最近《紐約時報》一篇披露亞馬遜企業文化的文章引起軒然大波。亞馬遜被指以高壓政策管理員工、鼓勵員工間激烈的競爭甚至斗爭、企業文化冷酷無情。那么在亞馬遜工作究竟是什么樣子呢？這樣的管理方式和企業文化在美國是主流嗎？今天我們就節選了這篇《紐約時報》原文的精華段落，為你朗讀和解釋。

Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace

The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push
white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambition.
They are told to forget the "poor habits" they learned at previous jobs, one employee recalled. When they "hit the wall" from the unrelenting pace, there is only one solution: "Climb the wall," others reported. To be the best Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles, 14 rules inscribed on handy laminated cards. When quizzed days later, those with perfect scores earn a virtual award proclaiming, "I'm Peculiar" — the company's proud phrase for overturning workplace conventions.

關鍵詞
To wrestle: 角力、奮斗
Bruising: 讓人傷痕累累、慘烈的
Tough: 競爭激烈的
Excerpt: 節選、精華
Unrelenting: 冷酷無情的
Leadership principles: 管理原則
Peculiar: 特立獨行的
At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another's ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are "unreasonably high." The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another's bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others. (The tool offers sample texts, including this: "I felt concerned about his inflexibility and openly complaining about minor tasks.")

關鍵詞
Fresh recruit: 新入職的員工
Aggressive: 激烈的、強勢的
Tear apart: 摧毀、撕裂
Toil long and late: 幸苦地長時間勞作
Survival of the fittest: 適者生存
Unreasonably high standards: 不近人情的高標準
Tattletale: 背后告密、說別人壞話
Sabotage: 蓄意破壞、斗爭
Ruthless: 冷酷的
Extreme: 極端的
Highly competitive: 競爭激烈的
Ultra aggressive/uber aggressive: 超級激烈的

最后再選一段節目中沒有讀到的文章內容，以亞馬遜創始人Jeff Bezos的角度來解讀亞馬遜的企業文化：
Mr. Rossman, the former executive, said that Mr. Bezos was addressing a meeting in 2003 when he turned in the direction of Microsoft, across the water from Seattle, and said he didn't want Amazon to become "a country club." If Amazon becomes like Microsoft, "we would die," Mr. Bezos added.
In a recent recruiting video, one young woman warns: "You either fit here or you don't. You love it or you don't. There is no middle ground."