拒绝帮忙请求难以启齿（上）

People Can't Resist Favors

When Jay Hargis's colleague called in a favor, the former director of client services had a hard time remembering the favor done for him that he was now tapped to return.

当杰伊．哈格里斯(Jay Hargis)接到同事请他帮个忙的电话时，他艰难地回想起对方曾经帮过自己的忙，现在人家来要求回报了。

"I was shocked that he remembered I asked him to run the list four months earlier," Mr. Hargis says of the favor done for him, which involved printing out a list of customers.

哈格里斯说对方给他帮的忙就是打印了一份客户名单，他说，“我很吃惊他竟然记得我四个月前请他打过一份名单。”

His colleague needed one of Mr. Hargis's customers to furnish him with some glowing testimonial that he could spin into a marketing brochure. Feeling like he had little choice, Mr. Hargis spent a half day on the phone securing cooperation and approvals. He felt the favor he performed was disproportionately larger than the one he received. But his colleague seemed to think he had bent over backward by clicking "Print,"  Mr. Hargis recalls.

这位同事需要哈格里斯的一位客户提供一份热情洋溢的推荐信，好放到一个营销宣传册里。哈格里斯别无选择，只得花了半天时间打电话搞定这件事。他觉得自己这份人情远远大过同事帮的那个忙。但哈格里斯记得，他同事当时好似觉得自己是费尽九牛二虎之力才按下了“打印”键。

In any office's underground economy, favors are the currency by which productivity is purchased and goodwill is gained. But the favor exchange rate isn't fixed. Some favors are done with the expectation of nothing returned.

在职场的潜规则中，“人情”都是买到效率、赢得好感的“硬通货”。但各种人情间的“汇率”并非一成不变。有些帮忙并不期望任何回报。

Others are performed in the spirit of getting. Making favors even trickier to grasp -- and thus easier to game -- is research suggesting that the deed itself isn't as valued as much as the atmospherics around it. Someone's gender, their apparent willingness and even time elapsed since the favor was performed, can all change a selfless act into something brazenly transactional or vice versa.

还有一些则秉承着“欲取先予”的想法。研究表明，帮忙本身的价值不及围绕它的那种氛围重要，这让人情的价值更难把握，从而也更容易换得人家的回报。一个人的性别、他要求别人回报的意愿度，甚至这个人情已经过去了多长时间，这一切都能将一个无私的行动转化为某种厚脸皮的交易，反之亦然。

The slippery definition of a "favor" explains why some colleagues view the performance of their simplest job duties as an act of heroism. Karen Markin, a college administrator, has run into colleagues whose job includes easy access to information. But it doesn't seem easy when she asks for it.

“帮忙”的涵义难以捉摸，这也解释了为何一些同事会将履行最简单的本职工作视为英雄主义行径。凯伦．马尔金(Karen Markin)是一位大学管理人员，她跟一些工作中可以轻易获取信息的同事打过交道。当她要求他们提供信息时，却好像并不容易。

"They can act like it's moving a mountain" says Ms. Markin. "People think they're doing this enormous favor."

马尔金说：“他们那副样子好像上刀山一样，觉得自己是帮了你天大的忙。”

In his study of customer-service agents, Frank Flynn, an associate professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business who studies favor exchange, found that soon after the completion of a favor, its recipient thought it was more valuable than the person who granted it. Over time, however, they reversed roles: "The person who received it didn't think it was that big a deal, but the person who granted the favor thought it was a bigger deal."

斯坦福商学院(Stanford's Graduate School of Business)的副教授、研究人情往来的弗兰克．弗林(Frank Flynn)在对客户服务代理进行研究时发现，在接受人家帮忙之后的短时间内，接受者比施与者对之看得更重。不过，随着时间的推移，二者会交换角色：接受帮忙的人不再认为那是什么了不得的事，但施与者却觉得它的意义更重大了。

Understanding the shelf life of a favor granted, some colleagues require immediate favor redemption. Richard Vandagriff occasionally worked with a contractor who was one of those favor accountants. 'He doesn't keep a book, but might as well,' he says. Once, the man even counterfeited a favor -- resetting furnace controls that didn't need resetting.

一些人明白人情也有“有效期”，因而要求人家立即奉还。理查德．万达格里夫(Richard Vandagriff)偶尔会与一位承包商共事，那人就是那种会算人情帐的人。万达格里夫说，“他并没把一切记录在案，但还不如那样呢。”有一次，那人甚至还假装帮了他个忙──重新设定了根本无需重设的炉子调节装置。

"Now I need a favor from you," he told Mr. Vandagriff."It was a setup to get me to get one of my people to help him."

然后他对万达格里夫说，“现在我需要你帮个忙。”万达格里夫后来意识到，这是他设计好的说法，为的是让万达格里夫请自己的一位朋友帮助他。

It worked.

这个办法奏效了。