每个人都在谈论新冠疫情过后如何重启社会和职业，一位飞行员重启战斗机的经历能为我们提供一些经验教训。
Photo credit: FTChinese
全文共657个词，by David Bodanis
Everyone’s talking about how to reset society and careers after the coronavirus, but what takes place when people use actual reset buttons?
每个人都在谈论新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19，即2019冠状病毒病）疫情过后如何进行社会和职业的重置，但是当人们使用真正的重置按钮时会发生什么呢？
For pilots it can be terrifying. One Royal Air Force friend described being in his fighter, over a hostile country at night, when something started going wrong with his electrical systems. One fix after another didn’t work, so the only thing left was a sudden restart.
对飞行员来说，这可能很可怕。一位英国皇家空军(Royal Air Force)的朋友阐述，有一次他在夜间驾驶战斗机飞越一个敌对国家，电气系统开始出现问题。一个接一个的修复都不起作用，唯一能做的就是突然重启。
In this case there’s no actual button for it — that’s reserved for armaments or seat ejection — but he carried it out through a quick sequence of finger-swiped instructions. There was a final flicker on the screens.
在这种情况下，并没有一个实际的按钮——那是为武器或座椅弹射而保留的——但是他通过一系列快速的手势指令实施了重启。屏幕最后闪烁了一下。
And then darkness.
然后黑暗降临。
It was scary, and lonely, but finally all the screens lit back up: whatever had tangled up their workings was now smoothed out.
这很可怕，也很孤独，但最终所有的屏幕都重新亮了起来：无论是什么故障在扰乱它们的工作，这些故障现在都被解除了。
Photo credit: Getty Images
Pilots don’t use restarts like that very often, but when there’s absolutely no alternative, the methods they use to make it work are instructive for the rest of us.
飞行员不会经常那样重启，但是当彻底别无选择时，他们恢复工作的方法对我们其他人是有启发的。
Their first lesson is not to rush, but take the time to properly disengage. Almost every system is connected to some others. Just as it’s not wise to change into an incorrect gear in a moving car, few restarts work well if begun too abruptly. Files won’t be saved properly; programs that remain running need to be prepared as well.
他们的第一个教训是不要着急，而是花时间适当地脱离。几乎每个系统都与其他系统相连。就像在汽车行驶过程中换一个不正确的档位并不明智，如果重启太突然，重启很少能够顺利发挥作用。文件无法正确保存；那些保持运行的程序也需要做好相应的准备工作。
In commercial jets, pilots are taught to discuss this with each other, for few emergencies demand as immediate a response as imagined. Making sure that what they do is set up properly is worth the wait. In fighter planes, it’s radio consultations with colleagues on the ground that can take that role.
在商用飞机上，飞行员被教导要与他人相互讨论这个问题，因为很少有紧急情况像人们想象的那样需要立即做出反应。等待一段时间，以确保他们采取的行动是正确设置是值得的。在战斗机上，用无线电向地面的同僚咨询可以起到这个作用。
The analogies are apparent. Switch careers without your friends or family being in accord, and every part of these “systems” you’d been part of will be pulling against you.
以下的类比显而易见。在你的朋友或家人不认同的情况下转换职业，你曾经身处其中的“系统”的每一部分都会劝阻你。
Photo credit: Getty Images
Next is to understand limbo. Usually the simplest mechanism for getting wheels down on an aircraft, for example, is to use the plane’s hydraulics. But that won’t work if you’ve had to turn off the hydraulics for a restart. This is why trainee pilots are reminded that if they’re going to need the wheels, they must think ahead and lower them before the restart. The analogy would be a company realising that if there’s going to be less income during a restart, it’s sensible to first build up cash reserves.
接下来是了解即将到来的不确定状态。例如，通常最简单的放下飞机轮子的机制是使用飞机的液压系统。但如果你不得不关闭液压系统以重启，那这种机制就没用了。这就是为什么实习飞行员会被提醒，如果他们之后需要轮子，他们必须提前考虑，并在重启前就放下轮子。类似的情况是，一家公司意识到，如果在重启期间收入会减少，那么先建立现金储备是明智的。
Waiting out limbo periods is hard. Yet if a pilot keeps nervously commanding further restarts — like someone anxiously stabbing a lift button — systems keep being sent back to the start, and never build up the fixes in time. For fighter jet pilots there are often ground crew members to help; for those of us outside cockpits, our networks of friends might provide that support.
等待不确定期过去很难。然而，如果飞行员一直紧张地下达进一步重启的指令——就像有人焦急地一直按电梯按钮一样——系统就会不断地被送回起点，永远无法及时修复。战斗机飞行员通常有地勤人员帮助；而对于我们这些驾驶舱外的人来说，我们的朋友圈子可能会提供这种支持。
Photo credit: Getty Images
The third lesson is about acceleration. When you restart a physical system, that’s likely to mean some chunk of metal — a turbine blade; a heavy industrial pump — which had been brought to a stationary or nearly stationary position, is now about to be forced back up to speed, and quickly.
第三个教训与加速度有关。当你重启一个实体系统时，那可能意味着一些已经在命令下静止或者几乎处于静止状态的金属块——一片涡轮叶片、一台重型工业用泵——现在即将被迫快速恢复速度。
That acceleration produces tremendous stress. Hearing an engine with 27,000 pounds of thrust suddenly reignite behind you is apparently an experience not easily forgotten. Keeping the metal parts well oiled helps, for then you only have to fight inertia, not friction.
这种加速会产生巨大的压力。听到一台2.7万磅推力的发动机突然在你身后点火重启，显然是一种难忘的经历。让金属零件保持良好的润滑有帮助，因为那时你只需要对抗惯性，而不是摩擦。
In business or government, having different units get practice in recovering from sudden shocks can match that. (Getting enough rest ahead of time, avoiding “personal” fatigue, wouldn’t hurt either.)
在企业或政府中，让不同的部门练习从突然的冲击中恢复可能与此类似（提前让人们得到足够的休息，避免“个人”疲劳，也不会有什么坏处）。
Finally there’s the technique of spot-testing, which is used very widely. Novice refinery managers are liable to try restarting everything at once. But then when a problem arises again, how can they tell which part of their system was at fault? On construction sites that’s why pressurised water systems are tested one small section at a time.
最后是被广泛使用的现场测试技术。炼油厂的新手经理总想尝试立刻重启一切。但是，当问题再次出现时，他们怎么知道系统的哪一部分出了问题？这就是为什么，在建筑工地，增压水系统一次只测试一小部分。
In emergencies on a jet, skilled pilots will sometimes be able to choose systems to turn off that can help identify where the fault lies.
在飞机上遇到紧急情况时，熟练的飞行员有时能够选择关闭有助于识别故障所在的系统。
Photo credit: Getty Images
That sort of diagnostic gets harder in big organisations, for managers will go through immense contortions to show that their division is never the one at fault. It’s worth pushing past that, however, for — as we’ve seen with responses to the coronavirus — governments that are willing to prototype their plans in small areas and modify them as needed do best; populist governments where the leader can never be wrong do not.
这种诊断在大型组织中会变得更加困难，因为各个部门的经理都将费尽周折地表明，他们所在的那个部门根本就不是问题所在。然而，这是值得大力推动的，因为正如我们在各方对新冠疫情的应对中看到的那样，愿意在小范围内进行试点并根据需要修改方案的政府做得最好；那种秉承“领导人永远不会犯错”的民粹主义政府则不然。
Through this all, there’s a great danger to watch out for. Restart buttons are machines for going a short distance back in time. Yet we often dream of going much further and being able to avoid a wrong career choice.
在所有这些教训以外，我们还需要警惕一个巨大的危险。重启按钮是回到过去一小段时间的机器。然而，我们经常梦想能回到更往前的地方，能够避免一个错误的职业选择。
This is very far from our simple restarts, where only the very latest entanglements or errors are cleared away. Instead, in a fantasised hard reset, you’re trying for a huge jump, absolutely as far back as you can.
这与简单的重启相去甚远，在重启中，只有最新的故障或错误会被清除。而在你幻想的硬重置中，你试图进行一次巨大的跳跃，绝对是尽可能的回到更久远的过去。
The problem is that if you go back all the way to the original “factory installation” everything you’ve learned and developed since then is gone. And in that case, who’s to say the same problems won’t arise again?
问题是，如果你一路回到最初的“出厂设置”，你从那以后学到和发展出的一切都将不复存在。在这种情况下，谁能说同样的问题不会再次出现？
That applies especially strongly to society-wide resets, for there your opponents are liable to be eagerly pushing for their goals. That’s why regulations to fix auditing companies so regularly fail. The forces leading to cosy arrangements with clients never go away. It’s also why former UK prime minister David Cameron’s desire for a great reset of the Tory party with his 2016 Brexit referendum so strikingly failed.
这尤其适用于全社会范围的重置，因为你的对手很可能会急切地推动他们的目标。这就是监管审计公司的规定经常失败的原因。为客户提供舒适安排的力量永远不会消失。这也是为什么英国前首相戴维•卡梅伦(David Cameron)希望通过2016年英国退欧公投对保守党进行重大重置的愿望遭遇惨败。
It’s our moderate restarts that are most likely to do better: going back not as far as we might dream, yet clearing away enough entanglements so that changes which have wide appeal can work. Pilots and engineers have the useful experience that clarifies the necessary steps:
适度重启最有可能做得更好：不像我们想象的那样回到那么久远的过去，但能清除足够多的故障，以便具有广泛吸引力的变革能够成功。飞行员和工程师的经验很有用，能够帮助阐明必要的步骤：
— configure for a safe pause
—配置安全暂停
— prepare for the limbo you’ll be in
—为即将陷入的不确定状态做好准备
— toughen yourself for dizzying acceleration when you restart
—让自己坚强起来，能够抵御重启所带来的令人眩晕的加速度
— and perform the whole operation in distinct sections, so you can identify what still needs fixing, and what does not.
—一个部分一个部分地逐步执行整个操作，这样你就可以确定哪些部分仍然需要修复，哪些不需要修复。
There will be opportunity along the way; lots of it. We just have to start at the right point.
一路上会有机会；有很多机会。我们只需要从正确的地方开始。
The writer is author of the forthcoming The Art of Fairness
本文作者的新作《公平的艺术》(The Art of Fairness)即将出版
本文发布于FT中文网，英文原题为 Resetting a career is daunting and the first lesson is not to rush
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