背景介绍：
在工作中，我们总会遇到各种各样的难题，这是不可避免的。但是如何有效地解决这些困难，是每个职场人士必须面对和掌握的技能。为大家解决各种职场难题的经济学人知心大叔马克斯·弗兰诺回来了，有什么问题不妨问问他吧。
The return of
The Economist’s agony uncle
经济学人知心大叔回来了
Max Flannel is
back to
grapple with
your workplace headaches
马克斯·弗兰诺回归，为你解决职场难题
Dear Max, I am a 23-year-old social-media marketer who
has only recently been required to return to the office. I had been told that
the office would be great for having watercooler conversations. My office
doesn’t seem to have a watercooler. What should I do?
亲爱的马克斯，我是一名23岁的社交媒体营销人员，最近被要求回到办公室办公。有人告诉我，这间办公室非常适合茶水间谈话。我的办公室好像没有饮水机。我该怎么办呢？
Now you ask, I’m not really even sure what a
watercooler is. But the basic idea is to find a place where you know colleagues
are bound to go regularly and where you can engage in light conversation about
whether they saw anything good on TV last night. My advice is to hang around
any tap and you should meet colleagues fairly regularly.
现在你要问了，我甚至都不太清楚什么是饮水机。但基本的想法是，找一个你知道同事们一定会经常去的地方，在那里你可以和他们轻松地聊聊昨晚有没有看什么好看的电视。我的建议是，在任何一个水龙头附近晃悠，你应该会经常遇到同事。
I have just been promoted into a senior role. I have
noticed that many of my new peers like to open meetings with small personal
anecdotes
about something that happened to them that day—a minor cycling
accident, say, or a chance encounter with an old acquaintance.
我刚刚被提拔担任高级职务。我注意到，我的许多新同事喜欢在会议开始时讲述一些当天发生在他们身上的小的个人轶事——比如骑自行车时发生的小事故，或者与一位老相识的偶遇。
It seems to be a way of getting people to relax a bit. The trouble is that nothing interesting ever seems to happen to me. What should I do?
这似乎是让人们放松一点的一种方式。问题是，在我身上似乎从来没有发生过什么有趣的事情。我该怎么办呢？
I wouldn’t worry too much. Those stories are mostly
made-up and all
deliberately
boring. No executive ever opens a meeting talking
about how they woke up in their own clothes but in a total stranger’s
apartment.
我不太担心这个。这些故事大多是编造的，而且都是故意让人觉得无聊的。没有哪个高管会在会议开始时讲述他们是如何穿着自己的衣服在一间完全陌生的公寓醒来的。
The goal is only to put people at their ease by making the speaker seem faintly human. Just say exactly what you put in your message above and then make your face go a bit vulnerable. That should do the trick.
这样做的目的只是让发言者看起来有一点人情味，从而让大家感到轻松自在。只需准确地说出你要表达什么信息，然后表现出一副无所谓的样子。这样就可以了。
The meeting rooms in our offices have just been given
new and quirky names. All of them are different kinds of dips. I’m typing this
in Baba Ghanoush; my next meeting is in Taramasalata. Am I alone in wanting to
scream?
我们办公室的会议室刚刚有了一个新的古怪名字。所有这些都是不同种类的浸渍。我正在用巴巴加努什打这篇文章；我的下一场会议将在塔拉马萨拉塔举行。只有我想尖叫吗？
This is a truly revolting trend. There are people
walking around offices right now saying things like “Focaccia seems to be
taken. Is Ciabatta free?”, “I’m in Ulaanbaatar. Where are you?” and “Let’s set
up a projector in Nelson Mandela”.
这真是一种令人反感的趋势。现在有人在办公室里走来走去，说“好像有人买了佛卡夏。恰巴特是免费的吗？”，“我在乌兰巴托。你在哪里？”以及“让我们在纳尔逊·曼德拉安装一台投影仪吧”。
You either sound totally idiotic or as if you are suggesting something appalling. Just describe the room you are referring to: the one where Mandy gave that terrible presentation, say, or the one where absolutely nothing works.
要么听起来完全是在说蠢话，要么就像是在暗示一些可怕的事情。只需描述你所指的房间：比方说，曼迪做了一次糟糕的演讲的那个房间，或者是什么都不能用的那个房间。
I recently had a very disturbing thought. I don’t feel
like I am an impostor. Does that mean I actually am one?
我最近有一个非常令人不安的想法。我不觉得自己是个冒名顶替者。这是不是意味着我真的是其中之一？
I’m afraid you have developed non-impostor syndrome.
Impostor syndrome, the much more common condition, is the worry that you are
not good enough to take on certain roles. If you own up to this feeling, you
will almost certainly be told that you are way better than the people who
blithely
hold those roles now.
恐怕你是得了非冒名顶替综合症。冒名顶替综合症是一种更为常见的病症，它是指你担心自己不够优秀，不足以胜任某些角色。如果你坦率地承认这种感觉，几乎肯定会有人告诉你，你比现在那些乐于担任这些角色的人要好得多。
If you have non-impostor syndrome, you start to wonder whether you are one of the people they mean and therefore deeply incompetent. The only known cure for non-impostor syndrome is impostor syndrome.
如果你患有非冒名顶替综合症，你就会开始怀疑自己是否就是他们所说的那种人，因此深感无能。唯一已知的治疗非冒名顶替综合症的方法就是冒名顶替综合征。
重难点词汇
：
grapple with
应对；努力对付
anecdote
[ˈænɪkdoʊt] n. 轶事；趣闻
deliberately
[dɪˈlɪbərətli] adv. 故意地；从容不迫地
blithely
[ˈblaɪðlɪ] adv. 愉快地；无挂虑地
推荐阅读：
