SUICIDE, proclaimed Albert Camus in "The Myth of Sisyphus", is the only serious philosophical problem. In France at the moment it is also a serious management problem. A spate of attempted and successful suicides at France Telecom-many of them explicitly prompted by troubles at work-has sparked a national debate about life in the modern corporation. One man stabbed himself in the middle of a meeting （he survived）. A woman leapt from a fourth-floor office window after sending a suicidal e-mail to her father: "I have decided to kill myself tonight…I can't take the new reorganisation." In all, 24 of the firm's employees have taken their own lives since early 2008-and this grisly tally follows similar episodes at other pillars of French industry including Renault, Peugeot and EDF （see article）.

There are some parochial reasons for this melancholy trend. France Telecom is making the difficult transition from state monopoly to multinational company. It has shed 22,000 jobs since 2006, but two-thirds of the remaining workers enjoy civil-service-like job-security. This is forcing it to pursue a toxic strategy: teaching old civil servants new tricks while at the same time putting new hires on short-term contracts. Yet the problem is not confined to France. America's Bureau of Labour Statistics calculates that work-related suicides increased by 28% between 2007 and 2008, although the rate is lower than in Europe. And suicide is only the tip of an iceberg of work-related unhappiness.

A survey by the Centre for Work-Life Policy, an American consultancy, found that between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of employees who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%; the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% to 22%. A more recent survey by DDI, another American consultancy, found that more than half of respondents described their job as "stagnant", meaning that they had nothing interesting to do and little hope of promotion. Half of these "stagnators" planned to look for another job as soon as the economy improved. People are both clinging on to their current jobs, however much they dislike them, and dreaming of moving when the economy improves. This is taking a toll on both short-term productivity and long-term competitiveness: the people most likely to move when things look up are high-flyers who feel that their talents are being ignored.

The most obvious reason for the rise in unhappiness is the recession, which is destroying jobs at a startling rate and spreading anxiety throughout the workforce. But the recession is also highlighting longer-term problems. Unhappiness seems to be particularly common in car companies, which suffer from global overcapacity, and telecoms companies, which are being buffeted by a technological revolution. In a survey of its workers in 2008, France Telecom found that two-thirds of them reported being "stressed out" and a sixth reported being in "distress".

A second source of misery is the drive to improve productivity, which is typically accompanied by an obsession with measuring performance. Giant retailers use "workforce management" software to monitor how many seconds it takes to scan the goods in a grocery cart, and then reward the most diligent workers with prime working hours. The public sector, particularly in Britain, is awash with inspectorates and performance targets. Taylorism, which Charlie Chaplin lampooned so memorably in "Modern Times", has spread from the industrial to the post-industrial economy. In Japan some firms even monitor whether their employees smile frequently enough at customers.

A more subtle problem lies in the mixed messages that companies send about loyalty and commitment. Many firms-particularly successful ones-demand extraordinary dedication from their employees. （Microsoft, according to an old joke, offers flexitime: "You can work any 18-hour shift that you want."） Some provide perks that are intended to make the office feel like a second home. But companies also reserve the right to trim their workforce at the first sign of trouble. Most employees understand that their firms do not feel much responsibility to protect jobs. But they nevertheless find it wrenching to leave a post that has consumed so much of their lives.

Engineering joy

Can anything be done about this epidemic of unhappiness? There are some people, particularly in Europe, who think that it strengthens the case for expanding workers' rights. But doing so will not end the upheaval wrought by technological innovation in the telecoms sector or overcapacity in the car industry. And the situation in France Telecom was exacerbated by the fact that so many workers were unsackable. The solution to the problem, in so far as there is one, lies in the hands of managers and workers rather than governments.

Companies need to do more than pay lip service to the human side of management. They also need to learn from the well-documented mistakes of others （France Telecom has belatedly hired Technologia, a consultancy which helped Renault with its suicide problem）. Bob Sutton of Stanford University argues that companies need to do as much as possible to come clean with workers, even if that means confirming bad news. He also warns that bosses need to be careful about the signals they send: in times of great stress ill thought-out turns of phrase can lead to a frenzy of anxiety and speculation.

As for the workers, the habit of battening down the hatches, which so irritates many companies, may be a sensible response to economic turmoil. In the longer term workers can take comfort from the fact that history may be on their side: in the rich world, low birth rates, an impending surge in retirements and caps on immigration could reduce the number of people of working age by 20-40%. Today's unhappy workers may one day be able to exercise the ultimate revenge, by taking their services elsewhere.

法国哲学家阿尔贝。加缪在他的着作《西西弗的神话》中说到，自杀是唯一严肃的哲学问题。对现时的法国来说，这也是一个严重的管理难题。法国电信内大量自杀未遂及成功自杀的员工，在全国范围内激起了有关现代公司内员工生命问题的争论，而这些自杀行为，很多是因为在工作中遇到困难所致。一个男人在会议进行到一半时刺伤了自己（后幸存）,一位女士给自己的父亲发送了一封有自杀倾向的邮件，说了"我已决定今晚自杀…我承受不了新的重组"之云后，从四楼办公室的窗户上跳下。自2008年初至今，法国电信总计已有24名公司雇员自杀身亡。并且这种恐怖的自杀数字也类似的出现在法国其他支柱产业内，包括雷诺，标致以及EDF.

造成这种令人悲哀的趋势的原因有一些特定因素。法国电信正艰难地从国家垄断企业向跨国公司转型。2006年以来，该公司已裁员两万两千人，但是三分之二的保留工人仍像公务员一样拥有铁饭碗。这迫使其寻求严苛的策略：培训老员工新技能，同时招募签订短期合同的新人。然而，这种问题不仅存在于法国。据美国劳工局统计，2007年至2008年之间，与工作有关的自杀事件增长了28%,尽管该比率略低于欧洲。而自杀也只是工作不开心表现中的冰山一角。

美国的一家咨询公司，"工作-生活政策中心"的一项调查发现，2007年6月至 2008年12月之间，尽忠于雇主的雇员比例从95%下降到了39%;信任雇主的比例也从79%降到了22%.美国DDI咨询公司的最新调查发现，有一半以上的受访者形容自己的工作"停滞不前",这意味着他们的工作非常无聊，升职无望。这些"停滞者"中，有一半人计划一旦经济复苏就去寻找另一份工作。不管有多讨厌现在的工作，人们还是得继续坚持，并期盼经济好转可以换份工作。这种现象对短期生产力和长期的竞争力都敲响了警钟：等到经济好转之时，最可能跳槽的是认为才能被埋没的心高志远之士。

对工作的不满情绪增长的最明显的原因是经济衰退，其正以惊人的速度使更多人失业，人人自危。但是经济衰退也突出了长期问题。这种不愉快似乎在遭受全球产能过剩的汽车公司，以及正受技术革新打击的电信公司尤为普遍。法国电信2008年在对其员工的调查中发现三分之二的人认为压力过大，六分之一的人处于长期焦虑中。

痛苦的第二个来源是企业努力提高生产力，而这一过程注定伴随着对员工工作表现的评测。大零售商采用"工作管理"软件来监督员工扫描购物车内的货物需要多少秒，然后奖励最勤奋，工作时间最长的工人。在公共部门，尤其在英国，都设置岗位检查员并设定业绩目标。查理。卓别林在电影"摩登时代"中对泰勒主义的讽刺令人印象深刻，而泰勒主义现在已从工业经济弥散到了后工业经济。在日本，有些公司甚至对员工是否足够频繁的向顾客微笑监督。

一个更敏感的问题在于公司传达的有关忠诚与奉献结合的信息。许多公司，尤其是一些比较成功的公司，要求员工有特别的奉献。（有个关于微软的老笑话谈到了微软所提供的弹性工作制度："你可以根据自己的意愿任意选择一天中的18个小时工作"）.一些公司会使办公室感觉起来像第二个家。但是公司同样保留一旦麻烦出现就削减劳动力的权利。大多数员工理解公司不愿意承担太多责任保护工作。但尽管如此，离开为之耗费大量精力心血的工作职位时，他们仍然十分痛苦。

Engineering joy 快乐工程

对于这种忧愁的流行，我们能做些什么吗？有些人，尤其在欧洲，认为正因为这种盛行的对工作的不满，更强化了扩大工利的原因。但这样做对于电信部门的技术革新或汽车行业的产能过剩所带来的剧变也于事无补。并且法国电信的局势由于不能解雇如此多的员工而恶化。对该问题目前为止唯一的解决方法，在于管理者与工人而不是政府。

公司需要对人员管理做出更多努力而不是空口承诺。也要从他人所犯的清清楚楚的错误中得到教训（法国电信已经迟雇了 Technologia咨询公司，这家公司曾帮助雷诺解决自杀问题）.斯坦福大学的鲍勃。萨顿说公司要尽可能的对工人坦诚，即使意味着确认坏消息。他还警示老板们要小心自己对工人所传达的信号：未加思索的/脱口而出的一些话可能导致焦虑和怀疑肆虐。

工人们未雨绸缪的习惯，让很多公司都很恼怒，但这或许对经济动荡来说的是一个明智选择吧。在较长时期内，工人可以从各种历史事件中得到一些安慰：在发达国家，低人口出生率，迫近的退休浪潮以及移民限制会减少达到工作年龄人数20%-40%.今天有不满情绪的工人某天可能以跳槽的方式实行最终的报复。