THE QUESTION Last February, I quit as a director in M&.A at a big investment bank as I could see the writing on the wall and hated my job anyway. I joined a small outfit that does interesting work with better hours, but I took a 50 per cent pay cut and, since my bonus expectations are muted, I took in effect an 80 per cent cut overall. I thought I d get past that and focus on the challenges but I find I resent my employer and myself for being so stupid. Should I quit and sit on the beach like everyone else? 我要收藏 今年2月，我辞去了一家大型投行并购业务主管的职位。我当时觉得，被裁是迟早的事，而且我本来就讨厌那份工作。我加入了一家小型公司，那里的工作更有意思，工作时间也更合理，但我的薪水减少了50%。由于奖金预期也降低了，实际上我的收入总水平将下降80%。我以为自己能克服这一点，把精力都投入到工作的挑战上。但我现在觉得自己愚蠢至极，还因此埋怨起了我的雇主和我自己。我是否应该辞职，和别人一样去海边度假呢？ LUCY S ANSWER First, I want to salute your courage in admitting that money matters to you. This unfashionable view has so got up the noses of Financial Times readers that they have quite forgotten their manners in the responses they left on FT.com. 首先，我要赞扬你的勇气，敢于承认金钱对你很重要。这种不合潮流的观点，让英国《金融时报》的读者看了很生气，以致他们在回答这一问题时完全忘记了应有的礼貌。 This week the outgoing head of Shell put forward a more palatable view when he claimed that a 50 per cent pay cut would have had no effect on his work. Yet he hasn t put his goody-goody theory to the test – and you have. You found that halving your salary cut your enthusiasm. I am sure it would reduce mine, too. 上周，即将离职的壳牌(Shell)老总抛出了一种更为中听的说法，声称减薪50%不会对他的工作产生丝毫影响。不过，他还没有将这套伪善的理论付诸实践——而你有。你发现，薪水减半降低了你的工作热情。我相信如果遇到这种情况，我也会这样。 I think much of what is making you cross is your own failure to predict how you would feel in this new, badly paid job. Yet I don t accept that your experiment has been a disaster, as you learnt two important lessons: first, you don t like feeling underpaid. and second, jobs that promise to be interesting often aren t. 我想，你之所以感到苦恼，主要是因为你没有预料到，这份薪水欠丰的新工件会给你带来怎样的感受。不过，我不认为你这场试验一无是处，因为你从中学到了两个重要教训：第一，你不喜欢感到工资低于应得的水平；第二，乍看之下很有意思的工作，其实往往不然。 Your best course of action is to jack in the new job at once and head for the beach. This too may turn out to be a mistake but if so, you will learn a third, even better lesson: how much having a job matters to you. 你最好是辞去新工作，前往海滨度假。这也有可能是错误的决定，但如果是这样，你就会学到第三个、甚至更有价值的教训：有一份工作对你是多么重要。 My guess is that you will be no happier on the beach. You will resent the fact that you are being paid nothing at all to watch other people sitting on the beach being paid nothing either. 我猜你就是到了海边也不会开心。你会憎恨这样的事实：看着那些坐在沙滩上没有分文收入的人，你自己也得不到分文收入。 Once you have learnt that not working is not fun, you will be in better shape when things pick up again. By then you may find it s rather nice taking home a fat salary for doing something that, by the sound of it, you are really rather good at. 一旦你认识到，没有工作一点都不好玩，那么当形势好转时，你就会处于更好的状态。届时，你或许会发现，从事自己相当擅长（听上去是这样）的工作，把一份丰厚的薪水拿回家里，是件相当美妙的事。