Following instructions to slash¹ costs in my department, I recently put out a memo² detailing cuts, which include axing free biscuits and coffee at weekly bonding sessions. This has prompted complaints that morale³ is being destroyed and that the tea and biscuits were a vital part of the culture. It makes me angry that staffs are being so petty about biscuits when people may lose their jobs. Yet this seems to have hit a nerve. What can be done to rectify⁴ it?

根据在部门内削减成本的要求，我最近制定了一个细化成本削减计划的备忘录，其中包括取消每周聚会上的免费饼干和咖啡。有人抱怨称，这挫伤了员工士气，茶点是企业文化的重要部分。让我生气的是，在人们可能丢掉饭碗的时候，员工们却在饼干的问题上如此小心眼。然而，这似乎让人产生了不快。我该如何补救呢？

Oh dear. It sounds as if you got it the wrong way round. You axed the biscuits but kept the weekly bonding sessions, whereas what you should have done was keep the biscuits but axe⁵ the bonding. To insist that people bond at a particular time each week is a mad idea, especially as now your underlings are so aggrieved⁶ that any bonding will be an opportunity to make effigies⁷ of you and stick pins in them.

哦，天哪，听上去你好像搞错了。你取消了饼干，却保留了每周的例会。你本应该做的是保留饼干，取消例会。坚持让员工在每周某个时刻聚在一起是愚蠢的，特别是现在你的下属如此愤愤不平，以后任何一次例会都是他们画出你的样子并在上面扎针的机会。

As for the biscuits and coffee, you have made the classic management mistake of assuming that trivial things are trivial and therefore don't matter.

至于饼干和咖啡，你犯了一个典型的管理错误，你自认为小事就是小事，无足轻重。

The reason all hell always breaks out over biscuits is not in spite of their triviality, but because of it. Biscuits are an emotional issue. In one place I worked, there were free biscuits; and even having them caused some resentment⁸, as one colleague always used to get to the plate first and snaffle the chocolate ones. But getting rid of them caused a revolt.

人们之所以总是在饼干的问题上怨声连连，不在于它事小，而是因为它本身。饼干是一个情感问题。在我曾供职的一家公司，他们提供免费饼干；谁拿到饼干甚至会招来别人的不满，因为一位同事过去总是第一个走到盘子旁边，把那些巧克力口味的饼干占为己有。但取消饼干供应就会引起员工们的反感。

The thinking of your "petty" staff goes something like this: if management can't even fork out for a few grammas of fat and sugar per person per week, then it evidently doesn't care the staff.

你那些“小气”的员工是这样想的：如果管理层连掏钱购买每周每人几克的脂肪和糖都不情愿，那么它显然就不在乎员工。

So you have screwed up badly on the symbolic⁹ front. Worse, you have screwed up strategically, too. Now every single benefit that you have yourself - every cab ride or lunch out, and lord help you if you have a company car - will cause massive resentment.

因此从象征意义上来讲，你把事情搞砸了。更糟糕的是，从战略上来讲，你也搞砸了。你自己拥有的任何一项福利--每次打出租车或外出午餐，如果公司给你派车的话，那就请上帝保佑吧--将让其他人怨恨不已。