商务英语综合教程课文及翻译.docx

How to Attend a Meeting会议妙诀To really succeed in a business or organization, it is sometimes helpful to know what your job is, and whether it involves any duties. Ask among your coworkers. Hi, you should say. Im a new employee. What is the name of my job? If they answer long-range planner or lieutenant governor, you are pretty much free to lounge around and do crossword puzzles until retirement. Most jobs, however, will require some work.There are two major kinds of work in modern organizations:Taking phone messages for people who are in meetings, and, going to meetings.Your ultimate career strategy will be to get a job involving primarily No. 2, going to meetings, as soon as possible, because thats where the real prestige is. It is all very well and good to be able to take phone messages, but you are never going to get a position of power, a position where you can cost thousands of people their jobs with a single bonehead decision, unless you learn how to attend meetings.The first meeting ever was held was back in the Mezzanine Era1. In those days, Mans job was to slay his prey and bring it home for Woman, who had to figure out how to cook it. The problem was, Man was slow and basically naked, whereas the prey had warm fur and could run like an antelope. (In fact it was an antelope, only nobody knew this.)At last someone said, Maybe if we just sat down and did some brainstorming, we could come up with a better way to hunt our prey! It went extremely well, plus it was much warmer sitting in a circle, so they agreed to meet again the next day,and the next.But the women pointed out that the men had not produced anything, and the human race was pretty much starving. The men agreed that was serious and said they would put it right near the top of their agenda. At this point, the women, who were primitive but not stupid, started eating plants, and thus modern agriculture was born. It never would have happened without meetings.The modern business meeting, however, might better be compared with a funeral, in the sense that you have a gathering of people who are wearing uncomfortable clothing and would rather be somewhere else. The major difference is that most funerals have a definite purpose. Also, nothing is really ever buried in a meeting.An idea may look dead, but it will always reappear at another meeting later on. If you have ever seen the movie, Night of the Living Dead2, you have a rough idea of how modern meetings operate, with projects and proposals that everyone thought were killed rising up constantly from their graves to stagger back into meetings and eat the brains of the living.There are two major kinds of meetings:A. Meetings that are held for basically the same reason that Arbor Day is observed - namely, tradition. For example, a lot of managerial people like to meet on Monday, because its Monday. Youll get used to it. Youd better, because this kind account for 83% of all meetings (based on a study in which I wrote down numbers until one of them looked about right). This type of meeting operates the way Show and Tell3 does in nursery school, with everyone getting to say something, the difference being that in nursery school, the kids actually have something to say.When its your turn, you should say that youre still working on whatever it is youre supposed to be working on. This may seem pretty dumb, since obviously youd be working on whatever youre supposed to be working on, and even if you werent, youd claim you were, but thats the traditional thing for everyone to say. It would be a lot faster if the person running the meeting would just say, Everyone who is still working on what he or she is supposed to be working on, raise your hand. Youd be out of there in five minutes, even allowing for jokes. But this is not how we do it in America. My guess is, its how they do it in Japan.B. Meetings where there is some alleged purpose. These are trickier, because what you do depends on what the purpose is. Sometimes the purpose is harmless, like someone wants to show slides of pie charts4 and give everyone a big, fat report. All you have to do in this kind of meeting is sit there and have elaborate fantasies, then take the report back to your office and throw it away, unless, of course, youre a vice president, in which case you write the name of a subordinate in the upper right hand corner, followed by a question mark, like this: Norm? Then you send it to Norm and forget all about it (although it will plague Norm for the rest of his career).But sometimes you got to meetings where the purpose is to get your input on so mething. This is very serious because what it means is, they want to make sure that in case whatever it is turns out to be stupid or fatal, youll get some of the blame, so you have to escape from the meeting before they get around to asking you anything. One way is to set fire to your tie.Another is to have an accomplice interrupt the meeting and announce that you have a phone call from someone very important, such as the president of the company or the Pope. It should be one or the other. It would sound fishy if the accomplice said, You have a call from the president of the company, or the Pope.You should know how to take notes at a meeting. Use a yellow legal pad. At the top, write the date and underline it twice. Now wait until an important person, such as your boss, starts talking; when he does, look at him with an expression of enraptured interest, as though he is revealing the secrets of life itself. Then write inter-locking rectangles like this:If it is an especially lengthy meeting, you can try something like this:If somebody falls asleep in a meeting, have everyone else leave the room. Then collect a group of total strangers, right off the street, and have them sit around the sleeping person until he wakes up. Then have one of them say to him, Bob, your plan is very, very risky. However, youve given us no choice but to try it. Ionly hope, for your sake, that you know what youre getting yourself into. Thenthey should file quietly out of the room.要想在某个公司或机构中真正取得成功，了解自己的工作是什么，有什么责任，有时会对你有所帮助。问问周围的同事，你说：“嗨，我是新来的。我的职务是什么？”如果他们的回答是“远期计划员”或“副州长”，那么你大可四处闲逛，玩字谜游戏玩到退休。不过，大多数工作还是需要你做点什么的。现代的机构中有两类主要的工作：为正在出席会议的人记电话留言，以及出席会议。你的根本择业策略应该是尽快去找一个主要涉及第2项出席会议的工作，因为这才是真正名望的所在。当然，能给别人记电话留言也不错。但是，除非你学会怎么出席会议，否则，你将永远得不到大权在握的位置，那种你的一个愚蠢决定就能让千万人丢掉饭碗的位置。有史以来的第一次会议可上溯到“夹生代”时期。那时候，男人的工作就是捕杀猎物并把它带回给家里的女人，后者负责解决如何烹制的问题。问题是，男人行动缓慢，基本上是一丝不挂，而猎物却有温暖的毛皮，跑得像羚羊一般飞快。（实际上那就是一只羚羊，只不过没人知道而已。）最后有人说了：“我们干脆坐下来集体出出主意，这样说不定能找到更好的办法来捕捉猎物！”聚会进行得非常顺利，而且坐成一圈还要暖和许多，所以他们约定第二天再次碰面，如是日复一日。但是，女人说了，男人没有带回来任何东西，人类快要饿死了。男人也认为形势严峻，并表示将把这一事项列入“议程表”的最前列。到了这一步，简单却不愚蠢的女人只好开始以植物为食，现代农业就此诞生。要是没有会议，这一切就不可能发生。不过，现代的商务会议更像是一场葬礼：与会人员穿着不舒服的衣装，心里面巴不得能去别的什么地方。其间的主要区别在于大多数葬礼都有一个明确的目的。此外，在会议上从来不会真的有什么东西被埋葬。某种意见可能看似已经咽了气，但它总会在此后的某个会议再次露面。如果你曾经看过活死人之夜这部电影，你就会对现代会议的运行方式有一个粗略的概念：所有人都认为已经死掉了的计划和建议不断从坟墓中爬出来，摇摇晃晃重新走进会议当中，吃掉活人的大脑。会议主要分为两种类型：一、基本上跟过植树节一样的会议，也就是说，只是一个传统。比如说，许多管理人员爱在星期一开会，就因为这天是星期一。你会习惯的，而且最好得习惯，因为这样的会议占所有会议的83%（这一数字来自我所作的一项研究，就是不断写出数字，直到其中一个看起来像那么回事为止）。这种会议按照幼儿园里的“秀秀说说” 模式进行，每一个与会者都要说点什么。它与“秀秀说说”的区别在于：孩子们确实有东西要说。轮到你说话的时候，你应该说自己还在干着不管是什么反正是该干的工作。这看起来相当白痴，因为很显然你是在干着自己该干的工作，就算不是，也会说是。但这是所有人按例该说的事情。如果主持会议的人肯这么说：“所有还在干着自己该干的事的人请举手”，那么会就要开得快得多。算上插