TEXT 86
Banks and avian flu银行与禽流感
The drawbacks of homework
在家办公问题多（陈继龙 编译）
Nov 30th 2006 | LONDON AND NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition
Working from home may not be the answer to a flu pandemic
在家办公也许并不是应对禽流感大流行的上策。
NOT much is known about how the financial world would cope with an outbreak of avian flu. （1）But two things are clear: it is a terrifying prospect and the response would be different from that to other potential disasters, such as a terrorist attack. In recent years, terrorism in New York and London has caused sharp, but short-lived, shocks to the financial system. But a flu pandemic, in the words of one financial regulator, would be more like a neutron bomb: “The buildings would be left standing with no one left in them.” It would last longer, come in waves, and people would instinctively shun each other to avoid the spread of the virus.
金融界会如何应对禽流感暴发，人们并不十分清楚。但有两点是明确的：一是前景很可怕，二是人们的反应会不同于对恐怖分子袭击之类有可能发生的其它灾难。近几年纽约和伦敦发生的恐怖事件已经对金融系统造成了强烈而又短暂的冲击。不过，一位金融监管人士认为禽流感大流行更像是一颗中子弹：“那些建筑物将人去楼空。”它会持续更久，一波接一波地发生，而且为防止病毒蔓延人们将本能地相互躲避。
For that reason, many banks have assumed that in the event of a person-to-person pandemic, high absentee rates would mean important jobs would have to be done from home. （2）Since fears of a death toll in the millions surfaced last year, they have made contingency[1] plans along those lines to ensure the payments system keeps going and stockmarkets stay open.
故而许多银行认为，万一发生人间禽流感大流行，随之而来的高缺勤率就将意味着重要工作只能在家里完成了。早在去年各家银行就由于禽流感大流行可能造成数以百万计的人死亡而感到忧心忡忡。因此，为了确保届时付款系统还照常运转，股市不会关门大吉，他们早就纷纷依葫芦画瓢制定好了紧急应对方案。
Lehman Brothers, for example, has tested new techniques in the homes of some of its American traders and installed hotlines so that dealers can talk to each other. There are plans to produce a Wall Street-wide directory to keep traders in touch from home. Regulators have sought to ensure that traders operating from home do not break the law.
譬如，莱曼兄弟（证券）公司就已在其部分美国交易员家中测试了新技术，并安装了热线电话以便交易员相互通话。有的公司还计划编写一本华尔街通讯录，让各交易员在家中相互保持联络。为了保证交易员在家中办公不属于违法行为，金融监管部门也已做了努力。
（3）In short, home-working has been seen as one of the best ways for financial institutions (and other industries) to mitigate[2] the appalling consequences of a pandemic. According to George Hender of the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council, which helps American banks plan for disasters, “99% of the business interruption plans [of the financial industry] are based on telecommuting.”
简而言之，金融机构（及其它产业）已经将在家办公看成是减轻禽流感大流行可怕后果的最佳方法之一。金融事业部协调委员会（帮助美国银行制定灾难应对方案的机构）的乔治•亨德尔认为：“金融业的业务中断方案有99％是基于远程办公制定的。”
Not for much longer, perhaps. （4）In the six weeks up to November 24th, 70 finance firms in Britain simulated a five-month-long flu pandemic which at its peak meant almost half the workforce was absent. Led by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), it aimed to test how the financial sector would cope with a drawn-out emergency.
也许用不了多长时间。在11月24日之前的6周里，英国70家金融公司进行了一场应对禽流感大流行的模拟演练。这场“禽流感大流行”长达五个月，高峰期时导致近半数的工作人员缺勤。模拟演练由金融服务局（FSA）牵头，旨在检验金融部门如何应对一场旷日持久的突发事件。
The FSA was impressed at how well the system worked. But one of the main (preliminary) findings is that home-working is not the “get-out-of-jail free” card some had hoped for. “It's easier said than done,” concludes John Milne, head of Business Continuity Management at the FSA. （5）Banks, he claims, were not confident enough about their ability to police compliance and controls to let trading be undertaken from home for a long period (partly because so many of the banks' compliance staff would also be absent). Some people (to their surprise) missed their IT help desks when out of the office. Homes lacked back-up power generators. Long periods of home-working even caused backache, it was discovered. So banks chose to keep a skeleton staff in the office instead. Trading volumes “conflated[3]”, says Mr Milne, but markets remained open.
金融系统的顺畅运转给FSA留下了深刻印象，但最终FSA给出的一个主要（也是初步）的结论却是：在家办公并不像有些人早先期望的那样可以从此远离牢狱般的办公室了。FSA业务连续性管理负责人约翰•米尔恩断定：“在家办公说起来容易做起来难。”他认为，银行对自己监督员工遵守规定的能力信心不足，并且担心长期在家中办公会导致交易失控（部分是因为这些银行许多遵章守纪的员工也会缺勤）。有些人（让他们感到吃惊的是）离开办公室后怀念起了他们的IT帮助台。家里也没有备用的发电机。有人还发现，长期在家中办公甚至会引起背痛。于是银行决定在办公室保留一批“得力干将”。米尔恩说，交易量“合二为一”了，但市场还是那个市场。
A real pandemic, of course, would throw up[4] a host of other problems. How do you encourage key staff to come to work if panic breaks out? Do the chosen few receive antivirals? How do staff travel to work? Who provides food and cleaning? How do parents look after children kept home from school? And what happens if other utilities, such as phone lines and electricity, stop working?
当然，真正的禽流感大流行还会引发一大堆其它问题。一旦造成恐慌，你如何鼓励你的“得力干将”去上班呢？被选中的那几个人要不要服用抗病毒药呢？他们怎么前往公司？谁给他们送吃的、帮他们打扫卫生？他们中身为父母的人怎么照看呆在家中不去上学的孩子？还有，假如像电话线路、供电之类的其它公用服务发生故障，又该如何？
（6）All of which suggests exercises such as this one are useful for keeping people focused on the problem. But no one should believe that they tell the whole story.
如此种种均表明，这类演练的用途无非是让人们始终对禽流感问题保持关注，千万不要以为实际情况会像模拟演练那般简单。
[QUIZ]
英译汉（将划线部分英文翻译成中文）：
[NOTES](OXFORD)
1. contingency n. event that may or may not occur; event that happens by chance 可能发生也可能不发生的事件; 偶发事件: Be prepared for all possible contingencies, ie for whatever may happen. 要准备应付一切可能发生的事件. * [attrib 作定语] contingency plans/arrangements 应变计划[安排].
2. mitigate v. make (sth) less severe, violent or painful; moderate 使（某事物）减轻, 和缓; 节制: mitigate sb's suffering, anger, anxiety, etc 使某人少受苦、息怒、稍安等 * mitigate the severity of a punishment, sentence, etc 减轻惩罚、刑期等 * mitigate the effects of inflation, eg by making credit easily obtainable 和缓通货膨胀的影响.
3. conflate v. v [Tn usu passive 通常用于被动语态] combine (two sets of information, texts, etc) into one 将（两种资料、文本等）合而为一; 混合: The results of the two experiments were conflated. 这两项实验的结果合并在一起了. * Can these two definitions be conflated, or must they be kept separate? 这两个定义可以合成一个呢, 还是必须分开?
4. throw up to produce problems, ideas, results etc引发问题，产生念头 --The arrangement may throw up problems in other areas.
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