世界历史上最强大的公司（下）

Employee perks

Snowboard company Burton gives employees free season passes, London’s gaming company Mind Candy has Guitar Hero in the office and music streaming service Spotify has recording studios and live concerts on-site for its workers.

滑雪板公司Burton向员工提供免费季卡，伦敦游戏公司心灵糖果的办公室里有《吉他英雄》游戏，音乐播放器公司Spotify为其工作人员提供录音棚和现场音乐会。

As for the East India Company? Those who headed abroad on the Company’s behalf were allowed to conduct private trade for themselves outside of their Company dealings. They even got space on the Company ships to bring back the goods.

那么东印度公司呢？外派人员可以在公司生意之外自己干私活，他们甚至可以在公司船只上拉自己的货。

It might not sound as fun as a season pass – but it’s hard to overestimate just how important this perk was. As Anthony Farrington writes in his book Trading Places, by the mid-18th Century, this perk meant that a commander’s single good voyage to China “could set up a man for life.”

听起来没办季卡那么有趣，可这一福利的重要性难以低估。

PERK: （公司福利）an incidental benefit awarded for certain types of employment (especially if it is regarded as a right)

It will also allow users to download programs for offline viewing, a perkthat’s still rare among streaming services. (Time Magazine)

Like today’s perks, . The East India Company was incentivising workers to want to join, and stay at, the company — even while keeping its own salaries relatively low. 

和今天的福利一样，这一政策并不是一种简单的慷慨，东印度公司激励员工即便在工资不高的情况下加入公司并留在公司。

“They didn’t organise bonuses like we do today. But this was a bonus structure,” says Robins. “The company wanted to keep its cost base low and offer an incentive for its people to continue.”

“他们不像我们今天这样发奖金。但这也是一种奖金方案。公司想降低成本的同时激励员工。”

BONUS: （奖金）an additional payment (or other remuneration) to employees as a means of increasing output

It was good money: minimum wage, plus a retroactive bonus of 15 cents an hour if you never missed a day. (Wall Street Journal)

Another perk of working at the Company? The ample opportunities for insider trading. Officers in India with on-the-ground knowledge of the market would send orders back to Britain to buy or sell stocks – just ahead of the public finding out about whichever development had just happened. This, too, could be an extremely lucrative, if ethically spurious, side trade.

在公司上班的其他福利呢？内幕交易的机会多多。熟稔当地市场的印度官员可以在公众知道市场变化前买卖英国的股票，这其中的利润也相当丰厚，虽然道德上有点可疑。

SPURIOUS: （虚假的）Something false or inauthentic is spurious. Don't trust spurious ideas and stories.

Will’s attack on “a spurious majoritarian ethic,” of course, is another way of criticizing the workings of democracy. (Washington Post)

 Company card

Many City firms have taken flack for their sky-is-the-limit expense policy for entertaining clients. In the City of London, that approach has a long history. In the early 19th Century, some official East India Company dinners cost more than £300, equivalent to some £19,850 ($28,554) today, while the Chairman received another £2,000 per year (about £132,300) for entertaining.

许多伦敦公司因愿意花天价取悦员工而饱受责备，这由来已久。在19世纪初，东印度公司的饕餮者一顿饭吃300英镑，相当于今天大概19850磅，董事长每年另有2000磅娱乐费。

These expenses were cut down in 1834 — but even in 1867 the officer Sir John Kaye wrote that “no better dinners were ever given” than by the Company. 

1834年这类支出被砍掉，但在1867年，约翰-凯耶爵士写道，“没有比公司更棒的晚餐了”。

Abroad, the Company was similarly generous: a factory’s senior captain was traditionally given £500 per year (equivalent to some £33,080 today) in ‘table money’ for dinners and other sundry expenses.

在海外，公司也一样大方：通常一个工厂的高级主管每年有500英镑“餐费”，另有各种报销额度。

Gifts galore – and a code of ethics?

It didn’t end there. Factory workers overseas often received gifts of jewels or silks from merchants and others hoping to curry favour. Even the on-site chaplain took part. 

不止如此，海外工厂工人还会收到商人和其他谄媚者赠送的珠宝和丝绸，当地的教士也加入其中。

“Besides many private gifts from merchants and Masters of ships,” wrote Ovington, “he constantly receives noble large gratuities for officiating at Marriages, Baptisms and Burials.”

欧灵敦写道：“除了商人和船长的私人馈赠，他还主持婚礼、洗礼和葬礼，获得大量昂贵的谢礼。”

Of course, the company went through lots of changes throughout its history — and plenty of periods of mismanagement and corruption, followed by public uproar and attempts to crack down. As a result, in 1764, the Company banned the receipt of gifts above a certain value.

当然，公司一路走来也经历诸多变化，许多时期管理不善，腐败蔓延，后来还有公众骚乱和镇压努力。结果在1764年，公司禁止接受一定数额以上的礼物。

In the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, the East India Company’s clerks were some of Britain’s highest paid. And the longer you worked at the Company, the higher your salary rose. 

18世纪末到19世纪，东印度公司职员是英国薪水最高的，在公司工作越久，拿钱越多。

In 1815, a new clerk would start at £40 per year, but that would rise: an employee working for 11 to 15 years would earn £220 a year (£157,200); after 39 years of service, £600 a year (£428,800).

1815年，一个新职员起薪每年40英镑，但一个工作了11年到15年的雇员每年收入220英镑，工作39年后，每年600英镑。

By 1840, the real income of a company clerk was nearly 12 times more than that of a manual labourer.

截至1840年，公司职员的实际收入是普通工人的12倍还多。

Then there were the pensions, which after 1813 were paid out according to time served. A clerk who had been employed for 40 years could retire with three-quarters of his salary – at 50 years, full pay. 

此外还有养老金，1813年以后，养老金按照供职年限支付。工作40年的职员退休时可以拿到工资的四分之三，工作五十年就可以拿全部工资。

Those in the highest position – the 24 directors – received a relatively moderate salary by today’s standards of £300 to £500. 

按今天的标准看，24个董事的工资倒是不高，只有300到500英镑。

But with so many people trying to ingratiate themselves to the directors, the position itself also had cash value as a patronage: people would give both gifts and cash for the hope of a nomination or a trade deal. 

可因为许多人要讨好董事，这个职位本身就有寻租空间，人们希望获得举荐或做生意会送礼或给钱。

“Any attempt to obtain a monetary equivalent was strictly forbidden; but estimates ranged from about £5000 to £8000 per annum for each Director,” wrote William Foster in his book East India House – today’s £5 million to £8.5 million.

威廉-福斯特在《东印度宫》一书中写道：“任何要钱的努力都被严格禁止，但估计每个董事每年收入5000到8000英镑。”这相当于今天的500万到850万英镑。

That puts it on par with what today’s CEOs make: in the UK, .

这相当于今天CEO的薪水：在英国富时100公司的CEO们在2014年平均赚496万英镑。

Work-life balance

Netflix, Virgin Group, Twitter, GE and Glassdoor all have unlimited time off (though this ).

Netflix，维珍集团，推特、通用电气和Glassdoor都有不限时的休假时间，尽管这并不意味着员工可以随便休假。

Had they travelled back in time to the East India Company, those same workers wouldn’t have found quite the same treatment. Annual leave didn’t exist in the Company’s early years: a clerk’s time off, generally for something like a personal journey, needed to be approved by the Court of Directors. 

如果他们旅行回到东印度公司，这些工作人员会发现没有这种待遇。公司早年间没有年假，一个员工的休假更像个人旅行，这需要公司董事会批准。

In the earlier years of the Company, this was mitigated by the fact that there were more public holidays than today.

可公司早年间，公共假期却比现在多。

But in 1817, those were cut, leaving only Christmas Day. In response to complaints, the Committee then allowed set leave for employees – four days annually for those who had worked for 50 years, down to one day for those who worked for at least 18 years.

但1817年，这些假期被砍掉，只剩下圣诞节一天了。针对员工的抱怨，委员会开始允许员工休假，工作50年以上的人每年放四天假，工作18年以上的休息一天。

In the late 17th and early 18th Centuries, company clerks had to be in the headquarters from 7am to 8pm, with a two-hour lunch. They also worked on Saturdays.

17世纪末到18世纪初，公司职员早七点到晚八点在公司上班，中间有两小时午饭时间，周六也上班。

Job satisfaction

Only about half of US workers — as well as 43% of French and 34% of Germans — . A lack of job satisfaction is seen as a problem today; 200 years ago, it was pretty much a given.

只有一半的美国工人，43%的法国人和34%的德国人说他们热爱自己的工作。今天，对工作满意度不高被视为一个问题，可200年前，这是自然而然的事。

While some employees no doubt enjoyed their work and the opportunities it gave them, it could be extremely difficult — or mind-numbingly dull. For those who went abroad on the corporation’s behalf, a single sea voyage could take up to two years and about 5% ended in disaster.

的确有雇员喜欢这份工作，为有这样的机会感到荣幸，可工作本身是极端困苦或令人乏味的。对那些驻外的人而言，一次出海就是两年行程，约5%的人罹难。

For those who made it to shore safely, more dangers — mainly disease — awaited. In some years, writes Farrington, up to a third of overseas personnel died. Between storms, shipwrecks, pirating and disease, more than half of the Company’s employees posted to Asia died while in service.

那些顺利到岸的人会面临更多的危险，主要是疾病。法林顿写道，有些年头，三分之一的海外人员死去。由于风暴、沉船、海盗、疾病，过半驻在亚洲的公司雇员殉职。

Those who stayed at the London headquarters found that the work tended to be less than exciting. The clerks who worked for the corporation were called ‘writers’ because they were copying documents by hand, again and again. 

那些在总部工作的人也会发现工作没意思。给公司工作的职员被称为“writer”，因为他们一遍一遍的誊写文件。

Each dispatch — whether the minutes of a meeting or an account — would have to be copied up to five times.

每份文件，无论会议纪要还是账目，都要誊写五遍。

Then and now

From requiring bonds for good behaviour to its all-male workforce, there are significant ways in which the British East India Company differed from a modern multinational. 

除了保证金和一律男性的要求，英国东印度公司还在许多重要方面与当代的跨国公司不同。

Its ability to exploit global markets using not only economic and political, but military force marks the corporation irrevocably as a product of its time.

其开拓全球市场的能力不仅是经济和政治的，还有军事力量，这让公司成为时代的产物而无法复制。

But whether enjoying a swanky headquarters, taking on unpaid internships or dreaming of retirement, 21st-Century employees have more in common with 18th- or 19th-Century office workers than they might think.

可无论拥有华丽的总部，无薪实习生，还是退休梦，21世纪的雇员和18、19世纪的员工都比他们想象的更相似。