工作切忌埋头苦干，3点教你省烦恼

1.You're Doing Someone's Else Job: When You Book a Vacation

1.你在做别人工作的情况一：即使在度假

Keeping track of vacation time, personal time and sick time was once management’s responsibility— often done by an HR representative. Then an “absencemanagement” software package gets installed, and suddenly it becomes each employee’s job to maintain the official record by submitting a formal request to his or her supervisor for time off, entering start and end dates, type of absence and so on via a website. Your job description now involves data entry for each of these events, including complicated procedures for corrections when circumstances change after a record is saved.

密切留意假期时间，私人时间以及生病时间曾是管理部门的责任，经常由一个人力资源代表来做。后来安装了“缺勤管理”软件，于是维持官方记录就突然变成了员工们自己的工作。他们请假要通过网站向他或她的领导递交正式的申请表，表里注明假期开始，终止日期以及假期类型。如今你的职位职责，就包含了这些事件的数据录入，包括记录已存后，因情况变化而需改正的一些复杂程序。

If that were all, it might not be so bad. But “absence management” is just one of the technological initiatives and upgrades that intrude on today’s office. Each one brings with it a new learning curve and grafts new duties onto your job. These are instances of shadow work: unpaid jobs that we do on behalf of businesses and organizations which pervade modern life at home, in the office and while shopping, traveling, even eating out. Frequently, someone used to get a paycheck for doing these things. Now, these tasks at work end up on your to-do list.

如果说仅此这些，还不算糟糕。然而“缺勤管理”只是一项进入办公区的科技创新和升级产品。每一项都会带来新的学习进度曲线，并植入新的职责到你的工作中去。这些都能造成员工的心理阴影。我们代表企业和组织所做的无薪工作，它们弥漫在家里、办公室里以及购物时，旅行时，甚至出去用餐时的那些摩登生活中。过去经常有人通过帮别人做这些事来赚钱。现在这些任务只会终止于你自己的代办清单了。

Shadow work affects everyone; but for women, who already do most of the housework and childcare (70 to 80 percent, typically) while, oh yes, managing their careers, these extra, unpaid jobs can be especially burdensome. Even during the business day, when your job description expands or your workday gets longer — while your salary stays put — like it or not, that’s shadow work.

影子工作影响着所有人，不过对于女士们，她们已经有大把的家务事要做，还要照顾孩子（70%到80%的女士都是这样）哦，是的，她们还要规划自己的职业生涯，于是这些额外的无薪工作会成为特别的负担。甚至在工作期间，你工作量变大或者时间变长了，薪水却不变，不管你喜不喜欢，那就是能够造成心理阴影的工作。

2. You're Doing Someone's Else Job: When You Set Up a Meeting for a Client

2.你在完成别人工作的情况二：约见客户时

How quaint it is to revisit the 1950s “Mad Men” world of Dictaphones, executive washrooms and, gasp, secretaries who type letters for their bosses. Well, women have a lot more career options now, and the good news is, they often are now the executives. The bad news is that today, executives do much of their own secretarial work, as technology has pushed aside the human assistants and given their jobs back to the boss as shadow work. (Computers let us all type our own letters, for example.) This democratizes the office environment, to be sure, but can also make you that manager feeding your meeting agenda into the photocopier.

重温1950年代的那些事物时，感觉好怪啊！如：《广告狂人》中的口述录音机、行政卫生间、网络以及那个时候为老板打字的秘书。当然，现代的女性有了更多的职业选择，好消息是，她们如今成了决策者；坏消息是，决策者得做很多本属于秘书的工作，因为科技将人工助手推到了一边，并将他们的工作返给了老板。（例如，电脑迫使我们自己去打字。）可以肯定的是，这会使得工作环境民主化，但也可以让你成为那种把会议议程融入到复印机的经理。

Twenty-first century “secretaries” don’t say, “Good morning,” they beep. They’re smartphones, which do almost everything secretaries once did: keep appointment calendars, handle (and screen) telephone calls, maintain a file of contacts, send and receive email and texts, research information. The international technology-consulting firm Forrester Research, Inc. has a staff of 1,300 employees — and only five executive assistants. Getting support from an actual human is becoming a privilege restricted to those at the very top.

21世纪的秘书们不会说“早上好”，会发出哔哔声。他们是智能手机，会做好以前的秘书们该做的几乎所有的事情：记录预约日期，处理（并检查）来电电话，保存联系人资料，发送、接收邮件和文本，研究信息。国际咨询科技公司Forrester Research, Inc拥有1300名员工，只有五个行政助理。现如今获得人工助理正逐渐变成仅限于高层们的特权。

3.You're Doing Someone Else's Job: When You're Doing Someone Else’s Job

3.你在完成别人工作的情况三：你真的在做别人的工作时

In business, there are only two basic ways to increase profit: raise revenue or cut expenses. In most cases, it’s far easier to reduce expenses, of which the biggest is personnel. Hence, “downsizing”: simply lay off some staff and give their work to those who remain. Another (perhaps familiar) scenario: someone leaves the company, and no one gets hired to replace her or him. Downsizing, or failing to hire new employees, has become so routine in recent years that we have begun to overlook the obvious. Any economic contraction — notably the meltdown of 2008 — gives a credible reason for layoffs. But why is it that an improving economy hasn’t produced a comparable surge in hiring? Quite often, the work of the departed employee becomes your job. (You’re supposed to be grateful that you still have a job.) So, again, you find yourself saddled with shadow work: doing more tasks without earning any more money. Regardless of whether the layoffs involve support personnel or professional staff, the jobs don’t go away, they’re simply getting done by fewer people. Like, you.

生意场上，只有两种基本方法可以提高利润：提高收益或者减少花销。大多数情况下，减少开支更容易些，因为大部分开销都是人员问题，因此“裁员”即，简单地解雇一些员工，然后把他们的工作给那些仍在岗的人。另一个（可能熟悉的）场景就是有人离开公司，也没雇人顶替她或他。裁员或雇不到新员工最近几年变得如此司空见惯以至于我们开始忽视它的存在。任何经济萎缩的危机，尤其是2008年的那次，提供了一个可靠的裁员理由。可为什么经济好转并没有创造相对而言招聘的激增呢？经常地，离职员工的工作成了你的工作。（你该感到庆幸还有一份工作。）因此，再一次，你会发现自己背负了影子工作，即：做了额外的工作却赚不到额外的钱。无论下岗涉及的是辅助人员还是专业人员，工作本身还在那，它们只不过是由更少的人来完成，比如：你。

Coping with these challenges can be upsetting or trying, but doing so is not an optional activity because shadow work is here to stay. Be creative in dealing with it: maybe suggest bringing in temps or interns to fill in for departed support staff. (If they don’t collect benefits, there’s at least a chance.) Given how much women already do, they need to diplomatically draw the line when shadow work gets dumped on their laps. As always, the first step in getting something off your lap is to stand up.

应对这些挑战会令人不安或者厌烦，但做这些并不是一项可选择的行为，因为对人造成心理阴影的工作本来就在那。那就发挥创造力来处理它们吧：或许可以建议引进临时工或实习生来填离职的支持人员空缺。（如果他们不创造收益的话，至少还有一个机会。）考虑到女士们完成工作量如何，在那些对人造成心理阴影的工作落在他们的身上时，他们需要圆滑地画条底线。一如既往地甩开一些事情的第一步就是站起来。