Hello & Goodbye

Hello & Goodbye   本文是微軟元老級員工Philip Su在2010年離開微軟時寫下的離職信。信中字字珠璣，回顧了本身在微軟工做的12年所感覺和領悟到的職場真諦。不管你是職場老手仍是職場新人，相信都能從中得到一些啓發。 Today was my last day at Microsoft, after 12 years straight out of college. I will start at Facebook next week as a developer in its Seattle office. 今天是我在微軟的最後一天。自從大學畢業，過去的 12 年裏我一直都在微軟工做。下週起，我將以一個程序員的身份在Facebook西雅圖的辦公室從新開始。 Below is the email I sent to Microsoft colleagues on my last day. I loved Microsoft, every one of the past twelve awesome years. Here’s to new adventures! 在微軟的最後一天，我給同事們發了如下這封離職信。我愛微軟，過去12年都是如此。如今將會迎接新的挑戰！ ### Original email below ### 離職信原文 Microsoft has been an awesome place to work over the past twelve years. Today is my last day. 過去的12 年裏，我一直很喜歡在微軟工做，可是今天是我在微軟的最後一天。 I’ve always been somewhat random, so I’d like to end this whole adventure true to form: quirky, controversial, optimistic, seat-of-the-pants, with rarely a satisfying explanation. 我一直是一個比較隨意的人，因此我但願今天的信也同樣是有個性的、有爭議的、樂觀的、憑感受的，而可能沒有讓人讀後很滿意的答案。 Don’t look for coherence below – you won’t find it. And if parts of this offend you, it’s probably because you don’t know me well enough – I offend people inadvertently all the time, almost as a rule. 請不要在個人信裏找連貫性，由於你是不會找到的。若是有內容冒犯了你，那你可能不太瞭解我，由於我常常會在無心中冒犯到別人，幾乎已經成爲了定律。 Thanks for everything. 謝謝全部的一切。 In college, I never thought I’d work for Microsoft. Then I interned in 1997 and fell in love: free sodas, individual offices (with doors!), Pentium 66’s – what more could a coder ask? Years later, my manager from the internship quit suddenly when his hard drive crashed, erasing weeks of code that hadn’t been checked in. He said it was a sign from God. I have no idea what he’s doing these days. 上大學時，我歷來沒有想過在微軟工做。但我1997 年的時候在微軟實習後，就對它一見傾心：免費的飲料、本身的辦公室、奔騰66... 一個程序員還能要求什麼？幾年後，我實習時的老闆忽然離職了。他電腦的硬盤當時發生了故障，丟失了幾個月的工做。他說這是一個來自上天的徵兆。我不知道他如今人在哪裏，在作些什麼事情。 People often complain after getting a 「bad」 review that their manager has a distorted and inaccurate view of them. Don’t you think that, of all the people in the world, the person reviewed would have the most biased view of their own performance? I sometimes gently suggest this. People don’t believe me. 人們在拿到一個很差的業績審查後老是會抱怨老闆和上級不公平並且不客觀。可是你不以爲，每一個人對本身的評估實際上是最不客觀的嗎？我有時會平和地告訴別人這一點，可是沒有人信。 Choose carbs. Eat dessert first. 吃點碳水化合物。吃飯時先吃甜點。 Use Occam’s Razor in interpersonal relations: look for the simplest, most straightforward explanation that assumes the best of everybody. Stay away from people who always have a conspiracy theory involving twisted office politics, unfulfilled Machiavellian ambitions, and unspoken agendas. 在處理人際關係是，咱們應該運用奧卡姆剃刀原理（小編注：奧卡姆剃刀定律又稱「奧康的剃刀」，是由14世紀邏輯學家、聖方濟各會修士奧卡姆的威廉提出。這個原理稱爲「如無必要，勿增實體」,即「簡單有效原理」。），也就是對於別人的行爲，找到最簡單，最信任別人的解釋。對那些愛搞辦公室政治，勾心鬥角的人敬而遠之。 Anonymous college course evaluations often ask for the student’s grade in the class. Turns out that there’s a strong correlation between a student’s grade and their assessment of the professor’s abilities. I don’t listen too carefully when a poor performer tells me how awful their previous manager was. My ears perk up when a star performer constructively criticizes their management. 大學裏的教授評估每每會參考學生在那門課獲得的成績，由於學生的成績與他對教授的評價有很明顯的關係。我通常不會認真聽一個業績很差的人對他老闆的吐槽，可是若是一個業績好的人批評他的老闆，我會洗耳恭聽。 Bias towards action. 「Litebulb」 will drain your soul. 不行動的話，閒聊會耗盡你的生命（Litebulb是微軟內部的一個普遍話題討論組）。 Words matter. Connotations matter. 字有表意，也有隱含的意思。 If you consistently deliver what the business needs most, and you do it well, it’s impossible not to get promoted. People tell me this isn’t true, that it’s all about the people you know and about 「visibility.」 I have no idea how to consistently deliver impactful business results without becoming visible as a side effect. I hate it when developers ask me how to become 「more visible.」 They hate it when I tell them to 「do great work.」 They think I’m mocking them. 若是你不斷作公司最須要的事情，你是必定會被重用的。有人說，不是的，人際關係和在人前表現本身更重要。我不明白，若是你持續作對公司意義很重大的事情，怎麼可能不被別人注意到。我很討厭程序員問我怎麼才能在人前表現本身。他們也很討厭個人答案「把事情作得更漂亮」，以爲我是在諷刺他們。 Be genuine. Never give advice for your own advantage. I’ve never once counseled a person to join my team or to stay on my team because I needed them. 作一個真誠的人。給別人建議時不要考慮本身的利益。我從沒有說服過任何人加入個人團隊，或者說服他們不要走，僅僅由於我須要他們。 Listen to understand. Speak to be understood. 聽人說話時儘可能理解，講話時儘可能容易讓別人理解。 Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Great ideas are usually laughed at. Neither sees the light of day without you taking action. Do the work to prove your idea, or stop talking about it. In an entrepreneurship class in college, I pitched the idea of an online grocery delivery service and got laughed off stage. Hurt, but convinced of my great genius, I returned the following week to pitch the idea of online movie rentals using the postal service. I called it NetVideo. Everyone thought it was absurd. I used to tell this story to bolster what I thought was my streak of unrecognized, prognosticating technical genius. These days, I tell the story to remind myself that in the end, only action and execution matter. 好的創意不少。偉大的創意經常會遭受嘲笑，除非你去實現它。不要光說，用行動來證實你的點子。在大學的一門創業課裏，我講了一個網上租看和郵寄電影光碟的點子，我當時把它起名叫「NetVideo」，全部人都以爲很荒唐。之前我講這個故事是爲了炫耀我當時多麼有遠見（指後來用相同點子起家的上市公司Netflix），可是如今我講這個故事是想告訴你，行動和執行是最重要的。 What’s your final level at Microsoft? Please don’t say CEO or Technical Fellow – I can almost guarantee you it’s not. A realistic appraisal helps you aim for the right things, and is also essential to happiness. A VP once told me that he had already attained the highest position he’d ever reach at Microsoft. It wasn’t false humility. It wasn’t sour grapes. He was confident in his abilities and ambitious about doing great work. He was just more grounded and self-aware than many, and thus more content. Don’t give up or sell out. Just know yourself. 你在微軟最終的職位級別是什麼？請不要說 CEO 或科技院士，由於我幾乎能夠保證你達不到。對本身能力更現實的認識會幫助你更準確找到目標，並且也會讓你更加快樂。一位副總裁曾經告訴我, 他已經作到了他在微軟能作的最高職位。這不是假謙虛，也不是抱怨。他對本身很自信，並且頗有事業心。他只不過是對本身有很清楚的認識，並且懂得知足。不要放棄，也不要出賣本身。可是你要正確認識你本身。 If you only ever implement feedback that you agree with, you probably don’t need the feedback in the first place. For feedback to be useful, you must at least occasionally consider implementing feedback that you don’t initially agree with. How else will you discover your blind spots? 若是你只採用你贊同的反饋，那頗有可能這些反饋從一開始就不是你須要的。真正有價值的反饋是那些你在一開始並不贊同的反饋。要否則，你怎麼去發現你的盲點？ Good people with good process will outperform good people with no process every time.–Grady Booch 有流程規劃的人一般比沒有流程規劃的人可以作得更好。——布奇（美國Rational軟件工程公司的首席科學家和Booch方法的主創人） Don’t fear process. Fear bad people dictating process. Fear process trying to make up for bad people. 不要懼怕流程。懼怕人們不可以很好的執行流程，懼怕不合適的人去執行流程。 I’ve managed almost 150 people across dev/test/PM. I estimate about 60% of employees think that they belong in the top 20% when ranked against their peers. I have never once had a person say that they belong in the bottom 10%. 我管理過150 人的開發團隊。我估計60% 的人以爲本身應該是排名在前20%。我歷來沒有碰見過認爲本身是排在最後10% 的人。 What would Mini do? (Incidentally, one of my managers once asked me, in all seriousness, whether I was Mini-Microsoft. I guess you’ll find out after I leave.)  Mini 會怎麼作？（一個經理曾經很嚴肅的問我，我是否是Mini-Microsoft。 等我離開微軟後，大家就會知道了。）（小編注：Mini-Microsoft 是一個寫微軟內情的匿名博客，在微軟內部有很大影響力） In a company as large as Microsoft, I guarantee you’ll find someone higher level than you who you think is worse than you. Don’t get stuck in this mental trap – it won’t motivate you to be your best. Look instead towards the person you admire most at your level. What can you learn from them? What unique strengths might you have which they don’t have? 在微軟這麼大的公司中，你必定可以找出職位比你高，但你認爲能力卻不如你的人。可是你不該該鑽這個牛角尖，由於這隻會讓你氣餒。你應該作的是找到和你級別差很少的，可是你很佩服的人。你能從他們身上學到什麼？你有什麼他們不具有的優勢？ A person is either passionate or they’re not. People who expect their manager to make their jobs fun and interesting won’t get far. 一我的的激情是沒法替代的。一個老是須要經理告訴他去作什麼的人是沒法進步的。 Once, at a Pizza Hut counter, I noticed that all the pens meant for signing credit card receipts had little flowers attached to their tops. Stuck together in a cup, the bunch of pens looked like a bouquet. I asked the cashier whether this was a new Pizza Hut policy. She said no – she had done it on her own. What would you pay to have her in your company? 有一次在必勝客，我看到全部籤信用卡的筆上都插上了小花，放在一塊兒的時候看起來像一束鮮花。我問服務員，這是必勝客的新政策嗎？她說不是，是她本身弄的。你是否是也很想聘用這樣的員工？ Cynics don’t get anything done. Stop talking to people whose first response is always skeptical. They will crush you. 憤世嫉俗者並不可以作成事業。中止和一開始就懷疑你的人討論問題，由於他們會拖垮你。 I had a coworker in Money who, by the time I joined in 1998, had already been at Microsoft for 15 years and could probably buy the county I grew up in. He drove a beat-up Datsun and coded every day in his office as an individual contributor. There is no doubt in my mind that he knows what he loves. 我有一位同事，他在我1998 年加入微軟的時候已經在微軟幹了15 年，應該有足夠的錢來買一棟樓。可是他天天仍是開一輛破舊的Datsun 汽車來上班，來編程。說這不是他深愛的事業，會有誰信呢？ Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness. It may change your life. 去讀謝家華的《三雙鞋-美捷步總裁謝家華自述》吧，它會改變你的一輩子。（小編注：本書是「美捷步」（Zappos）首席執行官謝家華創造奇蹟的心路歷程與商業哲學的精華萃取，分享了他在商場與生活中獲得的寶貴經驗與教訓。點此下載試讀>>） Offer me one great Microsoft engineer for five 「solid」 ones: I gladly take the exchange. 給我一位優秀的工程師，我會很樂意拿五個「還不錯的」工程師跟你換。 Practice articulating positions you disagree with faithfully and persuasively. Unless you can do this, you’re implicitly assuming that people who disagree with you are idiots. Smart people understand why smart people disagree. 練習如何有說服力的表達你不一樣意的觀點，若是你不這樣作，你就會在內心暗罵與你「道不一樣」的人是蠢貨一個。聰明人會明白爲何其餘聰明的人有時會不一樣意。 People keep asking for executive accountability when something goes wrong. When’s the last time you saw a line engineer take accountability – real, public accountability, the type that says, 「I screwed up. This needs to go on my review. I will make this right, or I will find another position」? 發生問題的時候，人們老是讓管理人擔當責任。你何時見過底下的工程師說過：「這是個人錯，應該寫在個人業績審查裏面。我會把它修好，或者辭職。」 The team you want to join is the one that’s hard to get into. 你最想加入的團隊就是最難進的團隊。 If it seems easy getting a bunch of great reviews, you’re probably working on the wrong team. 若是你很容易就可以獲得許多很好的評價，也許這說明你進入了錯誤的團隊。 Do you practice specific skills with repetition and intent? Athletes do drills. Musicians hone difficult passages. What do you do? 你還在堅持練習你的技術麼？運動員每天訓練，音樂家也會演練更難的曲章。你呢？ Mentees sometimes ask for the secret to my moderate career success. They’re disappointed when I tell them that it’s partially due to hard work. It sounds trite and preachy, like a public service announcement, like I’m commending myself for breaking a light sweat. As if they’d be more satisfied with an answer like, 「I clawed my way up to middle management through shameless brownnosing.」 My first year at Microsoft, I had a sleeping bag in my office and worked all the time. On weekends, I still write code to learn new technologies. I regularly read books about leadership, communication, management, and technology. Equally smart people fare differently in their careers partly based on the amount they’re willing to put in. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. 有些新員工會問我得到職業成功的祕訣。當我告訴他們答案是「努力工做」時，他們一般會很失望。這聽起來像陳腐的說教，還像是自詡。若是個人答案是「我之因此可以爬到中層管理崗位是由於我很善於給上級拍馬屁」，他們也許會更滿意。我來微軟的第一年就帶了個睡袋到辦公室，並且常常加班，週末的時候，我也是在寫代碼，學習新技術。我會看團隊管理和如何與人溝通的書籍。才智至關的人在職業生涯上會有不一樣的發展，主要是由於他們的付出有多有少。若是有人另有說法，那他多是想向你「兜售」點什麼。 Follow great people. Work for great people. 跟隨傑出的人，爲傑出的人工做。 Above all else: Integrity. You must be able to trust who you work with and for. Theodore Roosevelt once fired a rancher who stole some neighboring cattle and added them to Roosevelt’s herd. When asked about this by incredulous friends, Roosevelt simply replied, 「A man who steals for me will also steal from me.」 最重要的是：作人要誠信。你必須信任和你一塊兒工做的人。羅斯福有一次開除了他的牧場主，由於那位牧場主偷了鄰居的牛，而後把它們放到了羅斯福的牛羣中。當他的朋友詢問他爲何時，羅斯福回答 「爲我偷東西的人，也會從我這裏偷東西。」 A PM once remarked of a former Microsoft VP known for being ultra-aggressive in meetings: 「I’d rather have him pissing from my tent than into my tent.」 Everyone within earshot chuckled at this witty political insight. I’d actually rather not have anybody pissing on any tents, mine or otherwise. 一位PM 曾經評價過一位在會議上很具進攻性的副總裁，「我寧肯讓他從我這邊往別人那裏噴，而不是從別人那裏往我這裏噴。」聽到的全部人都笑了。我更但願誰也別噴誰。 Organizations which design systems … are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.–Conway’s Law (Melvin Conway) 康威定律（Conway’s Law）：「設計系統的組織，最終產生的設計等同於組織以內、之間的溝通結構。」 Don’t ship the org chart.–Steven Sinofsk 永遠不要發出組織的架構圖。－Steven Sinofsky（史蒂文·辛諾夫斯基，微軟Windows事業部主管） You can control outcomes with three types of approaches: a) People Control, where you decide who to hire, who to fire, and who to put in what positions; b) Action Control, where you tell people what to do; and c) Results Control, where you define the metrics of success. Know when to use which. 你能夠經過三種方法控制你的結果：1. 控制人，你能夠選擇僱傭誰，解僱誰，把什麼人放到什麼位置上；2. 行爲控制，你能夠告訴他們該作什麼；C. 結果控制，你告訴他們須要什麼樣的結果而度量標準是什麼。你要知道何時適合用什麼方法。 Isn’t it a neat feeling when you’re introduced to a coworker’s kids or spouse? For a moment, the bubble of work is burst. You imagine baseball games, music recitals, anniversary dinners. I remind myself of this when I get frustrated at people. 當你被介紹認識同事的孩子或者配偶時，這種感受是否是很好？在一瞬間，工做和生活之間的隔閡消失了，你會聯想到籃球，音樂會，慶祝晚宴等。當我對同事不滿意的時候，我就會用這些提醒本身。 I love watching exceptional people do what they’re good at. It amazes and inspires me. I once saw an alleyway chef in Shanghai turn a basketball-sized clump of dough into hand-pulled noodles for a table of eight, amid a blur of arm movements in under a minute. Ever watch speed stacking? We each have astonishing potential. 我喜歡看到有才能的人們作他們最擅長的事情，由於這可以很好的激勵我。我在上海的一個衚衕裏面看到一個大廚把一個籃球大小的麪糰用手拉成了8 我的吃的麪條，並且整個過程都在一分鐘內完成。咱們每人都具備驚人的潛能。 Amidst some LCA controversy around 「Dr. Who(m),」 a site I worked very hard on creating after hours, I arrived at my office to find a handmade two-foot-high Dalek. Someone had taken the time to print, cut, and tape together a mascot to support me. What inspires people to this sort of kindness? I still don’t know who did this for me – but if you’re reading this, thank you. 當我編寫的Dr. Who 網站（微軟內部查詢人的工具）受到了法律事務部的一些抗議時，有人把一個兩英尺高的「Dalek」（小編注：Dalek，中文名爲戴立克，是英國BBC著名科幻電視劇《Doctor Who》（神祕博士）中Doctor 最大的機器人生命體對頭。）塑像放在個人辦公室裏，表示支持。我如今還不知道這是誰作的，可是若是你在讀這封信，謝謝。 Spend time with people whether they’ll be 「useful」 to you someday or not. Respond to emails whether from a VP or from a campus hire. This advice will likely make you less 「efficient.」 But it’s good advice nevertheless. 花時間和其餘人在一塊兒，不管他們對你是否是「有用」。回覆全部人的郵件，不管他是副總裁仍是一名大學實習生。這條建議你可能認爲並非特別「有效」，但它倒是條好的建議。 We used to get Dove Bars and beers all the time. It felt like free food was on offer at least once a week, usually with a pretense of some small milestone to celebrate. Why did we cut stuff like this? (I know the boring fiscal reasons why. I’m asking the deeper why, as in, 「Was it worth the savings? Is Microsoft better now that we’ve cut these costs?」) 咱們之前常常會有免費的啤酒和吃的，基本每個產品的大小里程碑都會有一次慶祝。咱們爲何如今沒有了？（我知道財政上的緣由，但我想知道更深層次的緣由。省那點錢值得嗎？如今的微軟比從前更好了嗎？） One day, a sign appeared on a soda fridge in RedWest saying something to the effect of, 「Did you know that drinks cost Microsoft [ed: millions of dollars] a year? Sodas are your perk at work. Don’t bring them home.」 This depressed me on too many levels to enumerate, but I’ll toss out a few: 有一天， 一個標貼出如今微軟雷德蒙西區的冰箱上，它是這樣寫的：「你知道微軟每一年在飲料上要花費掉幾百萬美金嗎？飲料是公司的，請不要帶回家」。這使我很是鬱悶的緣由不少，簡單說幾個： 1.Someone had enough time to get these signs professionally printed and affixed to our fridges. 有人有足夠的時間去把這些標牌作得很專業而且貼到了冰箱上。 2.It was someone’s salaried, 40-hour-a-week job to do things like this. 有人在領每週40小時的工做薪水，居然有作這個事情的工做崗位。 3.Someone thought soda smuggling was a big enough 「problem」 at Microsoft to draw attention to it. 有人認爲帶走幾瓶飲料會是一個很大的問題，是值得微軟去注意的事情。 How much soda can a person steal? How much does that same person cost the company per hour in salary and benefits? Our most interesting profits will come from capitalizing on huge opportunities, not from micromanaging costs. I’m sure some finance person will lambast me for this, which would only further depress me. Believe in our upside. Focus on our upside. 一我的能帶走幾瓶飲料？一樣一我的每小時的薪水和福利是多少？咱們最大的盈利是來自於咱們的潛能最大化，而不是咱們的成本最小化。我相信，財務人員看到這段話會揍我，這隻會讓我更沮喪。相信咱們賺錢的能力，把注意力放在賺錢上面，而不是省錢。 Leadership is the art of getting people to want to do what you know must be done. This was told to me third hand; I’ve unfortunately lost the attribution. 帶領和管理的藝術是讓人們想去作你認爲必需要作的事情。這句話是我從別人那裏批發過來的，不幸的是，我不知道這是誰說的（小編注：聽說這句話是美國第34任總統艾森豪威爾說的）。 What have you enjoyed most in your time at Microsoft? What made that experience great? How can you do more of that? 你在微軟最開心的是何時？是什麼讓你這麼開心？你怎樣能夠作得更好？ What would you do if you hit the lottery? How can you do some of that right now? 若是中了彩票大獎，你會作什麼？當中有什麼是你如今就能動手作的呢？ Individuals are the sole cause of anything that’s ever happened. 全部發生的一切都是從我的開始的。