FT每日英语丨不要在咖啡馆办公，别问我是怎么知道的

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FT每日英语丨不要在咖啡馆办公，别问我是怎么知道的

2017 年 7 月 26 日 FT中文网

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你在咖啡馆办公吗？

采用打破常规的做法——定期到咖啡馆工作——能使我们更富创造力，而同事不在场的环境则能提高我们的工作效率。《纽约时报》(New York Times)也有文章指出，咖啡馆的背景声响非常有助于工作，以至于被作为白噪音在办公楼里播放。

可是，咖啡馆给英国《金融时报》专栏作家露西·凯拉韦带来的体验似乎不是这样。

微信现在可以根据自己的需求，在任意位置拖拽播放进度条收听哦

I am sitting with my laptop and a mug of coffee at a tiny table. An identical table is right behind mine and every time its occupant moves, I get jabbed in the back. The cash register opens and closes. The steam machine hisses. Welcome to my new office: Starbucks, Highbury Corner, north London.

现在我正坐在一张小桌子边，桌上摆着我的手提电脑，和一杯咖啡。在我身后有一张一模一样的桌子，每次坐在那里的人起身移动时，我的后背就会被猛戳一下。收款机开了又关。蒸汽机发出嘶嘶的声音。欢迎来到我的新办公室：位于伦敦北部海布里角(Highbury Corner)的星巴克(Starbucks)店。

Until now, I’ve never had the slightest desire to bring my work to a coffee shop. My children swear it’s where they do their best work. Luke Johnson recently wrote a column in the Financial Times saying they are perfect places to start a business. If the alternative is the kitchen table, then I suppose Starbucks has something going for it. But for those of us with free offices, I can’t see the big draw.

以前我从未有过哪怕是最轻微的将工作带到咖啡馆完成的念头。我的孩子们发誓他们在咖啡馆的做事效率最高。卢克•约翰逊(Luke Johnson)近期在英国《金融时报》写了一篇专栏文章称，咖啡馆是开展创业的完美场所。如果另外一个选择是厨房餐桌，那我认为星巴克也许还有一点胜出的希望。但对于像我们这种拥有免费办公场所的人来说，我不认为咖啡馆会有多大吸引力。

Photo credit: Getty Images

Last week, I read two articles that changed my mind. First, a blog post in Fast Company arguing that we should all periodically decamp to cafés as the break to routine makes us creative, and the absence of colleagues makes us productive. The second was a piece in the New York Times saying that the background sounds in coffee shops are so conducive to work that they are being piped into office buildings as white noise.

上周我读到的两篇文章改变了我的想法。一篇发表在Fast Company的博客文章指出，我们应当定期到咖啡馆工作，因为这种打破常规的做法能使我们更富创造力，而同事不在场的环境则能提高我们的工作效率。第二篇刊载于《纽约时报》(New York Times)，文章指出，咖啡馆的背景声响非常有助于工作，以至于被作为白噪音在办公楼里播放。

So this morning I set off for my new workplace. The commute was a dream – four minutes by bike. Some of the time saved was lost queueing for coffee, but when I got to the front and parted with £2.15 for a “tall” cup of beige milk, I felt pleased with the bargain: it comes with an unlimited side order of table, chair, WiFi and electricity.

因此今天一早我就出发前往我的新办公室。通勤的路程美得像个梦——骑自行车四分钟就到了。节省下来的部分时间浪费在了排队等候咖啡上，但当我走到前排并花费2.15英镑买了一大杯牛奶咖啡时，我感到非常物有所值：我还可以附带无限制地使用桌椅、WiFi无线网络以及电力。

“Do you mind people sitting here all day over one coffee?” I ask the woman at the till. “No!” she beams. “I like it. They keep me company.”

我对收款机前的女士问到：“你是否介意有人只点一杯咖啡却在这里呆上一整天？”她笑道：“当然不。我喜欢人们这么做。这些人可以跟我做伴。”

Photo credit: Getty Images

It’s a rum business model. The argument goes that people with laptops look cool and give the place a buzzy atmosphere; I can’t imagine that I look any cooler hunched over my computer than my bald and paunchy neighbour looks hunched over his.

这是一种古怪的商业模式。有观点称，带着笔记本电脑的人看起来很酷，并能给咖啡馆带来一种时尚的氛围；我无法想象自己蜷缩在电脑前的样子会比我那位秃顶又大腹便便的邻居趴在他的电脑前的样子酷到哪儿去。

In advance, I’ve been doing some homework on how best to work in a café. You might have thought it is easy: get coffee, sit down, open laptop, work. But no. There’s a whole page on WikiHow about the “coffee shop experience”, advising clothes that are “comfortable but elegant” and that you sit far from the door and the till.

我预先对如何在咖啡馆更好地工作做了一些准备。你或许会认为这很容易：买杯咖啡，找位子坐下，打开手提电脑，开始干活。但事情并非如此。WikiHow博客上有一整篇关于“咖啡馆经验”的文章，建议人们穿着“舒适而优雅”的服装，并且在远离门口和收银台的地方坐下。

I settle at the only free table and remove the previous occupant’s squalid litter. The background noise is quite nice – both upbeat and soothing. The foreground noise is less so. A mobile goes.

我坐在了唯一一张空桌子上，并移开了之前坐在这里的人留下的脏垃圾。我身后的声音听起来很棒，既积极又令人感到平静。而前方的声音则并非如此。有人的手机响了起来。

Photo credit: Getty Images

“So no, yeah, it was all good. So, like, basically, yeah, all good. No, I’m literally at Starbucks. I came to charge my phone . . . ” I turn round. He’s plugged in his mobile, but hasn’t even bought a drink.

“不，是的，事情全安排好了。因此，差不多，基本上，全搞定了。不，我现在在星巴克里。我是来给手机充电的。”我循声转头，发现他的手机正充着电，而他甚至还没有购买任何饮品。

I’ve finished mine, and need the loo. WikiHow does not advise on how to deal with this eventuality, so I decide to take all my stuff in with me. When I return, my table has been taken by someone else.

我已经喝完了我的饮料，需要去趟洗手间。WikiHow博客上没有关于如何应对这种偶发事件的建议，因此我决定把随身物品都带上。当我回来的时候，我的桌子已经被其他人占据了。

I leave Starbucks and head down the road to Euphorium, a brighter and groovier independent coffee shop. I get a nice table, and even though it’s barely 11am order a salt beef bagel. I enter the WiFi password and get down to work. Within five minutes I’m joined by two women, each with a buggy the size of a small car. In one a baby screams. “Oh, Oscar”, says his mother.

我离开了星巴克，沿街而行来到了Euphorium，一家更加明亮时髦的独立咖啡店。我找到了一个舒适的位置，虽然现在刚上午11点，我还是点了一个咸牛肉面包圈。我输入了WiFi无线网络密码并开始工作。但仅仅过了5分钟，就有两个女人坐到了我这一桌，她们每人都推了一辆小汽车大小的婴儿车。一辆车内的婴儿大声哭喊。“噢，奥斯卡”，他的母亲说道。

Photo credit: Getty Images

With some effort I block this out, but when I look up, someone is waving at me. It’s the mother of a boy my son knew at primary school, who comes over to say her boy has just got into Oxford university and that he’s spending his gap year acting in some Hollywood film. Great, I say, continuing to type. In the office this trick always works: colleagues take the hint. But in coffee shops it does not seem to work at all. When I finally get rid of her I order a strawberry tart to lift my spirits. And then a cappuccino to lift them some more. While I drink it I read something from the New Yorker online about how caffeine destroys your creativity.

我颇费了翻努力才排除了这些干扰，但当我抬起头来时，有人正在向我招手。这是我儿子在小学时认识的一个男孩的母亲。她走过来对我说，自己的孩子刚被牛津大学(Oxford university)录取了，并把上大学之前的空档年用于拍摄某部好莱坞电影。太棒了，我说道，然后继续打字。在办公室里这个技巧总是非常奏效：同事们能领会你的暗示。但在咖啡店里这个办法似乎完全不起作用。当我最终摆脱她的时候，我点了一个草莓馅饼来改善自己的情绪，之后又点了一杯卡布奇诺咖啡来进一步提振精神。而正当我喝着咖啡时，我在纽约客(New Yorker)的网站上读到了一篇关于咖啡因如何毁灭创造力的文章。

I don’t believe this any more than I believe that working in a café can increase it. There is only one effect coffee shops have for sure: they are rough on your skeleton. The chairs are designed to be sat on for half an hour – not all day.

我对这种说法的信任程度并不比我对咖啡馆有助于增强创造力的信任度高。咖啡店确定具有的效果只有一种：它们会让你腰酸背疼。咖啡馆里的椅子都是为小坐半小时而设计的，而不是一坐一整天。

After three hours, my back hurts and carpal tunnel syndrome can’t be far off. They are rough on the stomach too: two coffees, a Diet Coke, a bagel and a tart, and it’s not quite lunchtime.

在咖啡馆里待了三小时以后，我的后背开始疼痛，腕管综合症似乎也为期不远。我的肠胃也受到了很大考验：两杯咖啡，一瓶健怡可乐，一个面包圈，一个水果馅饼，而现在甚至还没到午餐时间。

Photo credit: Getty Images

I’ve just googled famous people who work in cafés, and at the top of every list is JK Rowling. I now forgive her everything. If she wrote Harry Potter sitting in a coffee shop, she could surely have managed Middlemarch in a quiet office with a comfortable chair.

我在谷歌(google)上搜索了在咖啡馆里工作的名人，J•K•罗琳(JK Rowling)总是出现在每份名单的最上端。我现在可以谅解关于她的一切。如果她坐在咖啡馆里可以写出《哈里•波特》(Harry Potter)，那么如果她在一个安静的办公室里坐在一张舒适的椅子上，则无疑可以写出像《米德尔马契》(Middlemarch)这样的作品。