TED Lesson / Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work? Lesson1 (ジェイソン・フリード：なぜ職場で仕事ができないのか)

TED Jason Fried: Why work doesn’t happen at work

Jason Fried has a radical theory of working: that the office isn’t a good place to do it. At TEDxMidwest, he lays out the main problems (call them the M&Ms) and offers three suggestions to make work work.

*There is a word list below the script. The list includes blue colored words which are in the script.

この動画について

ジェイソン・フリードが、オフィスは仕事をするのに適していないという、仕事に関する抜本的な理論を語ります。TEDxMidwestでの講演で、フリードがＭ＆Ｍ‘ｓとよばれる主な問題を展開し、仕事をうまくいかせる3 つの提案を提示します。

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日本語訳はこの記事の最後にあります。また、日本語訳の下に単語帳(WORDS)があります。本文で青文字となっている単語がまとまっています。

※この記事はラングリッチのオンラインレッスン向けのテキストですが、会員でなくても利用出来ます。

TEDを使った勉強法はこちらの記事、“世界最高峰の講演、TEDを使った英語学習方法の紹介”にまとめてありますので参考にしてください。そしてもし良かったらこの記事をきっかけにフィリピン人とのオンライン英会話に挑戦してみてください。ラングリッチの無料レッスンの申し込みはこちらです。

 

(1) So I’m going to talk about work, specifically why people can’t seem to get work done at work, which is a problem we all kind of have. But let’s, sort of, start at the beginning. So we have companies and non-profits and charities and all these groups that have employees or volunteers of some sort. And they expect these people who work for them to do great work — I would hope, at least. At least good work, hopefully, at least it’s good work –hopefully great work. And so what they typically do is they decide that all these people need to come together in one place to do that work. So a company, or a charity, or an organization of any kind, they typically — unless you’re working in Africa, if you’re really lucky to do that — most people have to go to an office every day. And so these companies, they build offices. They go out and they buy a building, or they rent a building, or they lease some space, and they fill the space with stuff. They fill it with tables, or desks, chairs, computer equipment, software, Internet access, maybe a fridge, maybe a few other things, and they expect their employees, or their volunteers, to come to that location every day to do great work. It seems like it’s perfectly reasonable to ask that.

(2) However, if you actually talk to people and even question yourself and you ask yourself, where do you really want to go when you really need to get something done? You’ll find out that people don’t say what businesses think they would say. If you ask people the question: where do you really need to go when you need to get something done? Typically you get three different kinds of answers. One is kind of a place or a location or a room. Another one is a moving object and a third is a time.

(3) So here’s some examples. When I ask people — and I’ve been asking people this question for about 10 years — I ask them, “Where do you go when you really need to get something done?” I’ll hear things like, the porch, the deck, the kitchen. I’ll hear things like an extra room in the house, the basement, the coffee shop, the library. And then you’ll hear things like the train, a plane, a car — so, the commute. And then you’ll hear people say, “Well, it doesn’t really matter where I am, as long as it’s really early in the morning or really late at night or on the weekends.” You almost never hear someone say the office. But businesses are spending all this money on this place called the office, and they’re making people go to it all the time, yet people don’t do work in the office.

(4) What is that about? Why is that? Why is that happening? And what you find out is that, if you dig a little bit deeper, you find out that people — this is what happens — people go to work, and they’re basically trading in their workday for a series of “work moments.” That’s what happens at the office. You don’t have a workday anymore. You have work moments. It’s like the front door of the office is like a Cuisinart, and you walk in and your day is shredded to bits, because you have 15 minutes here and 30 minutes there, and then something else happens and you’re pulled off your work, and you’ve got to do something else, then you have 20 minutes, then it’s lunch. Then you have something else to do. Then you’ve got 15 minutes, and someone pulls you aside and asks you this question, and before you know it, it’s 5 p.m., and you look back on the day, and you realize that you didn’t get anything done. I mean, we’ve all been through this. We probably went through it yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that. You look back on your day, and you’re like, I got nothing done today. I was at work. I sat at my desk. I used my expensive computer. I used the software they told me to use. I went to these meetings I was asked to go to. I did these conference calls. I did all this stuff. But I didn’t actually do anything. I just did tasks. I didn’t actually get meaningful work done.

(5) And what you find is that, especially with creative people — designers, programmers, writers, engineers, thinkers — that people really need long stretches of uninterrupted time to get something done. You cannot ask somebody to be creative in 15 minutes and really think about a problem. You might have a quick idea, but to be in deep thought about a problem and really consider a problem carefully, you need long stretches of uninterrupted time. And even though the workday is typically eight hours, how many people here have ever had eight hours to themselves at the office? How about seven hours? Six? Five? Four? When’s the last time you had three hours to yourself at the office? Two hours? One, maybe? Very, very few people actually have long stretches of uninterrupted time at an office. And this is why people choose to do work at home, or they might go to the office, but they might go to the office really early in the day, or late at night when no one’s around, or they stick around after everyone’s left, or they go in on the weekends, or they get work done on the plane, or they get work done in the car or in the train because there are no distractions.

to be continued to the lesson2.

 

Let’s talk about the article base on the questions below.

Viewpoints or discussion

1. Where do you want to work if you really want something to be done?
2. Are you more comfortable working at home or in the office?
3. What kind of things distract you from work?

 

WORDS

(1) specifically /spɪˈsɪfɪkli/ adverb, 1. in a definite and exact way 2. used to indicate the exact purpose or use of something

sort of informal, to some (great or small) extent

charity /ˈtʃærəti/ noun (pl. ―ies) 1 [C] an organization for helping people in need

of some sort idiom, of one kind or another

typically /ˈtɪpɪkli/ adverb, 1. generally or normally 2. In the usual way – used to describe what is normal or expected of a certain place, person, or situation

to come together idiom, to unify or organized as a single group

lease /liːs/ verb, to use or let sb use sth, especially property or equipment, in exchange for rent or a regular payment

fill the space verb, to make or become full

stuff /stʌf/ noun (informal, sometimes disapproving) used to refer to a substance, material, group of objects, etc. when you do not know the name, when the name is not important or when it is obvious what you are talking about:

fridge /frɪdʒ/ noun, a piece of electrical equipment in which food is kept cold so that it stays fresh:

reasonable /ˈri:zn̩əbəl/ adjective 1. fair and sensible 2. fairly or moderately good 3. not too expensive

(2) get something done idiom, make or finish something in the available period of time

(3) porch  /ˈpoɚtʃ/ noun, an entrance to a building that has a separate roof

deck /ˈdɛk/ noun a wood structure that has a floor but no walls or roof, is attached to a house or other building, and is used for sitting and relaxing

commute /kəˈmju:t/ noun, the journey that a person makes when they COMMUTE to work:

(4) dig a little deeper idiom, try harder, give a little more

Cuisinart /kwz-närt, kwz-närt/ noun, a trademark used for a kind of food processor and its attachments

shred /ˈʃrɛd/ verb, to cut or tear (something) into long, thin pieces

pulled off idiom, to perform in spite of difficulties or obstacles; bring off

look back idiom, look back upon (a period of time, sequence of events); remember

go through sth, idiom to experience or suffer sth

(5) creative /kriˈeɪtɪv/ adjective, having or showing an ability to make new things or think of new ideas

thinker /ˈθɪŋkə(r)/ noun, a person who thinks seriously, and often writes about important things, such as philosophy or science

long stretch adverb, a great amount of time or for a great amount of time

uninterrupted /ˌʌnˌɪntəˈrʌptəd/ adjective, not interrupted, stopped or blocked

deep thought idiom, deeply absorbed in thought

stick around idiom, to remain, to linger

distraction /dɪˈstrækʃən/ noun, something that makes it difficult to think or pay attention

日本語訳

(1)これは仕事についての話です 特にどうして私たちは職場で 仕事ができないのか という問題について話します まずは最初から説明しましょう 企業やＮＰＯや慈善団体 様々な組織があり そこには従業員や ボランティアなどの人々が働いています 雇用主はここで働く人々から 素晴らしい仕事を期待している そう思いたいです 最低限でも良い仕事を 素晴らしい仕事を期待しています そこで彼らは通常 従業員を一か所にまとめて そこで仕事をさせます つまり企業、団体などの組織では アフリカへの異動があるぐらい ラッキーでない限り 普通の人は毎日職場へ通勤します そこで会社はオフィスを設けます 物件を購入 あるいは賃借し または部屋をリースして そこにいろいろ詰め込みます 机 あるいはデスク イス 　コンピュータ ソフトウェア インターネット環境 もしかしたら冷蔵庫などのおまけも そして従業員が毎日そこに通勤して 素晴らしい仕事をすることを期待します ごく当たり前な事に聞こえます

(2)ここで質問を出します みなさんもどうぞ 自分自身に問いかけてください 『仕事に集中したい時、どこに行きますか？』 この質問に、人は上司の期待とは 別の回答を出すのです 「仕事に集中したい時にあなたが 行きたい場所は？」と聞くと 3種類の答が出ます 一つは部屋や空間 もう一つは移動手段 そして時間です

(3)例を出しましょう 私は10年間この質問を出しています 「仕事に集中したい時　どこへ行きますか？」 かえってくる返事はベランダや キッチン 自宅の空き部屋 地下室 カフェや図書館など それに電車や 飛行機や車 – つまり乗り物 そしてこんな答えも聞きます 「早朝か深夜 または週末ならどこであっても構いません」 オフィスと答える人はほぼゼロ 企業はオフィスと呼ばれる空間にお金をかけ 人々にそこを利用させますが 誰もそこで仕事をしない

(4)これは何なんだ？ 何故だろう？ 何故こうなったのか？ この問題にもう少し踏み込むと 原因が見えてきます つまりこういう事です 人々は職場に行くと 一日の勤務時間を 多くの作業時間に小分けされます これがオフィスの現状です 「勤務日」が「作業時間」に オフィスの入り口がシュレッダーで一日の時間がバラバラにされるように こっちで15分　あっちで30分 突然の用事で仕事から引き離され そしたら20分後に昼休み その後また別の作業があり 15分後、頼みごとをされる 気がつけばもう5時に 一日を振り返れば 何もロクにできなかった事に気づく そんな経験ないですか？ 昨日はどうでしたか？ 一昨日は、それともその前の日は？ 夕方になって 「何もしていない！」と気づく 仕事には行った デスクに座り、高いパソコンを使った 用意されたソフトウェアを使用した 出席するべき会議にも出た 電話会議もして、こんなにやったのに 実際には何もしていない 作業をこなしただけだ 意味のある仕事は何もしていない

(5)そうして気づくのは デザイナーやプログラマや ライターやエンジニア 思想家などの クリエイティブな仕事には 邪魔がない一定の時間が必要だという事です 問題に創造的に取り組むのに 15分ではとても無理です 小手先のアイデアは出てきても じっくり取り組んで慎重に考え抜くには 邪魔のない一定の時間が必要となります 勤務時間は通常8時間ですが 実際に8時間集中できる人はいますか？ 7時間は？ 6？ 5？ 4？ 最近3時間通しで仕事に打ち込めましたか？ 2時間は？ 1時間なら？ 邪魔の入らない一定の時間を 得る人は本当に数人しかいません だから家で仕事をするのを好むのです あるいはオフィスへ行っても 誰もいない早朝か 夜遅くに行く人もいます 又は残業する人、週末出勤する人 飛行機で仕事をする人 車や電車で仕事する人もいます それなら邪魔がないからです

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