Will “work from hotel” become a thing?

“在酒店工作”會(huì)成為一種潮流嗎?

As summer descends with a vengeance on the northern hemisphere, you may be fantasising about the promise of “working from anywhere”. A colleague’s PowerPoint presentation would go down better by the poolside, washed down with a mojito. For most office grunts such fantasies remain just that—“anywhere” boils down to the discomfort of the sweaty kitchen table, a noisy café or the office hot desk.?

【1】with a vengeance 極其；出乎意料

【2】wash down with 就著..喝

【3】to boil down to sth 歸結(jié)為某事物

隨著北半球夏季突然襲來，你可能會(huì)幻想“在任何地方工作”的前景。同事的PPT演講放在泳池邊，配上一杯莫吉托，效果會(huì)更好。對(duì)于辦公室里的大多數(shù)抱怨者來說，這樣的幻想還只是幻想而已，“任何地方”可以歸結(jié)為在讓人熱得出汗的廚房桌子上、嘈雜的餐館或辦公室的不固定辦公桌這些讓人感到不適的地方。

That has not stopped venues offering to combine the liberty of the home office (minus the offspring and the dirty dishes) with the climate control of the corporate hq (minus the boss looking over your shoulder). “Third spaces”, neither office nor home, are not a new idea. Soho House, a chain of fashionable clubs, pioneered 30 years ago the concept of work while mingling with other professionals in an elegant setting. Now hotels are getting in on the action. Your columnist, a guest Bartleby, tried out two recent London offerings.

但這并沒有阻止那些”將家庭辦公室的自由(沒有子女和臟盤子)和公司總部的氣氛調(diào)節(jié)(沒有老板在你身后看著你)結(jié)合起來的場所?！暗谌臻g”既不是辦公室，也不是家，但這并不是一個(gè)新想法。蘇荷館是一家連鎖的時(shí)尚俱樂部，30年前開創(chuàng)了工作的概念，并在優(yōu)雅的環(huán)境中能夠與其他專業(yè)人士交談?，F(xiàn)在，酒店也加入了這一行列。你的專欄作家巴托比顧客，嘗試了兩家最近在倫敦推出的“酒店”場所。

She first headed to Birch, a hotel in a Georgian manor on 55 acres of Hertfordshire just north of the city. The venue invites you to “come work miracles” at its Hub co-working area, “set strategies” in spaces “ready to fit 5 or 50” or “connect and create” with classes in pottery, sourdough baking, “foraging with our farmer” and other structured activities. Men, women and gender-fluid people in their 20s and early 30s hunch over laptops and glasses of red wine on the terrace. Some digital nomads pay a monthly membership fee and enjoy special discounts to stay in the property and work remotely, but you can, like Bartleby, come as an overnight guest.

她先去了樺木酒店，這家酒店位于城市北部的赫特福德郡，占地55英畝，是一座喬治王朝風(fēng)格的莊園。該場所邀請(qǐng)您在聯(lián)合工作區(qū)中心“創(chuàng)造奇跡”，在“可容納5或50人”的空間“制定策略”，或通過陶藝、面包烘焙、“與我們的農(nóng)民一起覓食”等結(jié)構(gòu)化活動(dòng)“連接和創(chuàng)造”。20多歲和30歲出頭的男性、女性和性別不固定的人在露臺(tái)上弓著腰，拿著筆記本電腦和紅酒。一些數(shù)字游牧民每月支付會(huì)員費(fèi)，并享受住在這里遠(yuǎn)程工作的特別折扣，但你也可以像巴托比一樣，住一晚就走。

Her second destination was the Shangri-La hotel in the Shard, which now offers stays from 10am to 6pm. The pass grants access to a room with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on central London, and to Western Europe’s highest infinity pool. It is aimed at those wishing to work and relax by offering a “change of scenery to inspire and invigorate”.

她的第二個(gè)目的地是位于碎片大廈的香格里拉酒店，這里現(xiàn)在提供上午10點(diǎn)到下午6點(diǎn)的住宿。通過這張通行證，你可以進(jìn)入一間有落地窗的房間，在那里可以看到倫敦市中心，還可以享受有著西歐海拔最高的無邊泳池。它的目標(biāo)是那些來工作和放松的人，以期通過“改變環(huán)境以受到啟發(fā)并讓自己精神煥發(fā)”。

Both Birch and the Shangri-La have their virtues. Birch’s Wi-Fi was excellent and the workspaces had enough sockets to avoid undignified tussles for the last place to plug in your chargers. The “Gentle Flow” stretch class in which Bartleby enrolled, in the spirit of going native, was perfectly pleasant (notwithstanding the instructor’s insistence on starting with an astrological update and reciting a poem at the end). So were laps in the Shangri-La’s infinity pool and the view of St Paul’s Cathedral from her room on the 38th floor.

樺木和香格里拉都有自己的優(yōu)點(diǎn)。樺木的Wi-Fi非常出色，辦公空間有足夠的插座，避免了為最后一個(gè)插充電器的地方而發(fā)生不體面的爭執(zhí)。巴托比參加的舒緩流瑜伽舒展課程，本著“本土化”的精神，非常令人愉快(盡管老師堅(jiān)持要從星相學(xué)的更新開始，背誦一首詩結(jié)束)。在香格里拉，她在38層的房間里可以盡情享受香格里拉的無邊泳池和圣保羅大教的景色，香格里拉暫時(shí)領(lǐng)先。

Yet problems soon became apparent. The first is price. An overnight stay at Birch sets you—or, if you are lucky like Bartleby, your employer—back ￡160 ($192). The Shangri-La charges ￡350 for a standard room. Cities have plenty of cheaper “third spaces” these days; a co-working space costs a fraction of that.?

不過，問題很快顯現(xiàn)出來。首先是價(jià)格。在樺木酒店住一晚要花你160英鎊(192美元)，但如果你像巴托比一樣幸運(yùn)的話，這筆錢就是你老板出。香格里拉酒店標(biāo)間的價(jià)格則為350英鎊。如今，城市有很多更便宜的“第三空間”；而一個(gè)聯(lián)合辦公空間的成本只是這個(gè)數(shù)字的零頭。

The second problem is: how productive can workers be with all the distractions that are designed to make work not feel like work? The spectacular view from the Shard is less conducive to dreaming up a sales pitch (or a column) than it is to daydreaming. At Birch, boardgames occupy every horizontal surface, ready to draw out the procrastinator in you. And once you are done stretching, that sourdough-baking class is a recipe to keep putting work on the back burner.?

【1】put sth on the back burner 暫時(shí)擱置某事

第二個(gè)問題是：在所有這些讓工作感覺不像在工作的干擾下，員工的效率能有多高？從碎片大廈俯瞰的壯觀景色，不太有利于構(gòu)思推銷口號(hào)(或?qū)?，反而更有利于白日做夢。在樺木酒店，棋盤游戲占據(jù)了每一個(gè)臺(tái)面，隨時(shí)準(zhǔn)備引誘你的拖延癥。一旦你完成舒展運(yùn)動(dòng)，面包烘焙會(huì)讓你暫時(shí)擱置工作。

Third, if you resist the temptation to temporise and get down to business, you may as well be at home or the office. The kibbutz-like camaraderie which Birch (and other places like it cropping up everywhere) try so hard to evoke is, ironically, the very thing you miss by staying away from your office mates. While you are updating that spreadsheet or answering emails, luxury hotels’ creature comforts scarcely register. As with most material indulgences, a sense of vacuity descends once the novelty of the marble floors and stacks of fluffy towels wears off.?

【1】crop up 出現(xiàn)

【2】kibbutz 基布茲【以色列的集體農(nóng)場】

第三，如果你抵制住了拖延的誘惑，開始工作，你還不如待在家里或辦公室里。樺木(以及其他類似的地方隨處可見)如此努力地想要喚起的那種基布茲式的友情，諷刺的是，這正是你遠(yuǎn)離辦公室同事而避開的東西。當(dāng)你在更新電子表格或回復(fù)電子郵件時(shí)，幾乎不會(huì)注意到豪華酒店的物質(zhì)享受。和大多數(shù)物質(zhì)享受一樣，一旦大理石地板和一堆堆松軟的毛巾的新鮮感消失，空虛感就會(huì)襲來。

The millennials and Gen-zs meandering around Birch suggest that demand for its hip offerings exists. And hoteliers are wise to work their assets in new ways as they cope with changes to their industry: business travel is, after all, unlikely to return to pre-pandemic patterns for a while, if ever.?

千禧一代和z世代在樺木酒店閑逛，這表明對(duì)其時(shí)尚場所的需求是存在的。酒店經(jīng)營者在應(yīng)對(duì)行業(yè)變化時(shí)，明智的做法是以新的方式利用自己的資產(chǎn)：畢竟，在一段時(shí)間內(nèi)，商務(wù)旅行不太可能回到大流行前的模式。

Just do not expect white-collar types to flock to hotels en masse for a hard day’s work. Most of the Shangri-La’s daytime residents seemed to be couples seeking privacy, not executives keen to inspire and invigorate their pitches. As for Bartleby, you will find her at The Economist’s London head office or, failing that, her kitchen table.

只是別指望白領(lǐng)們會(huì)為了一天的辛苦工作成群結(jié)隊(duì)地涌進(jìn)酒店。香格里拉的大部分白天住戶似乎都是尋求隱私的夫婦，而不是急于受到啟發(fā)和煥發(fā)精神的想推銷口號(hào)的高管。至于巴特比，你會(huì)在《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》倫敦總部找到她，如果找不到的話，你會(huì)在她的廚房餐桌上找到她。