I am an instructor¹ at a private university in the US which has directed that wastebaskets and recycling stations will be emptied once a week as an austerity move. I took it upon myself to empty my trash, but discovered there were no clean plastic liners to replace the dirty ones. What should I do? Contact the dean or university president? I am on a yearly contract, so if I complain I may be labelled a troublemaker² and my contract not renewed. Lecturer, 55

我是美国一所私立大学的老师，学校推出了节约措施，规定垃圾桶和回收站每周一清。于是我就自己去倒垃圾，但找不到干净的垃圾袋把脏的替换掉。我应该怎么做？联系院长或校长？我的合同是一年一签的，所以，如果我抱怨的话，就可能被贴上爱找事儿的标签，合同也不会获得续签。

Lucy Kellaway’s answer

露西•凯拉韦的回答

On reading your problem, many FT readers decided³ that I was having a joke at their expense. It was, after all, first published on April Fools’ Day.

读到你的问题时，《金融时报》的许多读者以为我在逗他们。毕竟你的问题最早是在4月1日愚人节那天发表的。

I can now reveal that it was no joke of mine — and I have no reason to believe that you, Lecturer, 55, think there is anything funny about your situation either.

现在我可以透露，那绝不是我的玩笑，我也没有理由相信，作为55岁讲师的你，会认为自身处境有何可笑之处。

The few who recognised it to be a real question were scornful, judging you to be a pathetic specimen⁴, hooked on triviality.

当时有少数几个读者认为这是个真实的问题，他们的态度是轻蔑的，认为你是个可怜的怪人，纠结于鸡毛蒜皮的小事。

By contrast, I judge them pathetic in their lack of imagination. Haven’t they worked in offices? Don’t they know that office life is the sum of a thousand trivialities? Don’t they realise that one of the most annoying things is being at the receiving end of piddling austerity measures?

相比之下，我觉得缺乏想象力的他们才可怜。难道他们没在办公室里工作过？难道他们不知道，办公室生活就是一千件琐事的总和？难道他们没有意识到，最恼人的事情之一，就是无关紧要的节约措施落到了自己头上？

Indeed in my experience of the workplace the thing most guaranteed to upset people is not when management axes half the workforce⁵, it is when it axes free biscuits. Then all hell breaks loose. I can easily see that for neat freaks, eliminating rubbish collections can be just as upsetting as eliminating biscuits is to the rest of us.

实际上，以我在办公室里工作的经验来看，保准会让人心烦的事，不是管理层裁掉一半员工，而是砍掉免费饼干供应。免费饼干一取消，一下就天下大乱了。我能轻易看出，对有洁癖的人而言，减少垃圾回收频率，就像取消免费饼干对我们其他人而言一样，可能令人心烦意乱。

In both cases the best course of action is the same. The first rule is that while it is fine to complain blue murder to your colleagues it is not fine at all to complain to your superiors. So for you to talk to the dean or the president would be an exceedingly poor idea. Management is not going to back pedal, and so all you would achieve would be to make a nuisance of yourself.

对这两种情况而言，最佳行动方针是相同的。头一条原则是，跟同事大声抱怨没关系，但向上司抱怨是绝对不行的。所以，对你而言，跟院长或校长谈此事将是个非常糟糕的主意。管理层不会收回成令，所以你这样做徒然惹人厌。

Instead, you have to find a way of finding your new rubbish-strewn office as un-annoying as possible. So buy your own bin⁶ liners, if emptying the rubbish is less annoying than seeing it full. But I suspect that you would be better advised to do what everyone else does, and go on cramming⁷ more rubbish into full bins⁸ and leave it up to someone else to sort out.

相反，你必须想办法，让到处新冒出垃圾的办公室尽可能不碍你眼。所以，如果看到满满的垃圾桶，比倒垃圾更讨厌，你就自己买垃圾袋吧。但我觉得，更好的建议是，跟大家保持一致，继续往满满的垃圾筒里塞垃圾，把这个问题留给别人去解决。

You might also be grateful that you work somewhere that still has individual bins. All modern offices have abandoned them in favour of communal⁹ recycling collection points, so that every time you want to get rid of anything you have to walk some distance to do so.

你或许也应心怀感激，因为你工作的地方仍在提供个人垃圾筒。所有现代办公室都已用公共回收站取代了个人垃圾筒，所以每当你想把什么东西扔掉，都必须走上一段距离才行。

In time, you will adapt, but in the meantime, best to concentrate on getting that yearly contract renewed. Being an unemployed¹⁰ 56-year-old lecturer is even more of a problem than being employed in an office where the bins are always overflowing¹¹.

你迟早肯定会适应新情况，不过，与此同时，你最好把主要精力放在让自己一年一签的劳动合同获得续签上。跟在一间垃圾筒总是装得太满的办公室上班相比，成为一名56岁的失业讲师是件更大的麻烦事。