Two million professionals are working in extreme jobs. These are jobs that require more than 60 hours a week of work, often involve extensive travel, tight deadlines and round-the-clock availability to clients. A study that looks at these jobs finds that most who have them love them. Still, many workers, particularly women, find the hours impossible.
有200万人正在从事着所谓的极端工作。这类工作需要职员每周投入60多个小时的时间，还常要四处奔波，日程安排十分紧密，而且还要24小时都能让客户找得到。一项研究发现，大部分做这种工作的人都乐此不疲。然而，也有不少人特别是女人感觉工作时间太长了，她们没办法忍受。
Debbie Watkins, a software consultant1 in upstate New York, traveled all over for 20 years, but two of those years were the worst. Seventy-five hour workweeks, extensive travel, only a day and a half with family each week; it was the hassle of modern air travel that finally did her in1.
One day I realized that I actually could take an oozy2 in the airport. I walked in my house and I told my husband I quit.
She still works hard, perhaps sixty hours a week. But now shes cut out the travel, so she actually knows the names of the streets in her town and says her greatest achievement was keeping her marriage together through those years. Theres something about working in what experts now call extreme jobs that mirror extreme sports. Alexander Southwell is a federal prosecutor3 in New York.
I often think of trials as basically a marathon at a full out sprint4 pace. So if you can imagine trying to run a marathon while youre sprinting5, thats what a trial feels like.
During the heat of a trial, he says he can work ninety hour weeks subsisting6 on
coffee and Diet Cokes, sometimes I wont eat all day.
Or take Eric Kaye, a managing director in mergers7 and acquisitions at the global investment bank UBS. He says he often doesnt put the Blackberry down until eleven or twelve at night.
Ya know for us, our competition is negotiating against another bank and you really have to feel like thats your game day. And what you see in our business is if thats a negative stress for people, they get out.
The study looked at professionals who worked more than 60 hours a week and often did extensive travel and had tight deadlines. The study found two million people in the US falling into this category, an elite8 yes, but not a tiny upper crust2. And of those two million, only four percent were women. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the president of the Center for Work Life Policies, says women told them the long hours in these jobs made them impossible. Many had childcare and eldercare responsibilities. Whats distressing9, says Hewlett, is that women have flooded into many professions and done very well
and just when they were getting real traction10 in the upper reaches, uh, we redefined what it took to do a TOP job.
Doing significant work, being a player, having stimulating11 colleagues, these are the TOP reasons men and women love these jobs. But the risk is burnout and threats to family life and relationships and since companies want to retain good workers, they are trying to find ways to make these jobs more sustainable. And theyre experimenting. Mona Lau, Global Head of Diversity for UBS, says that twenty percent of their female workers at their headquarters in Switzerland are on flex12 time. High performers, men and women, can customize their workload13.
What we call customized intensity, ya know, while the deal is going on, you work very, very, very long hours, and then you get a block of time off. So you can address other issues in your personal life.
While more women than men have been leaving these high pressure jobs, most executives say this is not just about women. In the same way people play professional sports for a limited time, eventually most people, young, old, men, women, dont want to work this intensely all the time. So companies are slowing coming up with new models to accommodate at least some of them.
戴比沃特金斯是纽约州北部的一位软件顾问，她四处奔波了20年，其中有两年是最糟糕的。在那两周中，她一周工作75个小时，四处奔波，每周只有一天半时间和家人在一块。频繁的现代航空旅游最后让她筋疲力尽。
一天，我意识到我事实上可以离开机场。我走到家，告诉我老公说我离职了。
目前她仍在努力工作，或许是一周工作60个小时。但目前，她不再四处奔波了，所以，她也了解了她所住的小镇上的街道名字。她说，她最大的收获是这类年来保住了完整的婚姻。专家们所说的极端工作和极端运动有的相似。亚历山大索思韦尔是纽约州的一位联邦检察官。
我常常感觉审判从根本上说是一场全速冲刺的马松。那样，假如你可以想象试图以冲刺的速度跑马松，审判就是那种感觉。
在审判进行到最激烈的时候，他说他可能一周要工作90个小时。
在那段时间中，我只顾得上喝咖啡和健怡可乐，有时侯一天都不吃东西。
或者以埃里克为例，他是全球投资银行瑞银集团的并购部总理。他说他常是到了晚上十一二点才放手黑莓手机。
你了解，对大家来讲，大家的角逐就是同另一家银行谈判，你不能不把那当成是你的比赛日。你可以看到，在大家这一行中，如果把这看成是负面重压的话，他们就得被淘出局。
这一研究着眼于每周工作60小时以上、常到处奔波并且受严格期限限制的专业人士。该研究发现美国有200万人都是这种类型的人，是的，是精英阶层，但并不是微小的上流社会。在这200万人中，只有4%是女人。西尔维亚安休利特是工作生活政策中心的主席。她说妇女们告诉她，这类工作需要投入的时间太多，这让她们很难忍受。不少女人都要照顾孩子和老人。休利特表示，让人烦恼的是，很多女人进入到了很多职业中，并且做得相当好
就在她们快要进入高层的时候，呃，做好一份顶级工作的需要发生了改变。
做要紧的工作，做积极的参与者，有勉励他们的同事，这类是男士和女人热爱这类工作的最主要因。但他们要冒的风险是筋疲力尽，家庭生活和关系遭到威胁。由于公司想要留住出色职员，所以他们正在挖空心思使这类工作变得愈加可以忍受。他们在进行试验。瑞银集团全球业务推广部门的负责人莫娜劳说，在他们的瑞士总部工作的女职员中，20%的人拥有灵活的工作时间。高效人才，不论男女，都可以参考需要改变他们的工作量。
大家所说的定制劳动强度是指，你了解，在忙的时候，你要工作非常长、非常长、很久，然后呢，你可以休息一段时间。如此，你就能处置你个生活活中的其他事情。
虽然舍弃这类高重压工作的人中，女人比男士多，但大部分主管表示这不只与女人有关。同样，大家只能在有限的时间内从事职业体育运动，最后，大部分人，男女老幼，都不想一直从事这样高强度的工作。因此，公司们正在慢慢地想出新的模式，至少让某些人可以适应。
1. do sb. in:非正式使筋疲力尽；俚杀死。
2. crust /krVst/ n. 硬外皮，硬外壳。upper crust指上流社会、上流阶层。
