at work and is correlated with profitability and connec。