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How much fun do you generally have at work?
你通常在工作中有多少樂趣？
I found myself asking this question the other day, when I came across a British academic named William Donald. He is an associate professor at the University of Southampton, where he works on career development and human resources management, and in 2022 he had a brainwave. What if he could publish a paper with another academic whose surname was Duck, so that anyone citing their research would have to say it was by Donald and Duck?
前幾天，我遇到一位名叫威廉•唐納德(William Donald)的英國學者時，我不禁開始思考一個問題。他是南安普頓大學(University of Southampton)的副教授，專注於職業發展和人力資源管理的研究。2022年，他突然有了一個靈感。如果他能與另一位姓達克(Duck)的學者一起發表一篇論文，那麼任何引用他們研究的人都必須說這是唐老鴨(Donald and Duck)完成的，那會是怎樣的情景呢？
I would like to say there was a serious rationale for this venture, but when I called Donald, he said he did it chiefly because, “I thought it would be mildly entertaining”.
我本想說這次冒險有其嚴肅的理由，但當我聯繫唐納德時，他說他這樣做主要是因爲，「我覺得這會稍微有趣一些」。
Alas, finding a co-operative Duck proved arduous. Donald spent 18 months contacting potential co-authors via LinkedIn before he found Nicholas Duck, an organisational psychologist in Australia who runs a workplace productivity consultancy called Opposite.
唉，找到一位願意合作的達克實在是困難重重。唐納德花了18個月的時間透過領英(LinkedIn)聯繫潛在的合著者，最終找到了尼古拉斯•達克(Nicholas Duck)，他是澳洲的一位組織心理學家，經營著一家名爲Opposite的工作場所生產力諮詢公司。
Unlike some other candidates, Duck did not find Donald’s proposal offensive or ridiculous. “I like shaking things up and not taking things too seriously,” he told me last week. Donald’s idea was right up his alley, he said.
與其他一些候選人不同，達克並不認爲唐納德的提議冒犯或荒謬。「我喜歡打破常規，不把事情看得太嚴肅，」他上週告訴我。他說，唐納德的想法正合他的意思。
Since the pair had a shared interest in the workplace, they decided to write a paper on what they called the Donald Duck phenomenon, or the unconventional reasons that propel academics to publish. These included revenge against a rival; collaboration with a hero; a desire to promote a cause and simple amusement.
由於兩人在工作場所有共同的興趣，他們決定撰寫一篇論文，探討他們所稱之爲的「唐老鴨現象」，即推動學者發表論文的非傳統原因。這些原因包括對競爭對手的報復，與偶像的合作，推動某一事業的願望，以及純粹的娛樂。
The result was a slender work of just three pages — five including references and notes — which was, somewhat astonishingly, published last month in the GiLE Journal of Skills Development. This is a relatively new, open access publication that nonetheless claims to use a “robust” peer review process.
結果是一篇僅有三頁的簡短論文——如果算上參考文獻和註釋則共五頁，令人驚訝的是，它在上個月的《GiLE技能發展期刊》(GiLE Journal)上發表。這是一份相對較新的開放獲取刊物，儘管如此，它仍聲稱採用了「嚴格的」同行評審程式。
For all that, the paper does not add an enormous amount to the sum of human knowledge. It is arguably self-indulgent and childish. But it is also a delight and I wish there were more follies like it.
儘管如此，這篇論文並沒有爲人類知識的總和帶來巨大的貢獻。它或許顯得自我放縱和幼稚。但它也帶來了樂趣，我希望有更多這樣的奇思妙想。
It’s not just that these things make the large slice of life spent at work more bearable. There are serious reasons for fun at work when governments across Europe are fretting about a post-pandemic drop in average working hours that is being blamed for making economies more feeble and uncompetitive.
Jokes alone are no answer, obviously. But it is telling to consider how rarely one hears about playfulness at work these days.
顯然，僅僅依靠笑話是無法解決問題的。但值得深思的是，如今我們很少聽到關於工作中的趣味性。
It is 17 years since Steve Jobs stood on a stage in San Francisco to unveil a new Apple gadget called the iPhone and dialled a nearby Starbucks to order “4,000 lattes to go, please”. He immediately said, “wrong number” and hung up. But the store was still getting orders for that many coffees from Apple fans years later, to the bafflement of managers.
17年前，史蒂夫•喬布斯(Steve Jobs)在舊金山(San Francisco)的一個舞臺上揭幕了一款名爲iPhone的新蘋果(Apple)產品，並撥打電話到附近的星巴克(Starbucks)，要求「請帶走4000杯拿鐵」。他立即說，「打錯了」，然後掛斷了電話。然而，多年後，這家星巴克仍然收到蘋果粉絲訂購那麼多咖啡的訂單，讓經理們感到困惑。
Chief executive capers, however, are thin on the ground. I was astonished to read recently that Jane Fraser, the chief executive of Citigroup, is a serial prankster with a long history of playing jokes on colleagues.
然而，首席執行長的惡作劇卻寥寥無幾。最近我驚訝地讀到，花旗集團(Citigroup)的首席執行長簡•弗雷澤(Jane Fraser)是一個連環惡作劇者，有著長期在同事間開玩笑的歷史。
In 2022, she asked her senior team to sign a waiver to go skydiving, the Wall Street Journal reported, and left them to agonise about the prospect of the bank’s leaders all risking death together before emailing again to say: April Fools’.
據《華爾街日報》(Wall Street Journal)報導，2022年，她要求她的高級團隊簽署一份跳傘豁免協議，讓他們爲銀行領導層一起冒險面臨生死的可能性而痛苦掙扎，然後再次發郵件說：愚人節。
Another time, she reportedly kidnapped a teddy bear she had once given to an executive in charge of cost-cutting, duct-taped its paws and told the man to ease up on the cuts or the bear would get it.
據報道，另一次她綁架了一隻曾經送給一個負責削減成本的高階主管的泰迪熊，用膠帶把它的爪子綁起來，告訴那個人減少削減，否則泰迪熊就會遭殃。
News of this jolliness might jar in some quarters at Citi, where Fraser is overseeing sweeping job losses. Even academic citation jokes can misfire.
在花旗(Citi)，弗雷澤正在監督大規模的裁員工作，這種歡樂的訊息可能在某些部門引起不適。即使是學術引用的笑話也可能會失誤。
In the 1940s, a physicist named George Gamow decided it would be fun to add the name of an eminent friend, Hans Bethe, to a paper that Gamow and his student, Ralph Alpher, had written on the origins of the universe.
在20世紀40年代，一位名叫喬治•伽莫夫(George Gamow)的物理學家決定，將他的朋友、傑出的漢斯•貝特(Hans Bethe)的名字，加入到他和他的學生拉爾夫•阿爾弗(Ralph Alpher)關於宇宙起源的論文中，他認爲這樣做會很有趣。
This had the excellent effect of creating a paper by Alpher, Bethe and Gamow, a pun on the first three letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha beta gamma. But Alpher was reportedly miffed, fearing his contribution would be diminished by the addition of the eminent Bethe’s name.
這導致了阿爾弗、貝特和伽莫夫共同撰寫的一篇論文，這篇論文巧妙地利用了希臘字母的前三個字母αβγ的雙關。然而，據報道，阿爾弗對此感到不滿，他擔心貝特這位傑出人物的名字的加入會削弱他的貢獻。
You can see his point. Jokes at work need to be deployed with skill and care. Yet the best are glorious and the working world would be a far better place if we had a great deal more of them.
你可以理解他的觀點。在工作中開玩笑需要技巧和謹慎。然而，最好的笑話是令人愉快的，如果我們有更多這樣的笑話，工作環境將會變得更加美好。