當世下,你掙錢太多?

In the same week that Prince Alwaleed complained to Forbes about not being high enough up its list of billionaires, a different sort of complaint was being made in an industrial tribunal in east London. Stella English, a former winner of Lord Sugar’s The Apprentice show, claimed that the £100,000 job she had won as a prize had been previously done by someone on a salary of a mere £35,000, making her feel an “overpaid lackey”.

就在沙特王子阿爾瓦利德•本•塔拉爾(Prince Alwaleed bin Talal)因爲自身在富豪榜上的排名不夠靠前而向《福布斯》(Forbes)雜誌提出抗議的當周，倫敦東部的一個行業特別審理委員會受理了一起截然不同的抗議。斯特拉•英格利希(Stella English)是舒格勳爵(Lord Sugar)真人秀節目《學徒》(The Apprentice)的前任獲勝者。她聲稱自己所贏得的年薪10萬英鎊的工作機會，此前是由一個年薪僅3.5萬英鎊的人完成的，這讓她感到自己像是一個“光拿錢不幹事的馬屁精”。

Prince Alwaleed’s protest might be unseemly but at least it’s is psychologically straightforward. If Mr Forbes says you’ve only got $20bn when you think you’ve got more, I dare say it is quite annoying.

阿爾瓦利德王子的抗議或許不夠體面，但至少他的心理非常容易理解。如果《福布斯》聲稱你僅有200億美元，而你認爲自己的財富不止於此，我相信這件事情確實非常令人不快。

But to complain about earning too much is more outlandish. No one does it. If you type “I’m overpaid” into Google, all you get is RBS chief executive Stephen Hester saying “even my parents think I’m overpaid” – which isn’t the same as thinking it himself. And Bono saying “I’m overpaid, so shoot me” – which is the sort of thing uppity rock stars say simply to wind up annoying journalists.

但抱怨掙得太多則奇怪得多。沒有人會這麼做。如果你在谷歌(Google)搜索框中輸入“我的薪水過高”，你所能得到的就是蘇格蘭皇家銀行(RBS)首席執行官史蒂芬•赫斯特(Stephen Hester)承認“即便我的父母都認爲我的薪酬過高”——這與自己本身就這麼認爲並不是一回事。而U2樂隊主唱博諾(Bono)所唱的“我的薪水太高，拿槍把我幹掉”(I’m overpaid, so shoot me)，只不過是自負的搖滾明星爲了捉弄惹人心煩的記者所說的調侃之詞。

To winkle out a few better examples, I asked on Twitter if anyone would admit to earning too much. The response: zero. Chance would be a fine thing, someone tweeted.

爲了挑出幾個更好的例子，我在推特(Twitter)上詢問是否有人願意承認自己的薪水過高，但沒有人給我回應。有人評論說，可惜遇不到這種好事。

Yet I refuse to believe that it’s as simple as this. My own dysfunctional relationship with money and self-worth (which I will try to explain later on) tells me it can be quite complicated.

但我拒絕相信事情就這麼簡單。我自己在處理金錢與自我價值方面的糟糕經歷（我將在後文中進行解釋）告訴我，實際情況可能非常複雜。

At a party at Claridge’s last week to celebrate the launch of the Lunch with the FT: 52 Classic Interviews book, I went on a fact-finding mission. The event was perfect for my purposes both because half the guests were bankers and chief executives – whom the rest of the world deems to be excessively overpaid – and because teams of waiters were diligently lowering guards by refilling glasses.

在近期爲慶祝《與英國〈金融時報〉共進午餐：52次經典採訪》(Lunch with the FT: 52 Classic Interviews)一書發行而在Claridge's酒店所舉行的派對活動上，我展開了一項探尋真相的行動。這次活動完美地符合我的目標，因爲半數來賓皆爲銀行家或首席執行官——全世界都認爲這羣人的薪酬過高——此外成隊的侍者不斷殷勤地爲來賓斟滿酒杯，降低了他們的警惕性。

The first man I cornered was someone who has made a lot of money in the City. “Are you overpaid?” I asked. “Yes!” he replied at once. And how did that make him feel? His face lit up. “F***ing terrific!”

第一個被我提問的人在倫敦金融城掙了很多錢。我問道：“你覺得自己掙得太多嗎？”“當然！”他不假思索地回答道。那麼大把掙錢的感覺如何？他的臉上開始放光：“爽呆了！”

He then told me that there was a moment as a younger man when he looked in the shaving mirror and wondered how come a boy like him was earning so much. “But then you stop thinking about it, or you cut yourself.”

隨後他告訴我說，在他較爲年輕的時候，曾有那麼一刻，他在凝視剃鬚鏡的時候想到，一個像他這樣的小青年怎麼可能掙這麼多錢。“但很快你就會停止思考這個問題，否則你會把自己劃傷的。”

The next man I asked had made many millions as a chief executive. He also admitted to being wildly overpaid. But he didn’t feel bad either, as he gave most of it away.

我提問的第二個人在擔任首席執行官期間獲得了數百萬英鎊的收入。他也承認自己的薪酬水平實在太高，但同樣沒有因此感覺不好，因爲他將大部分所得捐獻了出來。

Then I talked to a young banker who said – disarmingly honestly, I thought – that his head told him he was paid too much, but his heart could only see that other colleagues were getting even more.

接下來我和一名年輕的銀行家聊了起來。他的誠懇讓我無法對他有敵意，他說，他的理智告訴他，他的薪水太高了，但他的情感只看到其他同事掙得更多。

Eventually I tracked down one of wealthiest men there, to whom I had to repeat the question several times before he got the drift. Overpaid?

最後我找到了派對現場最富有大亨中的一位。我向他重複了好幾遍問題才使他明白了我的意思。薪酬過高？

No way. He had created jobs and delivered value.

絕無可能。要知道他創造了工作崗位並且帶來了巨大的價值。

Only one of the poorest guests, a journalist on another paper, said that she felt grossly overpaid when she thought of the interns doing the same work for nothing at all.

一位爲另一份報紙工作的記者是現場最窮的來賓之一。只有她表示，當她想到做着同樣工作卻沒有分文酬勞的實習生時，她會覺得自己的薪酬水平實在高得過分。

My impertinent cross-questioning left me with two tentative conclusions. First, the more money people make the more they think they deserve it. And second, people are extraordinarily skilled at finding arguments to stop them feeling bad.

通過莽撞的盤問，我得到了兩個試探性結論。第一點是，人們掙得越多，就越感到自己理應得到高額報酬。第二點是，人們極爲擅長找到理由讓自己不再有負罪感。

My own story (which I’m still sure is more common than people admit) is that I feel vertigo when my estimation of my market value is far less than is being offered. I once turned down a job with another company mainly because the size of the salary filled me with terror.

就我自己而言，當我對於自己市場價值的估計遠遠低於我所得到的報酬時，我會感到不知所措（我相信自己的這種情況遠比人們願意承認的更加普遍）。我曾經拒絕過另一家公司提供的一個工作機會，主要原因就在於那份工作的薪酬水平高得讓我害怕。

I’ve done some unpacking of this pathetic, girly response and think there are four reasons for it. The first is a general sense of: because I’m not worth it. This is a version of the imposter syndrome, which I’ve flirted with for decades though recently seem to have shaken off.

我曾分析過自己這種小女生氣的可憐反應，並找出了四點可能的原因。原因之一是一種認爲自己不值這麼多錢的籠統感覺。這是冒充者綜合徵(imposter syndrome)的一種表現，在過去的幾十年裏我一直都有這種心理，直到最近似乎才真正擺脫。

It has nothing to recommend it.

這種想法沒有任何值得推薦的地方。

The second is that earning too much is a burden, as it sets the bar too high. When you pay footballers more, they sometimes get so stressed by what is expected of them that they forget how to kick the ball.

原因之二是，掙得太多是一種負擔，因爲隨之而來的將是過高的績效標準。如果你提高足球運動員的薪酬，他們有時會因爲肩上揹負的沉重期望而感到壓力過大，以至於忘記如何踢球。

The third is feeling that you don’t want to be disliked and resented by worse-paid colleagues.

原因之三是一種不希望被收入較低的同事們討厭和憎惡的感覺。

And the fourth is not wanting too much now, as it’s nice to feel there is more for later.

原因之四則是不想現在就擁有太多，未來還有更多可以期待之事的感覺很好。

Even though reasons two to four are fairly sane, in describing them I am talking myself out of the whole thing. Increasingly, I’m wondering if the man with the mirror didn’t have a point: get over it.

雖然第二至第四條理由看起來非常合理，但我把它們表述出來，是在說服自己完全拋開這件事。我越來越強烈地感到，之前照剃鬚鏡的那位男士的做法或許是正確的：把這件事置之腦後。

Though, as a PS, I was right about that job. The organisation quickly fell on hard times and all the tall poppies got cut down.

不過最後附帶一句，我拒絕那份工作是正確的。那家機構在形勢惡化時迅速受創，所有高薪僱員都遭到了解僱。