硅谷工作狂文化盛行，為人父母者叫苦

Silicon Valley: Perks for Some Workers, Struggles for Parents

硅谷工作狂文化盛行，為人父母者叫苦

Tech companies shower their employees with perks like dry cleaning, massages and haircuts. But there is one group for whom working at a tech company can be much more difficult than working elsewhere: parents.

高科技公司給員工提供了大量福利，比如干洗、按摩和理發(fā)等等。但對有些人而言，在科技公司工作要比在其他任何地方困難很多：為人父母者。

Facebook holds all-night hackathons. Google has weekend laser tag retreats. Many startups have no parental leave policy at all, so the first employee to have a baby has to ask the company to create one.

Facebook會舉辦通宵達旦的編程馬拉松活動。谷歌(Google)也有周末激光槍對戰(zhàn)賽。很多初創(chuàng)公司完全沒有育兒假政策可言，所以第一個生孩子的員工不得不向公司提出設立此類規(guī)定的要求。

Then there are the subtler messages. Yahoo's chief executive, Marissa Mayer, was vocal about returning to work two weeks after she gave birth. Later, Yahoo told employees they could no longer work from home. Workers with children say they are often the only such employees on teams of 20-somethings.

還有更微妙的訊息被傳達出去。雅虎(Yahoo)首席執(zhí)行官瑪麗莎·梅耶爾(Marissa Mayer)大談自己生下孩子兩周后就回到了工作崗位上。后來，雅虎公司告訴員工，他們以后不能在家工作了。有孩子的員工紛紛表示，團隊中往往都是二十多歲的年輕人，而他們是其中唯一有孩子的人。

The strains around these issues have burst into public view in recent weeks. In a gender discrimination trial against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a top venture capital firm, two former partners were declined board seats because they were pregnant or going on maternity leave, according to testimony. In a lawsuit against Facebook, a former technology partner said her boss had admonished her for volunteering at her child's school one day a month, which she said was allowed by company policy. Microsoft mandated sick leave among its contractors after complaints that some were not given such benefits.

圍繞這些問題產(chǎn)生的沖突，最近幾周突然闖入了公眾的視野。在頂級風險投資公司凱鵬華盈(Kleiner Perkins Caufield& Byers)的性別歧視案的審理過程中，證詞顯示，因為懷孕或準備休產(chǎn)假，兩名前合伙人沒有得到董事會席位。在針對Facebook的一樁訴訟中，一名前技術合伙人稱，因為每個月到自家孩子的學校當一天志愿者，她遭到了上司的斥責。她表示，此事本來屬于公司政策允許的范疇。因為有承包商雇員抱怨沒有得到休病假的福利，微軟(Microsoft)不得不對此做出了強制規(guī)定。

“The culture is not necessarily friendly to families, and I think that's not really realized,” said Bret Taylor, former chief technology officer at Facebook and co-founder of a startup called Quip.

“高科技企業(yè)的文化未必對家庭友好，我認為，人們還沒有真正意識到這一點，”布雷特·泰勒(Bret Taylor)說。他曾是Facebook的首席技術官，如今是初創(chuàng)公司Quip的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人。

That Silicon Valley — known for being on the forefront not just of technology but also of workplace policy — creates so many difficulties for working parents highlights a vexing problem for the U.S. economy. The United States is arguably struggling to adjust to the realities of modern family life more than any other affluent country.

大家都知道硅谷不僅站在科技前沿，而且在職場政策上也相當前衛(wèi)。然而，它給在職父母造成了諸多困難。此事突顯了美國經(jīng)濟中一個令人頭痛的問題。在努力適應當代家庭生活方面，可以說美國比其他的富裕國家面臨更大的困難。

The American workplace has always prized people who place work ahead of family, and European countries have long had more generous policies for working parents. But in the last two decades, that gap has widened significantly. Other developed countries have expanded benefits like paid parental leave and child care, while the United States has not.

美國職場一向贊許那些把工作擺在家庭之前的人，而歐洲國家早已為在職父母提供了更優(yōu)厚的政策。不過，在過去的20年中，這一差距在明顯拉大。其他發(fā)達國家增加了帶薪育兒假和兒童看護等福利，美國卻沒有跟上。

The absence of such policies here creates obvious advantages for companies, reducing costs and increasing production. But for workers — most of whom have children, aging parents or both, and many of whom are single parents — the downsides can be enormous, whether they work in high finance or hourly labor. Many workers today — blue-collar and white-collar alike — believe they must choose between career and family.

此類政策的缺失，給企業(yè)帶來了顯而易見的優(yōu)勢：降低了成本，提高了產(chǎn)量。但對員工而言——其中大多數(shù)不是有小孩，就是有年邁的父母，或者兩者都有，很多人還是單親家長——其中的不利之處是巨大的，無論他們收入豐厚，還是拿計時工資。如今很多員工覺得，自己必須得在事業(yè)和家庭中二選一，而有這種想法的并不限于藍領或白領。

The share of women in their 30s and 40s who work, which was once higher in the U.S. than in Canada, Australia, Japan and much of Europe, has fallen behind. The widening gap in policies is a major reason for the change, said Francine Blau, an economist at Cornell University, and other researchers. And it is not a challenge just for women: 37 percent of nonworking men 25 to 54 say family responsibilities are a reason they are not working, according to a New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

以前，美國三四十歲在職女性的比例高于加拿大、澳大利亞、日本，以及歐洲的許多地區(qū)，現(xiàn)在卻已經(jīng)落在了后面?？的螤柎髮W(Cornell University)的經(jīng)濟學家弗朗辛·布勞(Francine Blau)和其他一些研究人員表示，公司政策方面日益擴大的差距是這種變化的一個重要原因。面對這一挑戰(zhàn)的不僅僅是女性：根據(jù)《紐約時報》、CBS新聞頻道(CBS News)和凱澤家族基金會(Kaiser Family Foundation)進行的一項聯(lián)合調(diào)查，在未涉足職場的25至54歲的男性中，有37%表示家庭責任是自己不工作的一個原因。

More broadly, some economists say, the lack of family-focused policies reflects the power imbalance between companies and workers in the U.S. economy. The share of economic output flowing to corporate profits has surged, while employee compensation has stagnated.

更宏觀地看，一些經(jīng)濟學家指出，家庭幫扶政策的匱乏反映了美國經(jīng)濟中企業(yè)和員工之間的權力不平衡。經(jīng)濟產(chǎn)出流入公司利潤的份額在飆升，而員工的薪酬卻停滯不前。

The technology industry is a striking example because it attracts some of the country's smartest people, many of whom have far more bargaining power than most workers. Silicon Valley also has outsize cultural significance, as the face of U.S. ingenuity and a magnet for global talent.

科技行業(yè)是一個明顯的例子，因為它吸引了美國最聰慧的人才，其中不少人比大多數(shù)員工擁有強得多的議價能力。硅谷還有著巨大的文化意義，不僅代表著美國的獨創(chuàng)精神，也是吸引全球人才的磁鐵。

But it is also a place that often expects total commitment to work. That grows from the notion that in tech, unlike in other industries, companies become overnight successes, and believe their work is changing the world.

然而，硅谷也期待你全力以赴地投入工作。這來源于一個信念：不同于其他行業(yè)，科技業(yè)的公司會在一夜之間大獲成功，而且這些公司相信自己的工作正在改變世界。

“People who give you millions of dollars for nothing but an idea at the very least expect your complete commitment to that idea,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, the online real estate brokerage firm. “That is why nobody, not even the most committed parent, talks about a family-friendly workplace in, say, an investor pitch.”

“只不過因為你擁有一個點子，投資者就交給你成百上千萬的美元，那么，他們最起碼也會期待你就此施展全力，”房地產(chǎn)中介網(wǎng)站Redfin的首席執(zhí)行官格倫·凱爾曼(Glenn Kelman)說。“這就是為什么，在向投資者做推介的時候，沒有人會談論什么對家庭友好的工作環(huán)境，即便是最顧家的父母也不會這樣做。”

Startups are unlikely to have parental policies because they are more focused on growing as quickly as possible. Many big tech companies try to ease the way for new parents, at least officially — but that does not necessarily filter down to company culture.

初創(chuàng)公司之所以不大可能擁有育兒政策，是因為他們更關注的是盡快發(fā)展壯大。許多大型科技企業(yè)試圖為新近為人父母的員工提供一定的便利，至少在官方層面上如此——但這未必能滲透到公司文化的層面。

They have some of the most generous policies in corporate America for the period after a child is born, like four months of paid leave and a $4,000 baby stipend at Facebook. There are prominent examples of women with children who have climbed the corporate ladder in tech. Mayer was pregnant when she became chief executive of Yahoo, and Susan Wojcicki, chief executive of YouTube, recently had her fifth child.

它們的確擁有在慷慨程度上排在美國業(yè)界前列的產(chǎn)后政策，比如Facebook提供了四個月的帶薪產(chǎn)假，外加4000美元的嬰兒津貼。這里也的確有生兒育女的女性在科技業(yè)步步高升的杰出案例。梅耶爾成為雅虎首席執(zhí)行官的時候懷有身孕，而YouTube的首席執(zhí)行官蘇珊·沃西基(Susan Wojcicki)不久前產(chǎn)下了第五個孩子。

But these examples exaggerate how family-friendly tech companies are, especially after the newborn phase. The executives have privileges not available to typical workers (Mayer built a nursery next to her office). Some benefits, like free meals and on-site laundry, have a flip side of discouraging people from leaving. And many parents say that office culture — which can, for example, reward people based on how many lines of code they can write per week — does not support parents.

然而，這些例子夸大了科技企業(yè)與家庭生活兼容的程度，尤其是在新生兒階段過去之后。高管擁有普通員工沒有的種種特權(梅耶爾在自己的辦公室旁邊修建了一個育兒室)。有些公司福利，比如免費餐和公司洗衣服務，帶有鼓勵員工不要離開的副作用。許多有孩子的人表示，辦公室文化不支持為人父母，比方說，這種文化有時會以一周能寫多少行代碼來獎勵員工。

“I've seen some of what I would call hero culture, where people are doing 20 hours a day to get this or that done at all costs,” said Max Schireson, the former chief executive of a database software company called MongoDB. He became the talk of Silicon Valley last summer when he wrote a blog post saying he was stepping down to spend more time with his three children. He had been flying 300,000 miles a year and was gone when his son had an emergency surgery.

“我看到的一些現(xiàn)象可以稱之為‘英雄文化’：有人每天工作20個小時，不惜一切代價來完成這樣或那樣的事情，”曾在數(shù)據(jù)庫軟件公司MongoDB擔任首席執(zhí)行官的馬克斯·席雷森(Max Schireson)說。去年夏天，他在博客上寫了一篇文章，宣布自己離職，以便有更多的時間來與三個孩子在一起。這讓他成為了硅谷街談巷議的人物。此前，他每年在空中飛行30萬英里(約合50萬公里)，還缺席了兒子的一次緊急手術。

“Frankly what I've seen is just forgetting the human aspect of it,” he said.

“說實話，我看到的這些無非是忘記了人性的價值，”他說。

As Silicon Valley ages, and 20-something entrepreneurs become 30-something parents, the culture is beginning to change. Offering a family-friendly workplace has become a recruiting strategy.

隨著硅谷的成熟，二十來歲的創(chuàng)業(yè)者成為了三十來歲的父母，這里的文化也開始發(fā)生轉(zhuǎn)變。提供一個有利于家庭生活的職場環(huán)境正在成為一種招募人才的策略。

The Happy Home Co., a home repair startup, specifically recruits parents. “Some of the most qualified, talented and passionate people in the valley are often overlooked by startups for not being a `cultural fit,' which is often code for `too old, too much of a parent, too female, too different,”' said Doug Ludlow, a co-founder.

家居維修領域的初創(chuàng)公司歡樂家庭(Happy Home Co.)會專門招聘已是父母的員工。“硅谷的一些資質(zhì)最棒、才能最高、最富有激情的人往往因為“文化不合拍”而被初創(chuàng)企業(yè)忽視。這種不合拍的意思其實是， ‘太老了，總是要照顧孩子，是女人，太不一樣了，’”聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人道格·勒德洛(Doug Ludlow)說。

At Taylor's company, Quip, which makes workplace collaboration software, the founders tell interviewees that they have children and leave at 5:30 p.m. If he wants to work later, Taylor said, he goes home so other employees don't feel obligated to stay.

在泰勒所在的協(xié)同工作軟件公司Quip，幾位創(chuàng)始人會告訴應聘者，自己有小孩，下午5點半下班。泰勒說，如果自己想接著工作，也會回家去加班，免得其他員工覺得必須留在辦公室里。