The World Ahead 2024
世界展望2024
The fight over remote working will heat up in 2024
远程工作之争将在2024年升温
And reality will set in for landlords
现实将摆在房东面前
When COVID-19 forced office workers to toil from their spare rooms and kitchen tables, it triggered the biggest shift in professional life for decades. And, as with any big shift, the consequences are still working their way through corporate hierarchies and the financial system. In 2024 reality will start to set in, for workers, bosses and landlords.
新冠肺炎迫使办公室员工在自家的空房间和厨房餐桌上辛勤工作，引发了职场生活几十年来最大的转变。而且，和任何重大转变一样，其影响仍在通过公司等级制度和财务体系慢慢渗透。在2024年，对于员工、老板，还有房东来说，谜底将开始揭开。
- toil 表示“苦工、劳累的工作”，强调工作时间长而使人疲劳（参见：小词详解 | toil）
Managers and their employees do not quite see eye to eye on the vexed question of where work should be done. According to a survey by WFH Research, a group of academics, full-time workers with at least a secondary education in America, Britain and Canada work, on average, a day and a half a week from home. And, on average, they want to double their time doing so. Employers, however, have different ideas. Everyone from Goldman Sachs, a Wall Street giant, to Zoom, of video-calling fame, is asking its reluctant workers to show up to the office more often.
在应该在哪里完成工作这个棘手的问题上，管理者和员工的看法并不很一致。学者研究团队WFH Research的一项调查显示，美国、英国和加拿大至少受过中学教育的全职工作者平均每周在家工作一天半。平均而言，他们希望把这一时长增加一倍。雇主们却有不同的想法。从华尔街巨头高盛到视频通话巨子Zoom，各行各业的公司都在要求它们不情不愿的员工更频繁地出现在办公室里。
- vex 使恼火、烦恼、忧虑（参见：小词详解 | vex）
- fame 名声、声誉、名气（参见：小词详解 | fame）
- reluctant 不情愿的、勉强的
