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Bartleby
巴托比专栏
Corporate uniforms
公司制服
A quarter of the American workforce wears one. Why?
四分之一的美国工作者需要穿制服，为什么？
If you work in a white-collar job in an office and make your way there this week, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to guess exactly what you do from your clothes.
如果你在办公室做白领工作，并在本周前往办公室，那么不太可能有人能够从你的衣着猜到你做什么工作。
That is not true for lots of the people you will interact with.
对于将与你发生互动的许多人来说，情况并非如此。
The bus driver who gets you to your destination, the barista who makes your coffee and the people on reception who wish you “good morning” as you enter the building—they, and many others, are likely to be wearing some kind of corporate uniform.
送你到目的地的公交车司机、为你煮咖啡的咖啡师，以及当你走进大楼时向你问好的前台，他们和其他许多人很可能都穿着某种公司制服。
A poll of American workers conducted last summer by Gallup found that although most employees wear casual clothes—some smart, some really not—almost a quarter donned a uniform.
盖洛普去年夏天对美国工作者进行的一项民意调查发现，虽然大多数员工穿着休闲服--有些人穿得很时髦，有些很不时髦--但近四分之一的人会穿制服。
For employers who require them, there are several arguments in favour of uniforms.
对于要求穿制服的雇主来说，有几个理由支持穿制服。
They help ensure a level of professionalism in appearance.
制服有助于确保外表上的专业性。
They project a brand identity, from the red coats of Virgin Atlantic crew to the “Browns” uniform of UPS delivery drivers.
制服展示了一种品牌身份，从维珍航空机组人员的红色外套到UPS快递送货司机的棕色制服都是如此。
They may have useful job-specific features: chefs’ jackets are double-breasted to protect against burns and can be reversed to hide stains.
制服可能有特定工作用途：厨师服是双排扣的，可以防止烫伤，还可以翻过来掩盖污渍。
They send a clear signal to customers about whom they should approach with questions, avoiding those awkward “do you work here?” moments.
制服向顾客发出了明确的信号，告诉他们应该向谁提问，避免人们尴尬地去问“你在这里工作吗？”。
Those customers draw different conclusions if staff are in uniform, for good and bad.
如果员工穿着制服，这些客户还会得出不同的结论，这有好处也有坏处。
A study by Robert Smith of Tilburg University and his colleagues asked people to imagine being on the receiving end of poor service when picking up a pizza.
蒂尔堡大学的罗伯特·史密斯及其同事进行了一项研究，要求人们想象自己在拿披萨时受到了糟糕的服务。
They were then shown pictures of uniformed or non-uniformed employees; the person who had notionally treated them badly was circled.
然后研究者向他们展示了穿制服或不穿制服的员工的照片，想象中对他们服务不周的员工被圈了起来。
Participants were more likely to blame the company than the individual or the circumstances for a bad experience when a uniform was involved.
当有制服时，参与者更有可能将糟糕的体验归咎于公司，而不是员工个人或环境。
If corporate clothing makes each worker seem more representative of their employers, the authors suggest that it may be a good idea not to give it to inexperienced workers.
如果公司服装让每个员工都看起来更能代表他们的雇主，那么作者建议，最好不要让没有经验的员工穿公司制服。
Uniforms can also affect the psychology of employees.
制服也会影响员工的心理。
In 2012 Hajo Adam, now of the University of Bath, and Adam Galinsky, now of Columbia Business School, coined the term “enclothed cognition” to describe the effect that specific clothes have on the way that people think and feel.
2012年，现供职于巴斯大学的哈乔·亚当和现供职于哥伦比亚商学院的亚当·加林斯基创造了“着装认知”一词，用来描述特定服装会影响人们的思维和感觉方式的现象。
Questions have been raised over the validity of enclothed cognition, but a new meta-analysis by Messrs Adam and Galinsky, along with Carl Blaine Horton of Columbia Business School, concludes that the phenomenon is real.
人们对着装认知的真实性提出了质疑，但亚当和加林斯基与哥伦比亚商学院的卡尔·布莱恩·霍顿进行的一项新的元分析得出结论，这种现象是真实存在的。
In one study Guillaume Pech of Universite Libre de Bruxelles and Emilie Caspar of Ghent University gave participants the option to administer electric shocks to other people in return for money; those dressed up in Red Cross uniforms showed more empathy than those in normal outfits.
在一项研究中，布鲁塞尔自由大学的纪尧姆·佩赫和根特大学的艾米丽·卡斯帕让参与者可以选择对其他人实施电击以换取金钱，那些穿红十字会制服的人比那些穿普通服装的人表现出更多的同理心。
Xuehua Wang of Asia Europe Business School and her co-authors found that formal clothes made people more likely to make healthy eating choices.
亚欧商学院的王雪华及其合著者发现，正式的服装让人们更有可能做出健康的饮食选择。
According to a paper by Saaid Mendoza of Providence College and Elizabeth Parks-Stamm of University of Southern Maine, people who wore a police uniform during a video-game simulation designed to test reaction times were more likely than those in their own clothes to shoot unarmed targets.
根据普罗维登斯学院的萨伊德·门多萨和南缅因州大学的伊丽莎白·帕克斯-斯塔姆的一篇论文，在一个用于测试反应时间的视频游戏模拟中，穿着警察制服的人比那些穿自己衣服的人更有可能射击未带武器的目标。
Clothes maketh the bang.
衣服能让人开枪。（注：化用莎士比亚的句子Clothes maketh the man，原句指穿的衣服会影响别人对你的看法，这里的bang表示开枪的声音。）
The effects that uniforms have on workers will obviously vary.
制服对工作者的影响显然会有所不同。
A uniform that confers a sense of professional identity—a doctor’s white coat, say—is likely to be more motivating than one that does not.
能给人职业认同感的制服--比如医生的白大褂--可能比不能给人以职业认同感的制服更具激励作用。
People will be happier to be a corporate billboard if they feel pride in their employer.
如果人们为自己的雇主感到自豪，他们就会更乐意成为公司的人型广告牌。
Some work clothing looks good and some of it is a paean to polyester: you do not so much represent a brand as a fire hazard.
有些工作服看起来不错，有些工作服只是对聚酯纤维的赞歌：与其说你代表了一个品牌，不如说你代表了一个火灾隐患。
Some uniforms are comfortable and some are not, with women usually getting the worst of it.
有些制服很舒服，有些则不舒服，女性穿的制服通常是最不舒服的。
Only in 2023 were female police officers in Britain issued with body armour made to suit their anatomy.
直到2023年，英国才给女性警察分发适合女性身体结构的防弹衣。
The obvious objection to uniforms, at least from people who do not wear them, is that they suppress individuality and autonomy.
对制服的明显反对理由，至少是那些不穿制服的人的反对意见，是制服压抑了个性和自主性。
But employees who do not have to wear a formal uniform often gravitate towards a costume anyway.
但那些不是必须穿正式制服的员工，无论怎样都还是会倾向于穿某种工作服。
Some coders seem to be under an unspoken obligation to wear T-shirts.
一些程序员似乎有一种不成文的义务，那就是穿T恤。
The combination of shirt, trousers and Patagonia gilet is known as the “midtown uniform” for finance types in New York.
衬衣、长裤和巴塔哥尼亚牌的厚马甲搭配被称为纽约金融人的“市中心制服”。
Executives wear cultlike corporate lapel pins.
高管们像入了邪教一样在西装翻领上别着公司徽章胸针。
Celebrity bosses build brands by wearing the same outfit day after day.
有名的老板们通过日复一日地穿着相同的衣服来打造自己的品牌。
You may not be required to don a uniform when you head off to work.
你去上班时，可能没有被要求穿制服。
You may nonetheless be wearing one.
尽管如此，你可能仍然穿着一件制服。
