今天上午一上班，我第一件事就是給Interflora花店打電話，訂了兩束花，一束送給《金融時報》總編輯安德魯•高爾斯(Andrew Gowers), 另一束送給坐在我隔壁的同事黛樂•布萊德肖(Della Bradshaw)。

The first thing I did when I got to work this morning was phone Interflora and sgroupstwo bunches of flowers. One was for Andrew Gowers, the editor of the Financial Times, and one for Della Bradshaw, a colleague who sits in the next cubicle.

    我口述了感謝詞，感謝二位的辛勤工作，但是要求花店不留我的名字。我還多給了10英鎊，讓花店務必在三小時內將鮮花送達。

I dictated a message of thanks to each for their hard work, but asked for my name to be left off the card. I paid an extra ?0 to ensure the flowers would arrive within three hours.

    在我急切地等待送花之時，我想解釋一下我到底是在玩什么花招。這種秘密獻花的主意來自新澤西州托托華（Totowa）的一位讀者。肯尼•莫爾（Kenny Moore）是美國能源公司Keyspan的人力資源總監。其個人經歷也頗不尋常，他曾在天主教會當過15年的牧師。他告訴我說，他在工作中“負責喚醒公司的喜樂、意義和承諾意識。”

As I sit here now anxiously waiting for the delivery, I shall try to explain what on earth I think I am playing at. The idea for these mystery floral tributes came from a reader in Totowa, New Jersey. Kenny Moore is director of human resources at Keyspan, a US energy company, and is a little unusual. He spent 15 years as a Catholic priest and told me that in his job he is "responsible for awakening joy, meaning and commitment in the company".

    我在工作中總能收到不少怪人發來的郵件。肯尼也算一怪，但是他基本上是屬于腦筋正常的那種。他說他沒有時間拜讀諸如湯姆•彼得斯（Tom Peters）、杰克•韋爾奇（Jack Welch）之類人物的大作，也沒有時間去推動制定使命宣言、實施文化變革、提高員工士氣之類的企業行動。這話出自一位人力資源總監之口，不可謂不正常啊。

In my job I get a lot of e-mails from nutters. Kenny, though odd, struck me as being basically of sound mind. He said he had no time for Tom Peters, Jack Welch or for any corporate attempts to issue mission statements, change culture or raise morale en masse - which coming from a corporate HR person is very sound indeed.

    相反，他從兒童圖書中去找點子，比如《亥奇先生，有人愛你》。這本書中，孤獨的亥奇先生收到了一份禮物，上面寫著“有人愛你。”亥奇先生開始和陌生人打招呼，希望能遇到他的仰慕者。他的個性從此陡然一變，所有的鄰居都開始愛他。最后，他才發現原來禮物是誤送給他的，亥奇先生于是想回到自我封閉的生活之中。但是鄰居卻不答應他這樣做了。

Instead, he drew inspiration from a children's book called Somebody Loves You, Mr Hatch. In this book a lonely man gets sent a gift with the label "somebody loves you". He starts greeting strangers, hoping to meet the admirer. He undergoes a personality change, and all his neighbours start to love him. It then turns out that the present was delivered to him by mistake, and Mr Hatch tries to go backsintoshis shell. But the neighbours will not let him.

    要是讓我看，我一時還看不出這個愉快的故事能給企業什么啟發，但是肯尼就看出了門道。他決定在公司里秘密實施亥奇先生試點活動，他做此事是抱著這樣一個可貴的原則：做錯了請求原諒，總是比申請批準容易。

The corporate lessons of this cheery tale are not immediately obvious to me, but to Kenny they were. He decided to conduct a Mr Hatch pilot in his company without asking anyone - on the admirable principle that it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

    他送出了兩束鮮花，一束送給同一層樓上班的一位婦女，另一束送給主管高級副總。他說，“我本人討厭當權的人，但是我也注意到，從來沒有人對高層主管說‘謝謝’。”這一點我本人也是認同的。

He sent out two bunches of flowers, one to a woman on his floor and one to his senior vice-president. "While I personally hate anyone in authority, I notice that no one ever says 'thank you' to executives," he said. I agreed with that bit, too.

    訂完鮮花之后，他卻有一種莫名的不安，正如我現在的感覺一樣。但是他的擔心是多余的。收到鮮花的那位婦女雖然不知究竟，但仍覺得開心，其他的婦女則圍到她的桌子邊大呼小叫。

After he ordered the flowers he felt, as I do now, strangely uncomfortable. Yet he need not have feared. The woman was delighted, though mystified, and other women gathered round her desk and oohed and aahed.

    幾天后，他到副總那里準備如實交代，但他還沒有開口，他的頂頭上司就說他從一位感恩的員工處收到了一束鮮花，因此，他準備在退休前幾年側重于滿足各位職員的需求。

A couple of days later he went to own up to the SVP, but before he could say anything, his boss said he had just received a bunch of flowers from a grateful employee, and that as a result he was going to spend his last few years until retirement concentrating more on the needs of individual employees.

    剛寫到肯尼的試點活動取得令人振奮的收效，就聽到黛樂接聽電話，是要她去前臺領鮮花的電話。她拿鮮花回來的時候，我一直在看著。她臉上帶著笑，但表情卻是迷惑的。在讀附卡的時候，她把頭稍稍低下去，嘴里說道：“上面是說：‘感謝你的辛勤勞動’，但是沒有署名。真是要人命啊。”

As I write about the heartening results of Kenny's pilot, Della has just taken the call telling her there are flowers waiting for her in reception. I watch as she returns carrying them; she's smiling but her expression is puzzled. Her face falls slightly as she reads the message. "It says: 'Thanks for your hard work', but it's not signed. This makes me feel really paranoid," she says.

    “這可是不妙啊！”鄰座的一個人叫道。另外一個人說：“老天，有人在跟蹤你呢。”

"That's really sinister!" exclaims the person who sits next to her. "Christ, you've got a stalker," says someone else.

    但黛樂不愧是記者。她立刻拿起話筒，給花店撥打電話。此時，我真想一頭鉆進電腦鍵盤里去。幸運的是，花店的人說不能透露送花者的姓名。

Like a true journalist, she snatches up the phone to call the florist. I try to bury my whole bodysintosmy computer keyboard. Mercifully the florist says she cannot reveal the name of the sender.

    “總編輯也收到了一束，”黛樂說。“真是奇怪。”

"The editor has got one too," Della says. "It's so weird."

    最后，大家一致同意，這是個愚蠢的公關噱頭，大家于是都對此事失去了興趣。沒有人去想，或許真是有人誠心誠意地感謝她確實付出的辛勤勞動。她說，“我想不通，他們這究竟為什么要這樣做？”

The consensus is that this is some daft PR stunt and everyone loses interest. It does not occur to anyone that some genuine well-wisher would really be thanking her for her genuine hard work. "I mean, why would they do that?" she says.

    我下樓去看秘密獻花在總編輯那里有何反應。他剛乘夜間航班從華盛頓回來，在趕寫采訪美國總統的文章。我從他門上的玻璃孔中看過去。看不見鮮花在或不在。突然間，我意識到他不會對此事感興趣。這些鮮花絕對不會促使他決定在我們身上花更多時間（這并不說明我會贊同此舉）。

I go downstairs to see if I can find out how my floral tribute is playing with the editor. He has just stepped off an overnight flight from Washington and is writing up an interview with the president of the US. I peep though the glass hole in his door. I can't see if the flowers are in there or not. Suddenly I know they are not going to interest him at all. They are certainly not going to make him decide he wants to spend more time with us individually (not that I would necessarily advocate such a course of action).

    肯尼的試驗成功之后，他開始每周秘密送花。他說，他并沒有成功地改變企業文化。但是他這個小點子能讓他開開心心地開始一周的工作。負責供貨的花店自然也很開心。總之，他每周能讓兩個人感到開心，而且還能引起一些愉快的困惑。

After the success of his pilot, Kenny has been secretly sending flowers out every week. He says he has not succeeded in changing corporate culture. But his little scheme makes him happy on Mondays. It also makes the guy from the shop who supplies the flowers happy, makes two people feel good each week and causes a good deal of pleasant bemusement.

    而我的試驗失敗之后，我是不會再去嘗試了。這一做法不能奏效。我在想，在接受感謝的時候，我們只有在認識感謝者（并且重視他們）時，他們的感謝才會讓我們覺得舒心。如果肯尼知道了這一點，他應該不會感到吃驚或不高興。他說得對，這些小點子是不能模仿的。在一個地方適用，換到另外一個地方，其魅力就可能消失殆盡。總之，大家都應該想出自己的主意。

After the failure of my pilot, I shall not be extending it. It did not work. I suspect this is because it is only nice to be thanked if you know (and value) the person who is thanking you. I don't think Kenny would be surprised or hurt to learn this. He says, and here he is right, that small-scale initiatives cannot be copied. They may work in one place but, if you translate them, the magic may be lost. People should think up their own things, anyway.

    或許這正是我失誤的地方。我試驗的失敗還有一層原因。上文中我只說我送了兩“束”花。事實上我送的是兩支天可憐見的金魚草，再平凡不過了。更要命的是，它們看起來如同男性陰莖。這也是有原因的。我把我的試驗活動算入了業務開銷，我會要求報銷的，理由如下：1)我是合理合法用此舉來尋找寫作啟發；2)我認為肯尼買花是報銷的。我的點子并不好。但是，至少沒讓《金融時報》花多少錢。

So that was partlyswheresI went wrong. There is a second reason why my experiment was a flop. I said earlier that I sent two "bunches". In truth I sent two pathetic, bottom-of-the-range single antirrhinums that had an unfortunately phallic appearance. There was a reason for this, too. I was treating my pilot as a business expense, which I shall be claiming on the grounds that a) they were legit research for an article; and b) I think Kenny claims his. It wasn't a great idea. But at least I did not cost the FT too much money.

    作者電子郵件：lucy.kellaway@ft.com

lucy.kellaway@ft.com

    譯者/柏林