职场老手:不回邮件的新借口

A second way out is to invoke a prior engagement. This sometimes does the job, but can backfire. Too often I’ve said “I’m afraid I can’t make the 27th” – only for the other person to come back and say the event has been moved to the 29th. And then you are stuck with it.
另一个解围办法是声称自己之前已与人有约。有些时候这种方法可以奏效，但也可能适得其反。这样的情况经常发生：跟别人说，“很抱歉27号我没有空”，结果后来别人又回来告诉你活动改到了29号。这下你就没法推了。

Better is to claim to be in the middle of a family emergency. This excuse works particularly well for men, for whom kudos is to be gained by playing the family card occasionally. However, to claim an emergency when there isn’t one may seem even to the unsuperstitious like an invitation to providence to visit something truly calamitous on the entire family.
更好的办法是，声称自己家里有急事。男性运用这个借口的效果格外好，对于男性来说，偶尔打家庭牌可以加分。但即便在不迷信的人看来，其实没事却声称有事，或许就好像是向天意发出的一份邀请，请求它向全家降下真正的灾祸。

The ultimate family emergency is, of course, death, and this is the most robust excuse of them all – timeless, final, and untouched by technology. But even this excuse is becoming a little less effective than it once was. A friend, poleaxed with grief after the death of her mother, has found after a couple of weeks that her get-out-of-jail-free card has stopped working so well. A return to normality is expected.
当然，终极的家庭不测是死亡。这是最强有力的借口——不受时间限制，不受技术影响的终极武器。但即便是这个借口的效力相比以前也有所下降。一个朋友在她母亲死后以悲痛为借口，无往不利；但几周之后她发现，自己的免罪金牌变得不那么好用了。在旁人看来，过了这么久她应该回归正常状态了。

The best excuse I have come across recently was made by a senior executive who cancelled an important meeting with a colleague, claiming that “a legal issue has come up”. The genius of this is that it sounds both very serious and very forbidding. Much as my colleague wanted to, he refrained from replying: Gosh, what sort of legal issue? A spot of fraud? Bankruptcy? Murder?
我最近见识到的最佳借口来自一名高管，他取消了和一个同事的重要会议，声称“出现了一个法律问题”。这个借口的天才之处在于，它听起来既非常严肃，又令人不敢质疑。我的同事很想回复说，我的天啊，什么法律问题？欺诈？破产？还是谋杀？但他最终还是克制住了自己，没有这样做。

In the absence of any legal issues of my own, I am increasingly seeking refuge in the truth. So when asked last week if I wanted to go on a news show broadcast live at 10.30pm, I didn’t pretend to be busy, I just said it was past my bedtime. When asked if I wanted to attend an awards evening, I explained that awards evenings didn’t bring out the best in me. Such bluntness is a three-way win: you don’t have to feel bad about telling a white lie; there is no comeback and you don’t get asked again.
由于我自己没有遇到过任何法律问题，我越来越倾向于用实话为自己解围。因此，不久前被问到是否愿意参加一个晚上10:30的新闻节目直播时，我没有假装太忙，我只是说，那个点我已经要睡觉了。在被问到是否愿意出席一个颁奖晚会时，我解释道，我在颁奖晚会这种场合通常发挥不佳。这种坦率能够创造三赢的局面：你不必因为撒了一个善意的谎而心怀愧疚，别人无法反驳，你也不会被再次问及。

The same approach works best for out-of-office replies. There is no need to claim limited access to email. Either you are the sort of person valued by the Morgan Stanley boss and work on holiday – in which case you don’t need an out-of-office email at all. Or you view holiday as holiday: in which case the best approach is to say “I’m away until X. I’ll read your message when I’m back” – thereby cunningly not committing to ever replying.
同样的策略最适用于“不在办公室”的回复邮件。没有必要声称自己不方便使用电子邮件。如果你是那种受摩根士丹利老大重视、假期也工作的人，那么你根本不需要“不在办公室”的回复邮件；抑或你是那种觉得假期就是假期的人，那么最好的办法就是说，“我在几号之前都不在办公室。我将在返回办公室后阅读您的邮件”——如此还巧妙地避免了承诺将回复邮件。