閱讀暖身
哈姆雷特說to be or not to be，上班族每天走進辦公室，內心其實都非常有戲。當年的丹麥王子，想的是該不該復仇，而今日的職場白領們，則是掙扎著該委屈求全融入團隊？還是該盡情發揮，追求表現？一起來看看哈佛商業評論的報導。
看報導之前，先請你想想三個字的英文怎麼說:
a) 悖離
b) 排擠、欺凌
c) 疏遠
Every office worker goes into the office everyday facing two basic choices: to 1) go it alone, or go along?
每天走進辦公室，你都面臨兩個最基本的抉擇：該突出自我，還是努力合群？
In most work environments, once you start performing better than the others, you a) deviate from the norm. The "norm" is the average performance your colleagues delivers, and unless you are in an elite team where everybody excels, in which rare case you fit into the norm by outperforming, you usually won't be able to do both at the same time.
職場濳規則是: 一旦你的表現太突出，你就悖離了團隊生態，破壞了辦公室標準。所謂的 “辦公室標準” 指的是你同事的表現都一般般，除非你周遭全是精英份子，每個人都能力超強，高效率是常態，否則通常的狀況下，你很難兩全。
A team of researchers from DePau University and Ball State University, two academies in the US, and Queens University in Canada have recently studied this office dynamics by surveying workers of one Midwestern branch of a US financial company. The study found that even in a relatively friendly workplace, people who excels are subjected to subtle b) victimization. On a victimization scale of 1 to 5, the outperformers scored 3.75, higher than average workers and underperforming workers.
美國 、加拿大三所學院的研究人員，最近以美國中西部一家金融機構分行的辦公室人員作為調查對象，研究這種職場現象。結果從調查中發現，即使在相當友善的工作場所中，表現突出的員工仍受到微妙的排擠。從1 至 5 的等級來區分，表現優異的為 3.75，高於平均一般和表現不佳的員工。
2) It goes without saying that this phenomenon is not completely rational. Still, the study also found another interesting aspect is that the victimization is not unconditional. When the high-achievers were further divided into two groups, those who care about their colleagues and those who put their own interests above others, it's found that the "benevolent" workers are much less likely victimized, while the "entitled" workers are visibly c) alienated.
不用說，這種排擠現象，不全然是理性的 。但這份研究同時也發現另一個有趣的現象: 被排擠不是全然無條件的。職場明星分為兩種: 如果懂得體貼同事，樂於助人，仁慈型的員工其實是可以避免被排擠的命運。 然而被冠上自私自利者就很明顯會被疏離 。
口語辭彙
1) Go along or go it alone
這是一個說出來蠻響亮的諺語，用了兩個看起來相似的副詞 alone 和 along，但在這個片語中，卻巧妙形成相反的意思。go along 是跟著多數意見走，go it alone 則是堅持自己的意見。舉例來說，如果董事會裡多數成員都不贊成併購，董事長卻堅持要買，可能就會和幕僚之間有這樣的對話:
"I want to do it, but the other guys in the board won't agree with me." 我希望進行這件事，但其他董事會的人不會贊成。
"Well, you can go along, or go it alone." 你可以照大家的意思，或堅持己見。
2) It goes without saying that...
"不用說"，"想也知道"，從常識就可以理解。It指的就是後面子句描寫的事實，例如:
It goes without saying that cheap is not always good. 大家都知道，便宜不見得是好事。
世界公民文化中心是一所兩年制英語學院。
以「英語島學程」獨有的一對一教學和國際商業趨勢同步的團體討論課程，幫助企業人士善用英語整合能力，達成個人和企業國際化的目標，為高科技與國際跨國公司仰賴的商務英語學習機構。
