每天一篇经济学人 | Working under the weather ...

If you have a high temperature or are recovering from heart surgery, it is difficult to use machine tools. And if you are having a nervous breakdown, machine tools are best avoided. Sick days are the remedy. They are meant to prevent people from hurting themselves, their co-workers, customers or passers-by on the job. Working from home has flipped this logic on its head. If you can work from the kitchen table, today’s hybrid workers increasingly conclude, then why not from bed—so long as the brain is on and the Zoom camera off? 

如果你有高烧或正处于心脏手术后的恢复期，就很难使用机床。如果你精神失常，最好避免使用机床。请病假是良药。它们是为了防止人们在工作中伤害自己、同事、顾客或路人。在家工作颠覆了这一逻辑。如今的混合办公的员工越来越多地得出这样的结论: 如果你可以在厨房的桌子上工作，那么为什么不能在床上工作呢——只要大脑还在工作，Zoom摄像机关闭。

The work-from-home revolution has raised the bar for what counts as being sick. At the height of the pandemic people worked from home even with nasty symptoms such as fever, shortness of breath or nausea. Many still do. Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University has been tracking work-from-home habits since before the corona-crisis popularised them. In a recent working paper he presents the results of a randomised controlled trial at a large Chinese multinational company, where sick days fell by 12% for employees working from home two days a week relative to those coming in full time. 

在家工作的革命提高了“生病”的标准。在疫情最严重的时候，人们即使出现发烧、呼吸短促或恶心等恶心症状，也会在家工作。很多人仍在这样做。斯坦福大学的尼古拉斯·布鲁姆从冠状病毒危机开始普及在家工作习惯之前就一直在追踪这种习惯。在最近的一篇工作论文中，他介绍了在中国一家大型跨国公司进行的随机对照试验的结果。在这家公司，每周在家工作两天的员工，请病假天数比全职员工减少了12%。

Your columnist, a guest Bartleby, can sympathise. In the past, while convalescing, she had no qualms about wrapping herself in a blanket with a hot toddy, toast and some tissues. When she got covid-19 early this summer, by contrast, she kept going with her phone and laptop sunk in the duvet. Her managers strongly urged that her work should be passed on to a colleague. For her, this was unthinkable, at least until she almost passed out. 

你的专栏作家，特邀嘉宾巴托比，可以表示同情。过去，在康复期间，她会毫不犹豫地把自己裹在毯子里，配上一杯热托迪酒、吐司和一些纸巾。相比之下，当她今年初夏感染covid-19时，她一直把手机和笔记本电脑埋在羽绒被里。她的经理们强烈要求把她的工作交给一位同事。对她来说，这是难以想象的，至少在她差点昏过去之前是这样。

To be in bed not doing anything connotes not only physical discomfort but also cognitive impairment. Salaried workers, who are often evaluated on the basis of their input rather than output, find it hard to say they are off the game for a few days now that they don’t need to worry about spreading germs in the office. For high-achievers, putting in the hours is not a chore but a way of life. Unplanned breaks are antithetical to the pervasive anxiety to perform. As recession looms and puts future job security into question, showing yourself to be useful becomes even more important. Hybrid-work etiquette is fluid and many companies have yet to update their sick-leave rules for the new era. 

躺在床上什么都不做不仅意味着身体不适，还意味着认知障碍。对领薪水员工的评估通常是基于他们的投入而不是产出，他们发现很难说因为他们不用担心在办公室里传播细菌，而几天状态不佳。对于成功人士来说，投入时间不是一件苦差事，而是一种生活方式。计划外的休息与普遍存在的表演焦虑是对立的。随着经济衰退的临近，未来的工作保障成为问题，展示自己的有用性变得更加重要。混合办公的礼节是不固定的，许多公司还没有针对新时代更新病假规定。

Though all this is understandable, it is also troubling. Tapping away at a laptop and smartphone from the discomfort of a sick person’s bedroom is not as dangerous as driving a forklift. It nevertheless carries risks—both for the ill-disposed individual and their employer. And it isn’t just covid, whose common symptoms include brain fog. Any bug brings fatigue.

尽管这一切都是可以理解的，但也令人不安。在病人不舒服的卧室里敲击笔记本电脑和智能手机，并不像驾驶叉车那么危险。尽管如此，这种做法还是有风险的——不管是对不友好的个人还是他们的雇主。就连新冠病毒，其常见症状包括脑雾在内。任何小病都会带来疲劳。

Being even mildly sick can impair brain function as much as high altitude, whose effect can feel like a bad hangover. It is difficult to exercise proper judgment if one cannot focus on the task at hand. It is why people with lower oxygen concentration sometimes remove protective clothes atop Mount Everest; some freeze to death. Firing off emails while feeling dizzy and depleted will put the body under further stress and also risk being incoherent. Soldiering on may make the employee both sicker and less productive for longer. Digital presenteeism, for that is what such persisting amounts to, is in no one’s interest.

即使是轻微的疾病也会损害大脑功能，就像在高海拔地区一样，它的影响就像严重的宿醉。如果一个人不能专注于手头的工作，就很难做出正确的判断。这就是为什么氧气浓度较低的人有时会在珠穆朗玛峰上脱掉防护服; 有些人会被冻死。在感到头晕和疲惫的时候收发邮件会让身体承受更大的压力，还可能会语无伦次。坚持下去可能会让员工病得更重，工作效率更低。数字出勤主义(指这种坚持办公)不符合任何人的利益。

Resisting it is therefore important. You don’t need to have had a blood transfusion or liver transplant to feel that you have earned a bit of time off. Sleeping soundly can restore body and spirit. Staring at the ceiling gives you time to take stock of your harried life. Do not worry about being judged to be shirking. True laziness cannot be disguised—if someone is malingering, chances are that their bosses already know.

因此，抵制它是很重要的。你不需要通过输血或肝移植来感觉你赢得了一些假期。睡个好觉可以恢复身心。盯着天花板让你有时间审视自己忙碌的生活。不要担心别人会认为你在逃避。真正的懒惰是掩饰不了的，如果有人在装病，很可能他们的老板已经知道了。

In the world of flexible working, managers can lead by example, taking the occasional day off when suffering from a cold. Why not use it as an opportunity to delegate tasks? This tends to build trust in a team and helps appraise subordinates’ strengths and weaknesses.

在弹性工作制的世界里，管理者可以以身作则，在感冒时偶尔休息一天。为什么不把它作为一个委派任务的机会呢? 这有助于在团队中建立信任，并有助于评估下属的长处和短处。

The dust will eventually settle on work habits in the hybrid era. When it comes to illness, they will hopefully settle somewhere close to where they were in pre-covid days. Being sick is part of the human condition. It is not going away. Nor should sick days. Bartleby remembers lying on the sofa recovering from a stomach bug in New York 17 years ago, undisturbed by colleagues and untroubled by thoughts of work. The next time she is ailing, she will not be on Slack. Instead, she will listen to her managers and sign off.

混合办公时代的工作习惯最终会尘埃落定。在疾病方面，他们希望能接近新冠疫情前的水平。生病是人类健康状态的一部分。它不会消失。病假也不应该消杀。巴托比记得，17年前在纽约，他得了胃病，躺在沙发上养病，没有受到同事的打扰，也没有想着工作。下次她生病的时候，就不会再用Slack了。相反，她会听从经理的意见，然后写病假条。