我難搞,但我很驕傲

Last week I had a disagreement on a matter of principle with a man at work. When I got home, I gave my daughter a blow-by-blow account of the bust-up, expecting her loyal support. Instead she rolled her eyes.

前些天，我在工作中跟某人就一個原則性問題吵了一架。回到家，我將吵架的過程一字不落地講給我閨女聽，指望得到她的力挺。不料她翻了個白眼。

“Poor X,” she said, siding with my adversary.

“對方真可憐，”她說，跟我的對頭站在一邊。

“Poor X?” I repeated, thunderstruck.

“真可憐？”我重複道，很是吃驚。

“You can be very difficult,” she explained. “I don’t think you realise it.”

“你很難搞，”她解釋說。“你自己還不覺得。”

She is right about the second point. I do not see myself as difficult — I am perfectly reasonable. To check this was the consensus view, the following morning I conducted a survey. I bearded the first colleague I saw and demanded: “Am I difficult?” He looked uncomfortable at being put on the spot when he had barely taken his coat off. “Yes,” he said. I asked three more people. All gave the same answer.

她後半句說得沒錯。我沒覺得自己難搞——我明明很講道理。想看看別人是不是也這麼認爲，第二天一早我做了個調查。我逮住見到的第一位同事審問：“我難搞嗎？”剛脫下外套就被人當面質問讓他看起來很尷尬。“是的，”他說。我又問了三個人。他們也都這麼回答。

Being difficult at work is not generally thought to be a good thing. On Amazon there are 1,387 titles on how to deal with difficult people with titles such as Since Strangling Isn’t an Option. I failed to find a single volume called What to do When the Difficult Person is Me. Or How to be Difficult and Influence People.

難搞在工作中通常不是什麼好事。亞馬遜(Amazon)上有1387本書教人們怎麼對付難搞人士，比如《對付難搞人士不用糾結》(Since Strangling Isn’t an Option)。但我卻找不出哪怕一本小冊子叫做《我很難搞怎麼辦》(What to do When the Difficult Person is Me)或是《怎樣成爲有影響力的刺頭》(How to be Difficult and Influence People)。

As a columnist, being difficult is part of the job — if you do not enjoy sometimes getting up the noses of readers, you are too bland to be any good. Indeed, as a journalist, being personally difficult can serve you rather well. I can think of one or two writers who are so impossible their text is never tampered with. Their words invariably command pride of place because no editor can face the fuss that would result from doing otherwise.

作爲一個專欄作家，難搞是工作的一部分——要是不喜歡時不時惹惱一下讀者，那未免太乏味了而且也寫不好專欄。事實上，作爲一名記者，個性難搞還能幫上大忙。我能想到一兩個作者，他們難搞到極致，所以稿子從來沒被修改過。他們寫的東西總能登在最好的位置，因爲否則的話，由此引發的雞飛狗跳沒有哪個編輯能招架得住。

Being difficult has other advantages too. It means that people tend not to lean on you for small favours. As one of the most important tricks to survival in the corporate world is to avoid grunt work, this makes it a powerful weapon. Being difficult also means you are likely to be better at getting your own way. It is a balancing act — you must be difficult enough to insist that things are done as you see fit, without being so difficult that people refuse to work with you.

難搞還有其他好處。比如別人不會拿雞毛蒜皮的小事找你幫忙。最重要的企業生存法則之一就是要避免吃力不討好，因此難搞可以說是縱橫職場的一大利器。難搞還意味着你更能堅持自我。這是一種微妙的平衡——你得難搞到足以堅持按你的主意辦事，但也不能做過頭讓別人都拒絕和你共事。

There are lots of different sorts of difficult. The books list various common varieties, all of which are unattractive: narcissists, psychopaths, victims, gossips, blamers and people who fly off the handle.

難搞的人也分很多種。書上列舉出一些常見的分類，他們的共性是不討人喜歡：自戀狂、變態、被害妄想狂、長舌婦、怨婦還有那些脾氣火爆的傢伙。

Yet there is a further sort of difficult that I cannot find in any book, and is not at all unattractive. That is being a woman. Women are far more likely to be called difficult than men. Google reveals twice the matches for “a difficult woman” as for “a difficult man” — and most of the references to difficult men don’t count because they continue with “to pin down”.

然而，還有一種人很難搞卻沒見哪本書提到過，而這些人一點也不討人厭。那就是女人。人們認爲女人的難搞程度遠勝於男人。在谷歌(Google)上搜“一個難搞的女人”顯示出的結果比“一個難搞的男人”多一倍——而且與難搞的男人相關的搜索結果多數都不能算數，因爲這些搜索結果緊接着就是“去搞定”。

Equally, most of the people calling women difficult are men. The four colleagues I consulted first thing were all male. Later I put the same question to four FT women. “Not especially,” was the consensus view.

與此同時，說女人難搞的大部分人都是男性。我一大早詢問的四個同事都是男的。後來我又問了四位FT的女同事。人家就一致認爲我“不是特別難搞。”

The difficult label is applied to any woman who is sometimes prepared to be contrary, who does not always agree with other people, and who fights her own corner. All of that is vital if you want to get things done or change anything at all. Prime Minister Theresa May, according to former cabinet minister Ken Clarke is a “bloody difficult woman” — and one sincerely hopes he is right, given the size of the challenge that faces her.

如果有位女性有時打算反駁別人，或並不總是和大家意見一致，又或者爲了自己的立場而抗爭，那她就會被貼上難搞的標籤。而如果你想做些事或者改變點什麼，就必須做以上所有。英國首相特里薩?梅(Theresa May)，被英國前內閣大臣肯?克拉克(Ken Clarke)稱爲一個“難搞得要死的女人”——考慮到首相面臨的巨大挑戰，本人倒真希望如此。

To settle the matter in my case I asked a male colleague who, being thoroughly difficult himself, has never been known to deviate from the truth. “No,” he said. “You aren’t difficult. You are immovable, determined, stubborn and sometimes impossible.”

爲解決我自己的問題我又問了一位男同事，此人本身就難搞無比，而且講話總是命中真相。“不，”他說。“你不是難搞。你是頑固、犟筋、死心眼，有時還不可理喻。”

All of which makes me long to be merely difficult. Indeed the badge “difficult woman” is one I am inclined to wear with pride. Stripped of baggage, it is a compliment that means “requiring skill to understand”. Proust is more difficult than Enid Blyton.

這讓我很是希望自己僅僅只是難搞。其實被稱作“難搞的女人”讓我還挺受用的。除去感情色彩，這個詞本身也是一種恭維，它意味着“人們得有一定水平才能理解我們”。普魯斯特(Proust)就比伊尼德?布萊頓(Enid Blyton)難以理解得多。

There is another point about being difficult. It is a perk that comes with position. When you are junior, being difficult is likely to result in the sack. The more senior you become, the more scope there is for you to be difficult — and more of a call for it, too.

關於難搞還有一點。它是地位提升的特權。如果你的職位很低，難搞很有可能導致被炒魷魚。而你的職位升得越高，讓你發揮難搞的空間也就越大——同時你也越需要變得難搞一些。

This summer I will leave journalism and start all over again, training to be a maths teacher. Being difficult with my new colleagues will be out of the question, so I am going to enjoy it to the hilt while I still can.

今年夏天，我將告別新聞業重新開始一項新職業，受訓成爲一名數學老師。我將不得不跟新同事們好好相處，所以我要充分享受自己尚能難搞的時光直到最後一刻。