放假了还要加班 这是谁的错?

争取圣诞休假，向来都是件宜早不宜迟的事情。我是一名中台工作人员，这里的一项运营规定是：必须始终有至少50%的员工在岗。今年的圣诞和新年之间有3个工作日，而没有人愿意在那几天上班。有什么办法可以最公平地分配圣诞休假呢？

中台小卒，伦敦

In the bunfight for Christmas leave, it's never too early to start. I work in middle office, where there is an operational requirement to be staffed to a minimum of 50 per cent at all times. This year there are three working days between Christmas and New Year, and nobody wants to work them. What is the fairest way of divvying up the Christmas leave?

Middle Office Minion, London

亲爱的小卒：

你和你的同事被置于如此荒谬的境地，实在是骇人听闻。让我们把事实再梳理一遍：在你看来，圣诞和新年之间的那几天假期，具有更高的价值，而你所在公司的年假政策，却没有为那几天假期设定更高的价格。鉴于这种定价政策，所有人都会希望在圣诞期间休假，于是，一套官僚主义的修补规定，适时地从高层传达了下来。

Dear Minion:

It is an outrage that you and your colleagues have been placed in this absurd position. Let's review the facts: you place a higher value on your time between Christmas and New Year, but your company's annual leave policy does not place a higher price on these days. Given this pricing policy, everybody wants leave at Christmas, and so a bureaucratic bodge job is duly handed down from on high.

这就好比公司起先承诺为每位员工提供一份圣诞礼物，要么是一瓶香槟，要么是一罐拉格啤酒，但公司后来发现，香槟数量不够人手一瓶，于是就开始人为做出一些规定。把这套做法强加给你的那群白痴应该立即将其取消，转而采取在圣诞期间提供足够高的加班费的政策，以保证有足够的人手。
It is as though the company had offered each staff member a Christmas gift of either a bottle of champagne or a can of lager, and then started inventing rules on discovering that there was not enough champagne for everyone. The idiots who foisted this system on you should scrap it at once, and instead offer sufficient overtime pay at Christmas to ensure that there are enough recruits.

如果做不到这一点，那么明智的解决办法是在你们彼此之间达成“旁支付”(side-payment)安排。那些最不看重休假的员工（他们或是信仰不同，或是有不招人待见的亲戚）应该在圣诞期间值班，而其他人则向他们支付补偿金。可以安排一场简短的拍卖。拍卖过程中，补偿金额将被不断抬高，直到有足够多的竞拍者退出拍卖，而留下来的竞拍者，则必须向那些坚守岗位的志愿者支付补偿金。或许应该以符合圣诞气氛的物品作为补偿：开价可以是梨树上的一只鹌鹑（圣诞颂歌《圣诞节的12天》中描写的圣诞礼物之一——译者注）。
Failing that, the sensible solution is to arrange side-payments among yourselves. The people who value the break least (those with different faiths, or infuriating relatives) should be the ones doing Christmas duty, while the rest pay them compensation. Arrange a quick auction in which the amount of compensation rises over time; when enough bidders have dropped out of the auction, the remaining bidders pay the volunteers to hold the fort. Perhaps the compensation should be suitably seasonal: the bidding could open at one partridge in a pear tree.