晨读励志双语美文（双语阅读世间最无聊的工作来报到）

What is the most boring job you have done?

你干过的最无聊的工作是什么？

We asked readers this question after publishing a story about Frenchman Frederic Desnard, who says his 80,000-euro-a-year job as an executive in a perfume business is so boring it has turned him into a "professional zombie".

前期我们推送了一个故事，故事的主人公叫弗雷德里克· 迪斯纳，在一家香水公司做主管，年薪8万欧元，但他称这份工作太无聊了，活活把他变成了一个“木头人”。之后，我们给读者留下了上面的问题。

Here are some of your replies.

下面是摘选出来的回答：

The food industry 食品行业

I tested the temperature of frozen peas for a whole summer. I used to dream about endless rivers of little green balls. Jane, Yate

有一年，我花了整个夏天的时间监测速冻青豆的温度。我曾做梦梦到绿色小球奔涌成河，滔滔不绝。——简（耶特）

My sister had a summer job on a farm in France throwing small amounts of earth on to trays of organic potatoes destined for the supermarket - presumably in order to make them look more "organic". Chris Cooke, Suffolk

我妹妹有一年暑假在法国一间农场兼职。她要把少量的泥土洒在盛放有机马铃薯的托盘里，想必是为了使其运往超市后气质更加“有机”。——克里斯·库克（萨福克）

I had a summer job as a student squeezing plastic milk bottles for 12 hours overnight to see if they leaked. When they did you smelt of sour milk by the time you went home. Mark Thomas, Manchester

学生时代我曾打了一份暑期工，挤压塑料牛奶瓶检测是否漏气，而瓶里装的是放置过夜的牛奶。如果这些瓶子真漏气了，回家时全身就都是一股酸牛奶的味道。——马可·托马斯（曼彻斯特）

Filling pork pies with jelly one at a time to ensure the "handmade" label. Leigh Dickinson

我曾经要往每个猪肉馅饼里都加一条猪肉冻，就是为了让“手工制作”的标签名副其实。——利·迪金森

I worked for weeks unpacking small cerealbars from large boxes and then repackaging the same cereal bars into smaller boxes. Pointless. Jude Connor

把包装好的小燕麦条从大盒子里拿出来，再把它们装进小盒子里——我工作了几个星期，就是干这个。真没意思。——裘德·康纳

I put pepperoni on 14,000 pizzas per day at a factory in Nottingham. If the conveyor belt broke down, we made smiley faces on the pizzas with the pepperoni. So if you ever see a smiley pizza, that's why. Pete Minting, Helensburgh

我原来在诺丁汉一家工厂里干活，每天要在14000个披萨上放意大利辣香肠。如果传输带突然中断，我们就会把这些香肠做成笑脸，铺在披萨上。所以，要是你见过微笑披萨的话，现在知道原因了吧。——皮特·敏亭（海伦斯堡）

Working at a pork scratching factory removing the ones that had been cooked but still had hairs to then bere-cooked, to burn them off. I had 12 hours a day just watching them go past on a conveyor belt. I left after two weeks and have never eaten one since. Maria, Sheffield

在一家猪肉处理厂里，把烹制过但表面仍残留猪毛的肉制品重新加工，用火把那些毛烤掉——这就是我以前的工作。每天12个小时，我一动不动地看着传输带上的这些肉品从我眼睛底下过去。两个星期后我就辞职了，从那以后再没有吃过一回猪肉。——玛丽亚（谢菲尔德）

Slicing 50lb (23kg) slabs of cheese into four parts, in a room with white walls, harsh fluore scent lights, no window sand no radio... At break one day, I asked someone what had happened to my predecessor and was told that he'd picked up a slab of cheese and thrown it at the wall and nobody had seen him since. He'd been there for three months, so obviously a man of Olympic determination - I lasted around nine days. Rob,North-west UK

一间墙体白色的房间，刺眼的荧光灯，没有窗户，没有收音机，把无数片50磅（约合23公斤）的厚奶酪切成四块……一天，我在休息的时候问起别人，我的前任怎么会离开。结果人家说，有一次那个人抓起一大片奶酪砸到了墙上，从那以后就消失得无影无踪了。他在那个房间一共待了三个月，这明摆着就是一个有着奥林匹克意志的男人啊——我才忍了9天！——罗布（英国西北部）

Odd jobs 奇葩的工作

I had a job polishing small, lacquered,wooden plinths destined for model ships in glass bottles - I lasted two days.Ken, Newcastle

我原来有份工作，就是擦亮船只模型的小型木制涂漆底座——而它装在玻璃瓶里！我只熬下来两天。——肯恩（纽卡斯尔）

After I left school I got a summer job patrolling a stretch of canal in Burnley to stop people falling in. Problem was, the canal was drained, with hardly an inch of water in it. Following that, I worked in a factory tearing off strips of Sellotape from the tops offl attened cardboard boxes. Simon Mitchell, Sheffield

毕业后，我找了份暑期兼职，在伯恩利处的运河支流上巡逻，防止岸边人落水。问题是，这条运河已近干涸，水连一英尺深都没有。再后来，我跳槽到一家工厂里，天天把一条条透明胶带从平整的纸板箱顶部扯下来。——西蒙·米切尔（谢菲尔德）

I once took a two-week job through an agency which required me to stick labels on to the left lens of glasses to goon displays in a well-known optician's - one on the front of the lens, one on the back. They had to line up perfectly or they had to be peeled off and done again until they were spot on. Unfortunately I was so good they asked me to stay on. I "stuck" it out for another two weeks. Garry Pepper, Stockport

我曾给一家代理公司干了两周的活儿。为了让一批眼镜在一家著名的眼镜店里展览，我得给这些眼镜的左腿粘贴标签，一处粘在前面，一处粘在后面。所有的标签必须排列整齐，不然的话就得剥下来重新贴，直到准确无误。不幸的是，我干得太好了，他们叫我留下来接着干。于是，之后我又“死撑”了两个星期。——加里·佩珀（斯托克波特）

Testing the viscosity of bitumen. (How long does it take for a drop of tar to fall through a funnel? Answer: several years). Martin Williams

我测试过沥青的黏度。（一滴柏油从漏斗里流出要多久啊？答案：要好几年。）——马丁·威廉姆斯

The production line 生产线

I had a summer job during university in a vitamin tablet factory. My job was to sit at a conveyor belt all day picking out broken tablets. Green tablets on a red conveyor belt. I'd shut my eyes at night and see green vitamin tablets floating past. I did three weeks and thankfully got promoted to powder mixer. James Tucker, Surrey

我读大学时，在一家维他命药片厂打过一份暑期工。我的工作就是从早到晚坐在传输带旁挑拣出破损的药片。红色的传输带上滚动着的全是绿色的药片……晚上的时候，我闭上眼睛，就能看到绿色的维他命药片从眼前漂过去。谢天谢地，坚持了三周后，我就升职做了药粉搅拌工。——詹姆斯·塔克（萨里）

Working as a student in a plastic moulding factory on a night shift. I produced toy Frankenstein heads by the hundred, hour after hour. The boredom was so intense and the stink of hot plastic so bad, that today I cannot drink out of plastic thermos cups. Steven, Basingstoke

我还是学生的时候，曾在一家塑料模具生产厂上过夜班。我一个小时接一个小时地工作，连续生产出了无数颗科学怪人玩偶的脑袋。这工作实在是太无聊了，热塑料的臭味也太难以忍受了，以至于现在我都无法用塑料热水瓶喝水。——史蒂文（贝辛斯托克）

I used to make the wire binders that hold calendars together. Thousands every night. Once I got put on the machine that made the straight bit of wire with a bump in that you hung the calendar from.That was a night to remember. Toby Barnes, Gibraltar

我以前制作过日历的线圈，一晚上做上千个。终于有一天，我换岗了，负责操作那台让直铁丝弯曲隆起以悬挂日历的机器。那可真是个难忘的夜晚。——托比·巴尔内斯（直布罗陀）

Sticking labels on animal food bags. There were three types: cattle, pig or sheep. Every few days you would switch between the types and get to stick on a different label. I actually started looking forward to a change of label. Nick, Hove

我在动物饲料的包装袋上贴过标签。这些动物饲料有三类：牛饲料，猪饲料和羊饲料。每过几天，就可以在这几种饲料间切换，负责贴上和之前不同的标签。事实上，我现在就开始期待换标签了。——尼克（霍夫）

I spent a month working in a factory threading the string through the holes in the top of bookmarks. Jamie Furlong

我在一家工厂里待了一个月，成天就是把绳子穿进书签顶部的孔里。——杰米·弗朗

Office work 办公室工作

I once spent six months stapling 400 reports every day. Just stapling, every day. One of many boring jobs. Yawn! Suzy Wild

我曾经每天装订400份报告文件，一直干了六个月。每天只是在重复着装订的动作。这可真是众多无聊工作里不可或缺的一个！阿欠（打哈欠）！——苏西·怀尔德

I once had a temp job which consisted of taking staples out of pieces of paper. I lasted only one morning. Mari, Kent

我以前有份临时工作，是把订书针从纸张里给抽出来。我只坚持了一个早晨。——马里（肯特）

I was once employed throughout a summer as "someone to talk to". It was a small architectural company that only had three employees. When I queried why there was so little work to do they told me it was just refreshing to have someone else to talk to and discuss ideas with. Jon Davies, London

一个夏天，我被雇到一个只有3个职员的小型建筑公司里“陪人唠嗑”。我满腹疑问，不知道为啥我总在一旁无所事事。他们告诉我，找我就是来陪他们唠嗑的，这可以帮他们提神醒脑。——乔恩·戴维斯（伦敦）

I spent two weeks temping at a solicitors after leaving a really busy and stressful job. When I asked them what they did when the phone wasn't ringing their only response was, "We just Google stuff." Needless to say I knew every item of news that came out of the world in those two weeks. Kimberly, Exeter

辞去一份事务繁多、压力山大的工作后，我来到一家律师事务所打了两个星期的零工。我问他们，电话不响的时候他们在干什么，他们统统回答：“我们就上上网，‘谷歌一下’呗。”别提了，那两个星期内，我知道了世界各个角落发生的每一则新闻！——金伯莉（埃克塞特）

编译：李璐杨

编辑：钦君

原文选自：BBC

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