Richard Bolles thinks there is a lot of rubbish spoken about robots. They are not, he insists, about to take our jobs. The current debate about the “end of work” due to automation is cyclical, he says. “It is pure nonsense, spoken by pundits looking for attention. Every job in the history of the world is born, flourishes, decays and dies. Every job is mortal.”

理查德•博尔斯(Richard Bolles)认为， 有关机器人，人们说了很多瞎话。他坚称，机器人不会夺走我们的工作。他说，目前有关自动化导致“工作终结”的辩论是周期性的。“完全是一派胡言，都是那些寻求关注的专家说的。历史上的每一种工作都要经历诞生、繁荣、衰落和消亡。每一种工作终究都有消亡的一天。”

He adds: “When people look for jobs and can’t find them they say the Chinese or robots are taking our jobs. New jobs get created.”

他补充道：“当人们找工作未果的时候，他们说中国人或者机器人夺走了我们的工作。新的工作会产生的。”

The 88-year-old is well placed to take the long view. As the author of the career search manual, What Color is Your Parachute, first published more than 40 years ago and updated annually, he is regarded — for good or bad — as the inventor of the careers advice industry.

现年88岁的博尔斯完全有资格放眼长远。他撰写的求职手册《你的降落伞是什么颜色？》(What Color is Your Parachute？)自40多年前首次出版以来每年都在更新，他被认为是——不管是好是坏——职业咨询行业的创始人。

Constant churn is an enduring feature of the job market, he notes. “If you emphasise what has disappeared it gives you one view of the world. If you emphasise new aspects you get a different perspective.” He is inured to anxiety about changes in the workplace. “People say something is new. I just say, you haven’t noticed it before.”

他指出，持续的扰动是就业市场永恒的特征。“如果你强调消失的东西，这会赋予你一种世界观。如果你强调新的方面，那么你会获得一种不同的视角。”他已经习惯了有关职场变化的焦虑情绪。“人们说某种事物是新的。我就会说，你只是之前没注意到它罢了。”

The outward form of job hunting has evolved due to technology, he says. “You used to look in the classifieds in your newspaper and now you go online.” But the essence of job hunting has never changed, he insists. Job interviews are like dating, he says. “You like me, I like you. That never changes,” observes the four-times married author.

博尔斯说，求职的外在表现形式因为技术而演变。“过去你在报纸上的分类信息中找工作，而现在你上网找工作。”但他坚称，找工作的本质从未改变。他说，面试就像是约会。“你喜欢我，我喜欢你。这一点永远不会变，”这位经历了4次婚姻的作者断言。

One thing, of course, that has changed in the 40 years, is the recruitment and careers advice industry. When he first published What Color is Your Parachute? in 1970, there were two main competitors. The first was Executive Jobs Unlimited by Carl Boll, who had spent decades advising Harvard Business School graduates on finding employment and espoused the notion of selling yourself to an employer. Then came Richard Irish’s Go Hire Yourself an Employer , which demystified the recruitment process. Mr Bolles likes the competition that has grown over the decades. “Different voices reach different ears.”

当然，40年来发生变化的是招聘和职业咨询业。博尔斯1970年首次出版《你的降落伞是什么颜色？》的时候，这本手册有两个主要的竞争对手。一个是卡尔•博尔(Carl Boll)的《管理工作无极限》(Executive Jobs Unlimited)，他数十年来为哈佛商学院(Harvard Business School)的毕业生提供求职建议，支持“向雇主兜售自己”的观念。然后是理查德•艾里什(Richard Irish)所著的《给自己雇个雇主》(Go Hire Yourself an Employer)，这本书揭开了招聘过程的神秘面纱。博尔斯喜欢数十年来不断发展的竞争。“不同的声音会传达到不同的人的耳中。”

He never planned a career of careers’ advice. After studying chemical engineering and physics, he went on to attend the General Theological Seminary in New York City. In doing so, he resisted his family’s journalism tradition (a path taken by his grandfather, father and brother, an investigative reporter murdered in 1976).

他从没计划过投身职业咨询业。在完成化学工程学和物理学的学业后，他去了纽约市的圣公会总会神学院(General Theological Seminary)，没有遵循家族的记者传统（他的祖父、父亲和弟弟都走上了这条道路，担任调查新闻记者的弟弟在1976年遭到谋杀）。

In 1966, he became canon pastor of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco (he has remained in California ever since). However, two years later, when the church’s budget was cut amid waning congregations, it was felt, he says, that “someone needed to be terminated”. Or as he put it then, “I realised a canon needed to be fired.” That canon turned out to be him. Despite the humour today, at the time he felt “rotten”. With young children “it was a desperate time for me”, he reflects.

1966年，博尔斯成为了旧金山格雷斯大教堂(Grace Cathedral)的一名咏礼司铎，并从此留在了加利福尼亚州。然而两年后，随着教堂会众逐渐减少，教堂的预算被削减，他说感觉“有人需要被解雇了”。或者就像他当时所说的那样，“我意识到需要裁掉一名咏礼司铎。”结果这个咏礼司铎正是他自己。虽然现在听起来幽默，但当时他觉得“糟透了”。他回想道，他当时还有年幼的孩子们，“那段时间对我而言真是绝望”。

Soon, however, he got a job which he describes as a “roving shepherd” — attending to university ministers. There Mr Bolles found the most pressing issue was not spiritual guidance but to help them find jobs in the secular world. “Most people I spoke with were married with small children. They couldn’t go to college and retrain. So I had to find out how to change your career without going to college.”

但是很快他就得到了一份被他称为 “流动牧羊人”的工作——“照顾”大学里的牧师。在那里，博尔斯发现最紧迫的问题不是精神上的指导，而是帮助他们在世俗世界中找到工作。“与我交谈的大部分人都是结了婚有小孩的。他们无法上大学或者接受再培训。因此我不得不找出如何不上大学就能改换职业的方法。”

In the end, he had enough answers to write a book, which he self-published by running the pages through a photocopier. Dispatched to the campus ministers, the copies soon found their way to their bosses and beyond. In 1972, the book was acquired by a commercial publisher, Ten Speed Press, now owned by Penguin Random House. The title, by the way, was a throwaway joke. People would tell Mr Bolles: “Well, I’ve had it. I’m going to bail out.” To which his reply was: “OK, what colour is your parachute?”

最终他有了足够的答案并写了本书，用复印机复印的方式“自己出版”了。这些影印本派发给大学牧师后，又迅速传到了他们的上司和更多人手中。1972年，现属企鹅兰登书屋(Penguin Random House)旗下的出版商Ten Speed Press得到了这本书。顺带一提，这本书的名字是一个随口而出的笑话。人们告诉博尔斯：“我已经受够了。我要跳出这种困境。”他的回答是：“好吧，那你的降落伞是什么颜色的？”

Today, the book sells about 125,000 to 150,000 copies per year (both print and ebooks). The latest edition (2016) is just out. Aside from the US, the book has been most popular in Germany and Holland.

如今，该书（纸质版和电子书）每年大约卖出12.5万到15万本。最新版（2016版）刚刚推出。不只在美国，该书在德国和荷兰也非常流行。

Yet, despite Mr Bolles’ assertion that little alters in the hunt for jobs, he concedes that there has been a “dramatic change” in employment: a rise in self-employment, short-term contracts and a simultaneous fall in staff investment. “Society has lost its ability to savour things. There is a hurry sickness.”

然而，尽管博尔斯断言在求职方面事情没什么变化，但他承认就业已经发生了“翻天覆地的变化”：自主创业、短期合同变多了，同时对员工的投资减少了。“社会失去了细细品味事物的能力，患上了求快的毛病。”

That people need to be more self-reliant has always been at the heart of his book but it is increasingly important now, he says. The guide calls for a “self-inventory”: outlining personal strengths and weaknesses. Mr Bolles believes that the school system pushes students into rigid definitions of their abilities.

人们需要变得更加自立一直是该书的核心，但他表示如今这一点变得愈发重要。这位导师呼吁人们进行“自我盘点”：列出个人的长处和短处。博尔斯相信，学校体系会使学生对自己个人能力的诠释变得僵硬。

One aspect of the book he underlines is the significance of older workers, an increasingly important cohort as longevity increases, he says. In order to combat prejudice from employers, he suggests the over-60s reduce salary expectations and convey energy. One thing he has observed about his

他在这本书里强调的一个方面是年龄更大的员工的重要性。随着人们越来越长寿，这部分群体变得日益重要。为了消除雇主的偏见，他建议60岁以上的人群降低薪酬预期，并表现出活力。博尔斯说，通过观察同龄人，他发现随着人们年岁渐长，他们的工作态度也在变化。“他们说，‘我厌恶和厌倦了为赚钱而工作’。他们更倾向走上一条精神性的道路。”

peers, he says, is that as people age they change their attitude to work. “They say, ‘I’m sick and tired of working to earn money.’ They tend to take a more spiritual path.”

对博尔斯而言，精神性自然很重要。这本书的附录就是关于寻找生活中的使命。对此，博尔斯并无歉意。

Spirituality is, of course, important to Mr Bolles. And the appendix in this book is about finding the mission in life. Mr Bolles is unapologetic about this.

“我像一个基督徒那样写作、思考和呼吸——你可能会从我是一个圣公会任命的牧师的事实预计到这一点。”他并不在意无神论者跳过这个部分。

“I write and think and breathe as a Christian — as you might expect from the fact that I was an ordained Episcopalian minister.” He is relaxed about non-believers skipping this.

博尔斯声称自己属于智商最高的1%人群，他完全没有退休计划。“我的好奇心永无止境。如果你对生活抱有这种好奇心，你就无法放下工作。”博尔斯曾预想过自己的一个儿子继续自己的工作，然而令人悲伤的是他死于2012年。现在博尔斯还没有确定谁可能接手他的工作。“神养育了我，就由祂来决定我的继承人吧。”

Mr Bolles, who declares his IQ to be in the top 1 per cent of the population, has no plans to retire. “I am endlessly curious. If you have that kind of curiosity about life, you can’t give up work.” He had foreseen one of his sons continuing his work, but sadly he died in 2012. Today, Mr Bolles is uncertain who might carry on the work. “God raised me up, it’s up to him to raise my successor.”

后来我觉得他将工作面试与约会类比让我感到别扭，我写了一封电子邮件问他，考虑到他的婚史，他真的有资格给出这样的建议吗。他觉得没什么矛盾的。他告诉我，“我教别人，人一生中平均会有8个职业。他们只需要决定当前对自己合适甚至理想的职业是什么就可以了。”而且，结束不意味着失败。

Later I find I am irked by his dating-job interview analogy and ask by email if he is really the person to give such advice, given his marital history. He sees no inconsistency. “I teach,” he tells me, that people “will have an average of eight careers during their lifetime. All they can do is decide what career is appropriate or even ideal for them in the present time.” Moreover, ending does not mean failure.

“有时候，事情恰恰在其应该结束的时候结束。”

“Sometimes things come to an end exactly when they should.”