东京的暖萌办公室：喵星人陪你工作

When you live in a cramped city like Tokyo, owning a pet is a luxury many people cannot afford. Apartments usually come with strict no-pets policies, and the only way Tokyo dwellers have been able to get their pet-fix is by visiting cat cafes. Sure, it’s nice to sip on a delicious drink while petting a purring kitty, but you can’t stay there forever. What are you supposed to do during those other, horrible cat-less hours of the day?

居住在东京这样拥挤的城市，拥有宠物对许多人来说成了消受不起的奢侈。东京的公寓通常严禁饲养宠物，居民们与宠物亲密接触的唯一方法就是去猫咪咖啡馆。一边喝着可口的饮料一边爱抚咕噜咕噜的猫咪的确很美好，但你总不能永远呆在那里。在那些缺少猫咪陪伴的悲剧时间里你该怎么办呢？

One company in Japan has come up with a solution. They’re bringing the soothing cat cafe experience to the office by filling their workplace with adorable cats.

日本的一家公司想出了办法，他们将治愈系的猫咪咖啡馆的体验引入办公室，使办公空间充满可爱的猫咪。

The cat-populated workplace is the brainchild of Ferray Corporation, an internet solutions business which mainly deals with webpage construction, application development, and other IT work. The company own nine loveable rescue cats that are allowed to roam the office on a daily basis, sleeping, causing adorable trouble as cats will, and just generally being cute little balls of stress-relief.

让喵星人入驻办公室是Ferray公司的创意，这是一家主要解决网页制作、应用开发等信息技术问题的互联网解决方案提供商。公司收养了九只可爱的猫咪，它们可以每天在办公室漫步、睡觉、跟普通猫咪一样制造可爱的麻烦，总的来说，它们是可爱的减压萌物。

Here’s all nine of the cats.

以下是九只萌猫。

Of course, the cats can be little pranksters sometimes too. Apparently they accidentally switch off computers, chew on LAN cables, scratch the walls, tear up papers, and of course mess up code by walking across keyboards. When clients come over, the cats have a bad habit of exploring their bags by falling inside them, and sleeping right on top of meeting tables.

当然，这些猫咪有时也很顽皮，它们有时会不小心关掉电脑，啃咬网线，挠墙、撕纸，有时在键盘上走来走去将代码弄乱。当有客户来时，这些猫咪还有钻进他们的背包并翻找一番的坏习惯，还会明目张胆地在会议桌上睡觉。

Still, the employees have said that despite some minor annoyances, the cats have been an enormous net positive. Officecommunication has increased dramatically, since the cats are a topic that brings employees together, and also lower everyone’s stress. It’s basically just impossible to be upset when there’s a cat just hanging out nearby you, chewing on a toy or chasing a laser.

不过，公司员工表示，尽管有时会带来一些小困扰，这些猫咪的作用还是非常积极的，办公室中的交流大幅增加了，猫咪这个话题将员工凝聚在一起，减轻了大家的压力。当猫咪在你身边闲晃、咀嚼玩具或是追赶激光时，大家几乎不会感到情绪低落。

And the company’s pro-pet policies don’t just end with the nine cats. Every day is Bring Your Pet to Work Day, as employees are encouraged to bring their own pets with them to the office. If they don’t have a pet of their own, then the company pays out a 5,000 yen (US$42) per month “cat bonus” to anyone who adopts a cat in need of a home.

而这家公司宠物为上的政策可不止于此。每天都是“带宠物上班日”，公司鼓励员工将自己的宠物带到公司。如果他们没有自己的宠物，公司还会每月提供5000日元 

As crazy as it may sound, Ferray isn’t alone in its pet policies. Another company that specializes in pet supplies, Mars Japan Limited, also encourages its employees to bring their pets to work. Other companies offer benefits such as treating the death of employees’ pets the same as the death of a family member, giving them time off, condolence pay, and covering funeral services.

这听起来相当疯狂，但Ferray并不是唯一一家实行这种宠物政策的公司，有一家专门研究宠物用品的公司，火星日本有限公司也鼓励员工带宠物来上班。一些其他公司在员工的宠物死亡时，会给员工休假、发送慰问金并负担殡葬服务费，跟家人去世的待遇如出一辙。

Vocabulary

cramped: 拥挤的，促狭的

afford: 承担得起

dwellers: 居住者

brainchild: 智慧结晶，(属于个人或集体的)创见

roam: 闲逛，漫游

prankster: 搞恶作剧者，顽皮的人

scratch: 挠，抓

condolence pay: 慰问金

funeral service: 殡葬服务