Last week, I sent an e-mail to a friend who had just lost his job. “I’m so sorry,” I wrote. “Your bosses are morons to have got rid of such a genius as you. I can only suppose a queue will shortly stretch round the block as less brain-dead employers clamour to take you on. Hope you are OK.”

    The e-mail was heartfelt except for one word, and that was “shortly”. I don’t expect a queue to form for my friend shortly. Even geniuses are not getting snapped up quickly – unless they happen to be security guards, social workers, accountants or teachers.

    In a trice, I had a message back. He said he had had a brief panic about the mortgage and school fees but otherwise was really rather cheerful. Indeed, he was in such high spirits that he even sent me a funny anecdote*.

    I could not help comparing the tone of his message with one that I got the very same afternoon from another friend who works for a company that has also been celebrating Christmas with some savage job cuts. Never, she said, had her morale been as bad. The weight of work was crippling as she was now doing the jobs of three people. There was talk of pay cuts. The office was spookily quiet, too; since most of her friends had been sacked, there wasn’t even anyone around to moan to. Worst of all was the fear that her job would be next.

    It is tempting to conclude from these two messages that, if there is one thing worse for hitherto successful, well-paid people than being fired, it is not being fired. Those who have been axed don’t need to take the sacking personally, and not working in the days before Christmas can be rather jolly. Whereas for those who have not been fired, the not-so-festive season this year is an orgy of fear and drudgery.

    There might be some truth in this now but it is not going to stay true for long. The grimness of the unemployed will get worse as no queues form to take them on, while the grimness of those in work will, in time, start to recede. This is not because the economy will improve – it is because the grimness itself will bring on a sounder and altogether more realistic approach to work.

    Over the past decade, the rich, professional classes have developed an increasingly unhealthy attitude to their jobs. We took our jobs and our fat salaries for granted and felt aggrieved if our bonuses were not even bigger than the year before. We demanded that the work be interesting in itself and, even more dangerously and preposterously, that it should have meaning.

    The result of all these demands was, of course, dissatisfaction. We had climbed to the very top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and discovered that, at the top of the pyramid, the air was very thin indeed. As an agony aunt, I found that by far the most common problem readers submitted came from rich and senior professionals who had all their basic needs more than catered for, leaving their souls in torment. Help me, I’m bored, they cried. Or, worse: what does my work mean?

    In the past few months, anguish of this sort has vanished. When one’s job is at risk and one’s savings are a shadow of their former selves, the search for meaning at work is meaningless. The point of a job becomes rather more basic: to feed and house (and, at a pinch, to educate) one’s family and oneself. If we can do this, then anything we manage over and above this is a bonus. Once expectations have fully adjusted to this new reality and we see earning money as the main reason for work, greater satisfaction will follow.

    Low expectations have an awful lot to be said for them. In surveys women turn out to be more satisfied at work than men, in spite of earning less for the same jobs and doing most of the work at home too. The reason is simple: women’s expectations of working life are lower. Similarly, Denmark is the happiest country in the world in spite of having a cold, dark climate and a top tax rate of 68 per cent. The stoical Danes do not expect so much of life and, expecting less, find what little they have rather nice.

    Climbing down Maslow’s pyramid is painful and progress is slow. However, there is something that managers can do to make the descent a little less grim. The easiest and cheapest way of cheering up demoralised workers is to tell them that they are doing a great job. It is one of the great mysteries of office life why most managers are so resistant to this when it does not cost one penny. Here is all they have to do: pick people off one by one (to do it in groups is lazy and quite spoils the impact) and say thank you and well done, and look as if they mean it.

    * For anyone who needs further cheering, here is the anecdote of my sacked friend, who heard it from someone who works at the school that Paul McCartney’s child attends. At a recent parents’ evening, Heather Mills was told that her daughter was rather good at the recorder. Ms Mills apparently replied: “She gets that from me.”

    上周，我發了封電子郵件給一位剛失業的朋友。“我很抱歉”我寫道，“開除像你這樣的天才只能說明你老板是個蠢蛋。我猜不久就會有一大批不那么腦殘的老板爭先恐后地雇用你。祝你愉快。”

    這是封相當貼心的電子郵件，除了“不久”這個詞。我不希望我的朋友“不久”才能找到工作。（雖然）這年頭連天才都不會立刻被人搶走，除非這人恰好是保安、社工、會計或者教師。

    才一會兒功夫，我就收到了回信。他說，在經歷了對按揭貸款和孩子學費的短暫恐慌之后，他便釋然了。事實上，他的心情相當不錯，甚至還給我發了個小笑話*。

    我忍不住拿這封信的語氣和那天下午剛收到的另外一個朋友的相比，她所在的公司殘忍地解雇了一些人并準備慶祝圣誕節。絕不，她說，我決不會讓自己垮掉。她做著三個人的工作量，即將達到她的極限，并且還有減薪的可能。辦公室里也安靜得嚇人，因為她的大部分朋友都已被解雇，周圍連個可以說抱怨的話人都沒有。最壞的還不是這些，而是擔心自己也會被解雇。

    從這兩封信得出的結論非常有趣：如果那些到目前為止還算成功、拿著高薪的人有什么比那些已經失業的人更遭的話，那就是他們還沒被解雇。已經被解雇的人不用再擔驚受怕，而且圣誕節前的悠閑日子畢竟相當愜意。但對于那些仍在職的人來說，這個毫無節日氣氛的冬天充滿著無休止的擔憂和勞累。

    這個結論現在聽起來有點道理，但將來就未必了。由于沒有職位可供選擇，失業人群的嚴峻處境只會更糟；同時，在職人群的情況最終會獲得改善。這并不是因為經濟形勢的好轉——而是因為習慣成自然，進而接受現實。

    過去的幾十年，富有的職業經理階層日益滋生出一種對工作的不健康心態。我們坦然占據著高薪職位，同時抱怨加薪太慢。我們要求工作本身得有趣，更為危險和荒謬的是，那份工作還應該有意義。

    所有這些自然導致導致一個結果，那就是不滿。我們爬到馬斯洛需求層次（1）的頂端后竟發現，金字塔頂端空氣如此稀薄。作為知心大姐，我發現到目前為止最為常見的讀者提問都來自于富有的高級職業經理，這些人已經滿足了包括飲食在內的所有基本需求，卻精神空虛、痛苦不堪。幫幫我，我好無聊，他們叫道。還有更糟的：我的工作到底有什么意義？

    最近幾個月，這種痛苦突然消失的無影無蹤。當某人的職位都難保住，并且銀行存款日漸萎縮的時候，再去探究工作的意義也就變得毫無意義。工作的目的變得更為原始：為他和他的家庭提供吃和住（必要時，還有教育）。在此基礎之上，我們才有可能考慮年終獎的事情。一旦我們的期望回歸現實，我們會發現，賺錢才是工作的最主要目的，其它更高級的滿足感都得靠邊站。

    低期望蘊含著大道理。總體看，女性對工作的滿意程度要比男性高，雖然同樣的工作女性收入要低，而且女性還承擔了大部分家務。理由很簡單：女性對職業生涯的期望較低。同樣道理，盡管氣候陰冷、稅率奇高（75%），丹麥仍是世界上最快樂的國家。清心寡欲的丹麥人對生活要得并不多，他們發現：少點欲望、多點快樂。

    從馬斯洛金字塔往下爬是個痛苦而崎嶇的過程。但是，經理們還是有些方法可以減輕這種痛苦的。鼓舞士氣低落的員工有一種最簡單和成本最低的方法，那就是告訴他們：他們正在做一項偉大的工作。這種不用花一分錢的好事兒大部分經理卻不愿意干，這真讓人想不通。。經理們要做的就是：找員工挨個談話（不要分組，這會讓你顯得懶惰并且效果不佳），告訴他們：你做的很好，謝謝你。這多少讓他們看上去像是那么回事兒。

    *如果有人想知道更多，我給你講講我那個失業朋友給我發的小笑話，她是從Paul McCartney（2）的孩子所在學校的一個工作人員那里聽來的。在最近一次晚間的家長會上，Heather Mills被告知她女兒在音樂方面很有天賦，Mills女士明確回答到：“她受我遺傳。”

    （1） Maslow’s hierarchy of needs：馬斯洛需求層次（模型），馬斯洛需求層次模型認為人的需求分為生理需求、安全需求、愛和歸屬需求、自尊需求和自我實現需求，金字塔排列，最高層次的為自我實現需求。

    （2） Paul McCartney，大名鼎鼎，甲殼蟲樂隊成員；Heather Mills是McCartney的前妻。很明顯女兒的天賦來自McCartney……