Unspoken Rules of Office (1) / 辦公室潛規則 (一）

There was a picture circulated in Hong Kong's web space that I found it very interesting and I would like to share with you here.

早一陣子香港的網絡上流傳着一張有趣的圖片。

It about unspoken rules of office, let me try to put them in English:

1. Don't try to make things prefect, try to do things right instead!
2. It is OK not able to help, but don't become obstructive.
3. If it is under your responsibility, do it! If not, let other people do it.
4. The less work you do, the fewer mistake you will make. There will be no mistake when you don't do anything.
5. Don't worry about things that are not belong to you.
6. Just do your best! not try your best!
7. Join group of powerful people as soon as you can.
8. Don't add your co-workers to your Facebook.
9. It's more useful to know people than knowing knowledge.

上面為我盡全力去翻譯的英文解釋。

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I agree to some of them, not all. How many of them do you agree?

我認同當中的一部分，亦希望跟大家分享一下其中的幾條規則。

Being an office man for over 20 years, I have experienced plenty of such situations. Let me share some real situations regarding the above rules with you.

我已經在辦公室中打滾了廿多年，上面提到的所謂規矩我亦經歷過不少。就讓我跟大家分享一下吧。

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Rules 2 : It is OK not able to help, but don't become obstructive.

幫唔到手唔緊要，但唔好阻到人。

I have a colleague who like to write very long email with fancy remarks on screen captures, like highlights, red boxes and arrows, etc. however, purpose of those emails were to distract others, led them to a wild goose chase. That was because this colleague didn't want to do something other colleagues requested, but he didn't want to directly turn down the requests, so he spent lots of time writing those long, fancy emails just to confused and misled others and put the ball back to the requesters' court, so that he won't need to do anything, but of course, the whole thing did have any progress as no real work was performed.

我有一位同事，很會寫長篇大論，滿是花巧圖片的電郵。但是他我目的並非要把事情做好，而是要誤導提出要求的人，帶他們去「遊花園」，再把問題拋回對方的手上。因為這樣做，他便可以在不直接拒絕他人要求情況下，避免真正去做事。當然，事情一定不會有進展。

He might achieved what he wanted, but now everyone knows his way and tend to ignore his long emails by defualt, and he got a reputation of being obstructive now. People know that you cannot rely on him to get things done. So no more important tasks goes to him and he is now going nowhere but stays at his own small circle. That's why he is now worry about his job security!!!!

起初，他好像很得心應手，但久而久之，所有同事都知道他的行事作風， 都覺得他的行為很阻礙性。 已經沒有同事會認真對待他的長電郵。更莫說會給他一些重要的任務。難怪這位同事現在都只是重複着一些日常的瑣瑣碎碎的工作，還常常害怕乏掉工作呢。

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What I would like to see is just a simple "No" when you don't feel like doing that task! Let other people complete it! Most of the time, people just want to have things done, they don't really care who preformed the works.

其實，只需要簡單的拒絕你不想或是不會做的事，把它交到其他人手中去實現，就可以讓事情繼續有進展。大家皆大歡喜！很多時候，大家都只是希望能夠完成工作，是誰做的並不重要。

Next about Rule #3 : If it is under your responsibility, do it! If not, let other people do it.

下次再談第三條： 係你嘅就要做，唔係你嘅就俾返人做。