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Bartleby -- Loafing can be work
巴托比專欄——游手好閑也可以是在工作
Daydreaming, promenading and zoning out all pay rich dividends
做白日夢、散步和開小差都能帶來豐厚的回報
The familiar exerts a powerful subliminal appeal.
熟悉的事物會產生一種強大的潛意識吸引力。
The "name-letter effect" refers to the subconscious bias that people have for the letters in their own name, and for their own initials in particular.
“姓名的字母效應”指的是人們在潛意識中對自己姓名中的字母，尤其是首字母，存在的偏向。
They are more likely to choose careers, partners and brands that start with their initials (Joe becomes a joiner, marries Judy and loves Jaffa cakes).
他們更有可能選擇以自己名字的首字母開頭的職業、伴侶和品牌（喬成為一名木工，與朱迪結婚，喜歡佳發蛋糕）。
A related bias, the "well-travelled-road effect", describes the tendency of people to ascribe shorter travelling times to familiar routes than is actually the case.
與之相關的還有一種偏向叫作“熟路效應”，即人們傾向于認為熟路所需要的行程時間更短，而忽略了實際情況。
A bias towards the familiar shows up at work, too.
對熟悉事物的偏向也體現在工作中。
One such prejudice is about what exactly constitutes work.
其中一種偏見是關于工作的構成要素。
Being at a desk counts as work, as does looking at a screen above a certain size.
坐在辦公桌前是工作，盯著較大尺寸的屏幕也是工作。
Responding to email and being in a meeting are indubitably forms of work.
回復郵件和開會毫無疑問都是工作的一種形式。
So is any activity that might elicit sympathy if performed on the weekend -- typing, taking a phone call from the boss, opening any type of spreadsheet.
所以任何在周末進行就可能會引發同情的活動——打字、接老板的電話、打開任何一種電子表格——都是工作。
This prejudice helps to explain worries about "proximity bias", the risk that white-collar employees who spend lots of time in the office are more likely to advance than remote workers who are less visible.
這種偏見有助于解釋人們對“接近偏差”的擔憂，即長時間待在辦公室的白領員工比不常出現在人們視線中的遠程員工更有機會獲得晉升。
That is because being inside an office building is itself something that counts as work.
這是因為待在辦公樓里本身就算是一種工作。
Pre-pandemic research showed that "passive face-time" -- the mere fact of being seen at your desk, without even interacting with anyone -- led observers to think of people as dependable and committed.
疫情前的研究表明，“被動的視頻會面”——僅僅是被人看到坐在辦公桌前這一事實，甚至不需要與任何人互動——會使觀察者認為這些人是可靠且忠誠的。
But these familiar forms of work can deceive, for two reasons.
但這些熟悉的工作形式可能具有欺騙性，原因有兩個。
The first is that what looks like a Stakhanovite effort may be no such thing.
首先，看似斯塔漢諾夫式（工作狂式）的努力可能并不是真的在努力。
Keyboard-tappers may just be updating their LinkedIn profiles.
敲鍵盤的人可能只是在更新他們的領英個人資料。
Attendees at a meeting are often present in body but not in spirit.
出席會議的人往往是身體出席，精神缺席。
Even when actual work is being done, it may not be the most productive use of people’s time.
就算當前的工作已經完成了，這可能也不是最高效的利用人們時間的方式。
The second is that things that look like the opposite of work -- loafing about, to use the technical term -- can be very useful indeed.
其次，那些看起來與工作背道而馳的事——用專業術語來說就是游手好閑——實際上可能非常有用。
Take daydreaming.
拿做白日夢來說。
In most workplaces, staring into space for hours on end is frowned upon; security guards and models can get away with it, but few others.
在大多數工作場所，連續幾個小時盯著天看是不被贊成的；保安和模特可以這么做，但其它人幾乎都不能這樣。
Yet letting the mind wander is not simply part of being human; it can also be a source of creativity, a way to unlock solutions to thorny problems.
然而，允許思維漫游不僅僅是顯示人性的一部分；它也可能是創造力的源泉，是解決棘手問題的一種方式。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
