你愿意上班被监控吗？.

　　你愿意上班被监控吗?

　　Big Brother can watch me at work any day

　　Last week the Financial Times published a scary story about how technology is being used by companies to spy on us at work. It described how sensors can be easily and cheaply hidden in name badges and office furniture to track where we are, who we talk to and in what tone of voice. HR departments can find out how long we take to get to work and how we behave when we get there. In shops, call centres and even boardrooms, the data could be used to decide who to promote and who to fire.上周英国《金融时报》报道了公司如何利用技术在工作中监控我们的可怕故事。它描述了公司如何不费力、不费钱，偷偷将传感器藏在胸牌或办公室家具里，来记录我们的位置、我们与谁交谈、乃至用何种语气交谈。人力资源部门可以知道我们休息多久后才开始工作，以及我们是如何工作的。在商店、呼叫中心甚至是董事会会议室，这些数据可能被用来决定提拔谁、解雇谁。

　　I shuddered as I read the article – as did most FT readers. Nineteen Eighty-Four is upon us, they commented online. Totalitarianism is rampant! Privacy is down the plughole! (Some of the comments are published in “Feedback” below).当我读到这篇文章时感到不寒而栗，本报的许多读者也是如此。他们在网上评论说，“1984”(Nineteen Eighty-Four)来临了。极权主义泛滥!隐私被抛进了下水道!(其中一些发表在文章下面的“评论”中)。

　　Yet on closer inspection, the arrival of Big Brother in the corporate world is not necessarily such a bad thing. Being constantly monitored by invisible devices might sound frightening but I’m not sure it is any more so than being monitored infrequently by visible human beings.然而，进一步深入思索就会发现，“老大哥”(Big Brother)来到企业世界不一定有多么糟糕。受到隐形装置无时不刻的监控听起来或许有些可怕，但我不敢肯定它会比主管偶尔现身的监控更可怕。

　　Under the present arrangement, we are observed in a haphazard and unscientific way by superiors who may well have made up their minds about us already, based on not much evidence at all. Sod’s Law decrees that when you do something good, no one notices but the minute you do something bad you get caught. I remember one boss who, once in a blue moon, would walk around the office; whenever he crept up behind me I was invariably writing a shopping list or was on the phone to my mum. Such surveillance didn’t improve my behaviour, though it did increase my sense of injustice. To have been monitored all the time – which would have put the shopping list in the context of otherwise diligent behaviour – would have been a vast improvement.从当前的情况来看，我们的主管正以一种随意而不科学的方式观察着我们，他们很可能已经对我们有了定论，却根本不以多少证据为依据。按照“索德定律” (Sod&aposs Law)，当你做好事时，没有人会注意到;但当你干坏事，就会被抓个现行。我记得有位老板很少会在办公室四处走动;但每次他悄无声息地出现在我的身后，我总是在列购物清单或者与我的妈妈通电话。这样的监控不会提高我的工作表现，却着实让我感觉冤枉。而如果我是一直处于监控下，那么老板会在考虑我列购物清单的同时，考虑我在其它时间勤勉工作的表现，这样我就会大幅改进自己的表现。

　　In most offices a raft of mainly pointless, cumbersome tools are used to assess performance, including “competency matrices”, appraisal interviews and psychometric testing. Together they are so infective that according to a delightful piece of research by the University of Catania, companies would be no worse off promoting people at random.在大多数的办公室里，一大堆基本毫无意义而且繁琐的工具被用来评估员工的表现，包括“能力矩阵”、考核面谈和心理测试。总的来说它们的效果很差，差到根据卡塔尼亚大学(University of Catania)一份令人愉悦的研究报告，企业随意提拔员工，也不会比根据这些评估结果提拔员工糟糕。

　　If we are in favour of meritocracies, we should also be in favour of anything that helps us measure merit more accurately. While the data collected by the new sensors are almost certainly too crude to offer much help now, I see no reason why in time (and probably quite soon) we will not have worked out exactly which behavioural quirks are the key to high (or low) performance, and found a decent, objective way of measuring them.如果我们支持唯才是举，那么也就应该支持有助于更准确衡量工作表现的任何举措。尽管几乎可以肯定，传感器收集的数据过于粗糙而帮助不大，但我看不出有什么原因能阻止我们在未来某一天(很可能相当快)，搞清楚哪一种行为上的怪癖是导致员工表现优秀或糟糕的关键因素，并找出一种得体而客观地衡量员工表现的方式。

　　Steelcase, which makes some of the sensors so loathed by FT readers, hopes that one day they will not only be used to monitor juniors but in boardrooms too. While it is hard to see directors willingly turning these tools upon themselves, it would be a terrific idea if they did. At the moment, monitoring of boardroom behaviour is hopeless – outsiders periodically come in to observe, but such are the political sensitivities it is almost impossible for them to make a difference.引起英国《金融时报》读者极度反感的一些传感器是Steelcase制造的。该公司希望，总有一天这些传感器不仅用来监控初级员工，而且还会被用在董事会会议室。尽管很难想象董事们会愿意将这些工具用于监控自己，但如果他们真的愿意的话，那这个想法棒极了。就目前而言，根本做不到监控董事们在董事会会议室内的行为——外部人士偶尔会评论几句，但这种事情在政治上极度敏感，他们几乎不可能带来什么改变。

　　If, by contrast, all directors were wired up, anyone who banged on indinitely, lowering the pulses of their boardroom colleagues, would be faithfully fingered by the technology. Equally, the person who made the odd remark that made everyone sit up in their seats would also be marked out. Knowing that the devices were there, and knowing the object of the exercise was to make incisive, controversial points, would improve board meetings no end.话说回来，如果所有董事都受到监控，任何喋喋不休地说个不停、让会议室里的其他董事昏昏欲睡的人，都会被监控忠实地揭发出来。同样，说出一个新奇观点、让所有人一下子来了精神的那个人，也会被记录下来。当董事们知道有监控设备在，也知道这种做法的目的是让他们提出入木三分、值得争论的观点，董事会会议的质量将得到极大改善。

　　It is objected that monitoring behaviour in offices would kill trust and spontaneity, making robots of us all. But so long as everyone knew they were being monitored and understood what for, I don’t see why it should be such a terrifying idea – except perhaps for those who bully, shout at and harass others – and who have been getting away with it.有人反对说，办公室的监控行为将会扼杀信任和主动性，让我们所有人都变成机器人。但只要所有人都知道他们正受到监控，而且也明白监控的目的，我认为人们就不应如此害怕监控——或许除了那些欺凌、叱喝和骚扰其他同事的人，以及一直在躲避监控的人以外。

　　Far from making work less civilised, the arrival of Big Brother could make it more so. Office life could become more transparent and less political. And managers would be freed from having to play the role of policeman all day and allowed to get on with the more important role of helping people do a better job.老大哥”的来临可能会促进、而非降低人们在工作中的文明程度。办公室生活可能变得更加透明而且减少了争权夺利。经理们将不用全天扮演警察的角色，从而可以发挥帮助人们提高工作效率的更重要的作用。

　　Some problems would need resolving. For a start extensive monitoring could be illegal. You would also have to ensure that workers were not able to subvert the process – and that wicked managers were not busily manipulating the data for their own devious ends.一些问题需要得到解决。首先大规模监控可能是非法的。你还必须确保员工不能破坏监控过程，以及品格低下的经理不会为了自己不可告人的目的而忙着操纵数据。

　　Above all, for the system to work, you would need to have some faith in the regime that implemented it. But then, if you don’t have any faith in the regime, the chances are that you are screwed anyway.最重要的是，要想让监控系统奏效，你就需要对实施它的整套管理制度有一些信心。但如果你对管理制度没有丝毫信心，不管怎样你都可能搞砸。