“一年中，总有一段时间尤其不想工作。这就是夏天了。盛夏，炎热的天气让人懒散，最吸引人的比赛也总安排在这个时候。到了夏天，怎么才能从繁重的工作中脱身？我有几个妙招。”

Summer, sports and strategies for avoiding work

At some times of the year work feels more of a chore[1] than at others. This is one of those times. It is summer. Wimbledon[2] is on. So is the World Cup. Even if you don't care for either tennis or football, enough secondary excitement reaches you to make you feel disinclined to[3] strain yourself in the office.

[1]chore：a job or piece of work that is often boring or unpleasant but needs to be done regularly 日常琐事；杂务；乏味的例行工作

I'll go shopping when I've done my chores (= done the jobs in or around the house).

我把家务琐事干完后要去购物。

[2]温布尔登网球锦标赛（Wimbledon Championships，或简称“温网”）

[3]be/feel disinclined to do sth：to not want to do something 不想做…，不愿意做…

I am/feel disinclined to offer him a job if he doesn't have a degree.

如果他拿不到学位，我可不愿意给他一份工作。

One popular solution is to throw a sickie[4] – according to one extravagant report 3.5m of them will be thrown during the footie tournament in Britain alone. But not only is pretending to be ill a short-term solution, it goes so much against the grain of my upbringing that never in 34 years of employment have I thrown a sickie, so it may be a bit late to start now.

[4]throw a sickie：to say to your employer that you are ill when you are not so that you do not have to go to your place of work for a day 称病缺勤；假病假

I just didn't feel like work so I threw a sickie.

我不想去上班所以就称病缺勤一天。

That does not mean I disapprove of work-avoidance in general. On the contrary, it is necessary for survival and is a skill that one needs, not only at the tail-end of June, but all year round. Practised well, it does not lead to failed careers – it often leads to the most successful ones.

Take two men I know, both the same age, both equally talented. One is a magnet for extra work, which gets dumped on him all the time. Sometimes he grumbles[5] a little, but diligently crunches through the pile of unexciting tasks, knowing that when he is done, there will be more waiting. The other man never does any surplus tasks at all. He isn't exactly lazy, but only works on things that interest him. In his spare time he sits in his office watching the tennis on his iPhone.

[5]grumble：to complain about someone or something in an annoyed way 发牢骚；抱怨；嘟囔

She spent the evening grumbling to me about her job.

她一晚上都在向我抱怨她的工作。

Which of the two is more handsomely rewarded for their unequal effort? Mr Obliging[6] or Mr Not-So-Obliging? The sad truth is that the first has received no benefit from his drudgery[7], while the second has suffered no punishment for his shirking[8].

[6]obliging：willing or eager to help 乐于助人的；热心相助的

He found an obliging doctor who gave him the drugs he needed.

他找到一位热心的医生，这位医生给了他所需要的药物。

[7]drudgery：hard boring work 辛苦乏味的工作

the drudgery of housework

繁重且乏味的家务

[8]shirk (v.)：to avoid work, duties, or responsibilities, especially if they are difficult or unpleasant 逃避（尤指困难或令人不快的工作、责任等）

I will not shirk from my obligations.

我不会逃避我的义务。

I have been trying to understand how Mr Not-So-Obliging gets away with it. At first I thought it was a matter of saying no. This is a skill I have finally mastered after a couple of decades of trying. It turns out to be really easy: you just say no at once, without offering reasons.

Yet in my experience, skilled work-avoiders hardly ever say no. They do something far more ingenious: they avoid being asked in the first place. There are some well-known strategies for this, including bustling around with a clipboard looking busy or wearing headphones and staring intently at the screen forbidding anyone from approaching.

Yet Mr Not-So-Obliging tells me his secret is far simpler – he simply reduces to the barest minimum the amount of time he spends in the office. If you aren't there physically it is extraordinary how little grunt work you get asked to do. It is true that some requests come in by email, but he assures me that these are easy to wriggle out[9] if you wait 24 hours before replying – by which time some other poor sucker will have been dragooned[10] instead.

[9]wriggle out of sth：to avoid doing something that you do not want to do 逃脱，避开

He promised he'd help me paint the living room, but now he's trying to wriggle out of it.

他答应过会帮我装饰，但现在又想躲开。

[10]dragoon sb into sth：to force or persuade someone to do something unpleasant 迫使（某人）做（某事）；勉强（某人）做（某事）

I've been dragooned into giving the after-dinner speech.

我被迫要在晚餐后发言。

The trouble with this trick is that if you are never in the office, people forget you exist. Fortunately there is another work-avoidance strategy that I have seen used to such great effect by some colleagues it amazes me that there is no body of literature supporting it, and no courses teaching you how to pull it off.

It is to act frightening. Frightening people never get asked to do grunt work. The difficulty here is that scariness is partly an innate[11] characteristic, and partly comes with seniority[12]. However, at the margin it may be possible to make yourself a little more frightening by playing on your workmate's fear of the unknown. We are scared of people whose behaviour we can't predict; and so it might be an idea to alternate taciturn[13] behaviour with bouts of garrulousness[14]. People might think you scary – or they might think you were going mad.

[11]innate：An innate quality or ability is one that you were born with, not one you have learned. 天生的，固有的

[12]seniority：the advantage that you get by working for a company for a long time 资历

In future, promotion will be based on merit not seniority.

以后晋升要看业绩而非资历深浅。

[13]taciturn：tending not to speak much 沉默寡言的

He's a reserved, taciturn person.

他是个矜持寡言的人。

[14]garrulous (adj.)：having the habit of talking a lot, especially about things that are not important （尤指对鸡毛蒜皮的事情）喋喋不休的，絮叨的，饶舌的

The best work-avoidance technique of all is to be perfectly willing, but perfectly incompetent. This trick is much practised at home by my sons, who when asked to do the washing-up take care always to do it so badly that it becomes a serious disincentive to asking them to do it again – especially if there is anyone more competent around to do it instead.

The equivalent of the washing-up technique at work is to be hopeless at small tasks. To be late writing boring reports or to write scrappy minutes for meetings. Alas, this is a trick for the advanced class only: you should never attempt it unless you are considered to be very good indeed at the big stuff. Then you will find yourself forgiven and (this is the really unfair bit) even respected for your areas of incompetence and unwillingness.

When you are caught at your desk flagrantly[15] watching Wimbledon on your computer, people will smile indulgently and think you a jolly good chap.

[15]flagrant (adj.)：(of a bad action, situation, person, etc.) shocking because of being so obvious 骇人听闻的，公然的；罪恶昭彰的

a flagrant misuse of funds/privilege

明目张胆的滥用资金／特权