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。

1. It is five past nine o’clock. 現在是九點零五分。
2. Demonstrants are increasing in their numbers. 示威者的人數正在增加中。
3. I did not mean to make you so angry on purpose. 我不是故意要讓你如此生氣。
4. It is very dark. We can’t hardly see the traffic signs. 天色很暗，我們幾乎看不見交通標誌。
5. The answer is “B”, I suppose it. 我想，答案是「B」。

1. It is five past nine.
   表示整點的時間才會加o’clock，九點零五分不是整點，o’clock須刪掉。
2. Demonstrants are increasing in number.
   in number是一個固定片語，表示「在數目上」，number前面不加冠詞或所有格，後面也不加s。
3. I did not mean to make you so angry.
   mean本身就含「有…意圖」，所以有了mean，就不用加on purpose，本句也可以保留on purpose而刪去mean。
4. It is very dark. We can hardly see the traffic signs.
   hardly本身已有否定的意思，解釋為「幾乎不」，所以不用再加not。
5. The answer is “B”, I suppose.
   I suppose、I guess、I think、I believe…在類似的口語用法中，不須再加代名詞。

商業英文的最後一站

學英文到最後，都必須來到一點，你告訴自己，That’s that! 就這樣了。

聽很多來到世界公民文化中心的人，說著他的英語夢，說他在英語世界裡的挫折遺憾，說他來來回回，丟了又學，學了又丟.....有時候會出現讓外籍顧問也頭皮發麻的感慨，學生說，假如她的人生只能許三個願望，其中一個是讓自己的英文好。

英文哪，到底是「希望」還是「夢靨」？

是希望就成全它，是夢靨就終結它。這是「Last Stop最後一站」這個Program的承諾。假如你願意給自己兩年。