職場雙語：成功的不只是好學生
The son of an acquaintance of mine has recently landed a good job on a national newspaper. For the past few months I've been reading the articles written by this boy – let's call him Derek – and thinking how delightfully original they were. Last week I ran into Derek's mother and told her that her son was brilliant and that she must be proud of him. She rolled her eyes and said he hadn't always been a star. He had been expelled from his state comprehensive school at 15, failed dismally academically and had spent his teenage years off the rails. So how, I asked, did he land this most sought after of jobs, one that Oxbridge graduates kill for?
我一位熟人的兒子最近在一家全國性報社找到了一份好工作，
職場雙語：成功的不只是好學生
。過去幾個月，我一直在閱讀這個小伙子——讓我們叫他德里克(Derek)好了——寫的文章，令人高興的是，這些文章是如此具有獨創(chuàng)性。上周，我遇到他的媽媽，我告訴她，她的兒子非常有才氣，她一定為他感到驕傲。她轉(zhuǎn)了轉(zhuǎn)眼睛不屑地說，他并非一直那么出色。15歲時，他就被一所公立綜合學校開除了，從此他灰溜溜地中斷了學業(yè)，誤入歧途地度過了他十幾歲的青春。于是我問道，他是如何獲得這份牛津和劍橋 (Oxbridge)畢業(yè)生都夢寐以求的工作的呢？She said that Derek had decided in his early 20s that he wanted to be a journalist and simply refused to take no for an answer. He more or less took up residence outside the newspaper of his choice, bombarding it with e-mails, until eventually he was allowed in as an unpaid intern. He financed his journalism by working night shifts as a hospital porter, until eventually he was offered a job.
她說，德里克20歲出頭就決定，他希望成為一名記者，且壓根不接受“不行”這樣的答復。他幾乎是住在他所中意的報社門外，用電子郵件對其進行狂轟亂炸，直到最后被錄用為一名沒有報酬的實習生。他靠夜間在一家醫(yī)院當門童來獲取經(jīng)濟來源，直到最終拿到了正式合同。
We all love an underdog story, and this one vastly cheered me up. All the more so because it seems to belie the conviction of every pushy parent that if a child puts one foot wrong academically they have blown it for life. Both in London and New York there is this feverish notion that the journey to success starts at around three years old. It is vital to get a child into the right nursery school that will get them into Harvard or Cambridge or wherever. And if the child does not land up with straight A grades then clearly their chances of success in life are very low indeed.
我們都愛聽失敗者的故事，上面這個故事令我興奮不已，
資料共享平臺
《職場雙語：成功的不只是好學生》(http://www.oriental01.com)。更重要的原因在于，這似乎有悖于每一位望子成龍的家長的看法，即如果孩子在學業(yè)上步入歧途，他們的一生就毀了。無論在倫敦還是紐約，都存在著一種狂熱的.觀念：即通往成功之路始于3歲左右。讓孩子進入合適的托兒所，對于他們將來進入哈佛(Harvard)或劍橋之流的學府至關重要。而如果孩子最終未能連續(xù)取得A等成績，那么他們一生獲得成功的機會顯然會非常低。This tiresome hysteria has got worse in one generation. When I was at school and at university there was a lot of opportunity for screwing up, and most of us availed ourselves of it at one point or another. In fact, if you cruised effortlessly from one academic triumph to another you were regarded as rather dull. As a schoolgirl, not only did I fail to get straight As, I didn't get any As at all – though I did get an F and even a U (for unclassified).
對于一代人而言，這種令人生厭的歇斯底里式的想法愈發(fā)嚴重。在我上中學和大學時，有的是把我一生搞砸的機會，而我們大多數(shù)人也或早或晚地利用了這種機會。實際上，如果你不費吹灰之力就接連取得學業(yè)上的成功，你會被視為一個相當無趣的人。上學期間，我不僅沒有連續(xù)獲得A等成績，甚至連一個A都沒拿到過——我還拿過一個F，甚至一個U（代表不予評級，比F還差）。
Having failed in a small way – though not as impressively as Derek – I like to think it does one good. It means one then has to work like a dog to catch up, and that one may have a fresher way of doing things.
經(jīng)歷過小小的失敗之后——盡管不像德里克那樣不同凡響——我愿意認為這有好處。這意味著，一個人為了趕上別人，就不得不像條狗那樣拼命工作，做事時也可能會另辟蹊徑。
Though it is depressingly rare for the underdog to win in the real world, I'd like to cling to the idea that when they do, they have something special to offer that the overdog does not.
盡管在現(xiàn)實世界中失敗者成功的可能性小得令人沮喪，但我愿意堅持這種觀點，那就是一旦他們獲得成功，他們會帶來一些特別的東西，而這些是那些天之驕子們所不具備的。
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