当世下,你挣钱太多?大纲
In the same week that Prince Alwaleed complained to Forbes about not being high enough up its list of billionaires, a different sort of complaint was being made in an industrial tribunal in east London. Stella English, a former winner of Lord Sugar’s The Apprentice show, claimed that the £100,000 job she had won as a prize had been previously done by someone on a salary of a mere £35,000, making her feel an “overpaid lackey”.
就在沙特王子阿尔瓦利德•本•塔拉尔(Prince Alwaleed bin Talal)因为自身在富豪榜上的排名不够靠前而向《福布斯》(Forbes)杂志提出抗议的当周，伦敦东部的一个行业特别审理委员会受理了一起截然不同的抗议。斯特拉•英格利希(Stella English)是舒格勋爵(Lord Sugar)真人秀节目《学徒》(The Apprentice)的前任获胜者。她声称自己所赢得的年薪10万英镑的工作机会，此前是由一个年薪仅3.5万英镑的人完成的，这让她感到自己像是一个“光拿钱不干事的马屁精”。
Prince Alwaleed’s protest might be unseemly but at least it’s is psychologically straightforward. If Mr Forbes says you’ve only got $20bn when you think you’ve got more, I dare say it is quite annoying.
阿尔瓦利德王子的抗议或许不够体面，但至少他的心理非常容易理解。如果《福布斯》声称你仅有200亿美元，而你认为自己的财富不止于此，我相信这件事情确实非常令人不快。
But to complain about earning too much is more outlandish. No one does it. If you type “I’m overpaid” into Google, all you get is RBS chief executive Stephen Hester saying “even my parents think I’m overpaid” – which isn’t the same as thinking it himself. And Bono saying “I’m overpaid, so shoot me” – which is the sort of thing uppity rock stars say simply to wind up annoying journalists.
但抱怨挣得太多则奇怪得多。没有人会这么做。如果你在谷歌(Google)搜索框中输入“我的薪水过高”，你所能得到的就是苏格兰皇家银行(RBS)首席执行官史蒂芬•赫斯特(Stephen Hester)承认“即便我的父母都认为我的薪酬过高”——这与自己本身就这么认为并不是一回事。而U2乐队主唱博诺(Bono)所唱的“我的薪水太高，拿枪把我干掉”(I’m overpaid, so shoot me)，只不过是自负的摇滚明星为了捉弄惹人心烦的记者所说的调侃之词。
To winkle out a few better examples, I asked on Twitter if anyone would admit to earning too much. The response: zero. Chance would be a fine thing, someone tweeted.
为了挑出几个更好的例子，我在推特(Twitter)上询问是否有人愿意承认自己的薪水过高，但没有人给我回应。有人评论说，可惜遇不到这种好事。
Yet I refuse to believe that it’s as simple as this. My own dysfunctional relationship with money and self-worth (which I will try to explain later on) tells me it can be quite complicated.
但我拒绝相信事情就这么简单。我自己在处理金钱与自我价值方面的糟糕经历（我将在后文中进行解释）告诉我，实际情况可能非常复杂。
At a party at Claridge’s last week to celebrate the launch of the Lunch with the FT: 52 Classic Interviews book, I went on a fact-finding mission. The event was perfect for my purposes both because half the guests were bankers and chief executives – whom the rest of the world deems to be excessively overpaid – and because teams of waiters were diligently lowering guards by refilling glasses.
在近期为庆祝《与英国〈金融时报〉共进午餐：52次经典采访》(Lunch with the FT: 52 Classic Interviews)一书发行而在Claridge's酒店所举行的派对活动上，我展开了一项探寻真相的行动。这次活动完美地符合我的目标，因为半数来宾皆为银行家或首席执行官——全世界都认为这群人的薪酬过高——此外成队的侍者不断殷勤地为来宾斟满酒杯，降低了他们的警惕性。
The first man I cornered was someone who has made a lot of money in the City. “Are you overpaid?” I asked. “Yes!” he replied at once. And how did that make him feel? His face lit up. “F***ing terrific!”
第一个被我提问的人在伦敦金融城挣了很多钱。我问道：“你觉得自己挣得太多吗？”“当然！”他不假思索地回答道。那么大把挣钱的感觉如何？他的脸上开始放光：“爽呆了！”
He then told me that there was a moment as a younger man when he looked in the shaving mirror and wondered how come a boy like him was earning so much. “But then you stop thinking about it, or you cut yourself.”
随后他告诉我说，在他较为年轻的时候，曾有那么一刻，他在凝视剃须镜的时候想到，一个像他这样的小青年怎么可能挣这么多钱。“但很快你就会停止思考这个问题，否则你会把自己划伤的。”
The next man I asked had made many millions as a chief executive. He also admitted to being wildly overpaid. But he didn’t feel bad either, as he gave most of it away.
我提问的第二个人在担任首席执行官期间获得了数百万英镑的收入。他也承认自己的薪酬水平实在太高，但同样没有因此感觉不好，因为他将大部分所得捐献了出来。
Then I talked to a young banker who said – disarmingly honestly, I thought – that his head told him he was paid too much, but his heart could only see that other colleagues were getting even more.
接下来我和一名年轻的银行家聊了起来。他的诚恳让我无法对他有敌意，他说，他的理智告诉他，他的薪水太高了，但他的情感只看到其他同事挣得更多。Eventually I tracked down one of wealthiest men there, to whom I had to repeat the question several times before he got the drift. Overpaid?
最后我找到了派对现场最富有大亨中的一位。我向他重复了好几遍问题才使他明白了我的意思。薪酬过高？
No way. He had created jobs and delivered value.
绝无可能。要知道他创造了工作岗位并且带来了巨大的价值。
Only one of the poorest guests, a journalist on another paper, said that she felt grossly overpaid when she thought of the interns doing the same work for nothing at all.
一位为另一份报纸工作的记者是现场最穷的来宾之一。只有她表示，当她想到做着同样工作却没有分文酬劳的实习生时，她会觉得自己的薪酬水平实在高得过分。
My impertinent cross-questioning left me with two tentative conclusions. First, the more money people make the more they think they deserve it. And second, people are extraordinarily skilled at finding arguments to stop them feeling bad.
通过莽撞的盘问，我得到了两个试探性结论。第一点是，人们挣得越多，就越感到自己理应得到高额报酬。第二点是，人们极为擅长找到理由让自己不再有负罪感。
My own story (which I’m still sure is more common than people admit) is that I feel vertigo when my estimation of my market value is far less than is being offered. I once turned down a job with another company mainly because the size of the salary filled me with terror.
就我自己而言，当我对于自己市场价值的估计远远低于我所得到的报酬时，我会感到不知所措（我相信自己的这种情况远比人们愿意承认的更加普遍）。我曾经拒绝过另一家公司提供的一个工作机会，主要原因就在于那份工作的薪酬水平高得让我害怕。
I’ve done some unpacking of this pathetic, girly response and think there are four reasons for it. The first is a general sense of: because I’m not worth it. This is a version of the imposter syndrome, which I’ve flirted with for decades though recently seem to have shaken off.
我曾分析过自己这种小女生气的可怜反应，并找出了四点可能的原因。原因之一是一种认为自己不值这么多钱的笼统感觉。这是冒充者综合征(imposter syndrome)的一种表现，在过去的几十年里我一直都有这种心理，直到最近似乎才真正摆脱。
It has nothing to recommend it.
这种想法没有任何值得推荐的地方。
The second is that earning too much is a burden, as it sets the bar too high. When you pay footballers more, they sometimes get so stressed by what is expected of them that they forget how to kick the ball.
原因之二是，挣得太多是一种负担，因为随之而来的将是过高的绩效标准。如果你提高足球运动员的薪酬，他们有时会因为肩上背负的沉重期望而感到压力过大，以至于忘记如何踢球。
The third is feeling that you don’t want to be disliked and resented by worse-paid colleagues.
原因之三是一种不希望被收入较低的同事们讨厌和憎恶的感觉。
And the fourth is not wanting too much now, as it’s nice to feel there is more for later.
原因之四则是不想现在就拥有太多，未来还有更多可以期待之事的感觉很好。
Even though reasons two to four are fairly sane, in describing them I am talking myself out of the whole thing. Increasingly, I’m wondering if the man with the mirror didn’t have a point: get over it.
虽然第二至第四条理由看起来非常合理，但我把它们表述出来，是在说服自己完全抛开这件事。我越来越强烈地感到，之前照剃须镜的那位男士的做法或许是正确的：把这件事置之脑后。
Though, as a PS, I was right about that job. The organisation quickly fell on hard times and all the tall poppies got cut down.
不过最后附带一句，我拒绝那份工作是正确的。那家机构在形势恶化时迅速受创，所有高薪雇员都遭到了解雇。
