职业与工作方法mikecanex.wordpress.com编辑精选
我为何不再处处迁就（1922）
Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
2012 — 2021，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是一篇 1922 年发表的文章，作者讲述自己因过度迁就他人——对客户、同事、朋友有求必应——而耗尽时间与精力，最终学会拒绝、把精力留给真正重要之事的经历。文章以第一人称反思“老好人”的代价，指出人们反而更信任那些有原则、不轻易让步的人。
为什么经久不衰：近百年过去，“学会说不”仍是职场与生活中的普遍难题，这篇短文以朴素的亲身经历给出经久不衰的答案，每隔几年就重新打动一代读者。
HN 评论精选
拒绝的关键是温和并说明自己的真实需求，而非粗暴回绝
对于正在学习说“不”的人：要学会温和友善地拒绝。我自己就很差，总是任人提要求，忍到极限时又用很粗鲁的方式回绝。原因之一是害怕拒绝会失去什么（关系或金钱），所以进退两难。后来我观察到别人（尤其未婚妻）总能温柔地说“不”，意识到生活可以轻松很多。我正在练习：告诉对方拒绝的根本原因很有帮助，因为根源总是你当下的某种需求——休息、思考时间、把事情做完等。补充：说“现在帮不了”也能缓和冲击。
manmal查看英文原文
For anybody learning to say "no" currently - learn to say "no" gently and kindly. I'm quite bad at this myself. I let people impose stuff on me, and once I have had enough, I have a very rude way of telling people off. One reason for this rudeness is a fear that I will lose something when declining (e.g. a relationship or money), so I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place - I don't want to help, but I feel I should not decline. Most of the times, my rudeness while finally saying "no" is out of place, e.g. when my fiance needs something from me that actually makes sense, or a customer who needs some small task that they would actually pay for. Watching other people (esp my fiance) saying "no" ever so gently has me wondering how easy life could be if I were able to do the same. I'm practicing it, and I think I'm getting better at it. Telling the other person the root cause why you say "no" helps a lot to instill empathy for your situation. The root cause always stems from a need or necessity that you currently have, like need for rest/food/time to think/time to finish this or that task properly/... Even if you are lazy and simply don't want to help right now, remember that this laziness also fulfils one of your needs - probably you need to rest or think. ADDED: Telling people that you just cannot help _right now_ also softens the blow. Also, if it's a customer then delaying might even be more beneficial than just declining - you might need the billable hours in the following week.
迁就本身没错，关键是靠自省在助人与自我保护间找到平衡
只要你有自省能力，迁就他人也没问题。有自省力的迁就者能在慷慨助人的同时保护好自己的时间和资源，这是个难以拿捏的平衡。在长期亲密关系中也如此：与其说妥协是婚姻成功的关键，不如说坚持自我更重要。生活就像一个受双向压力的仪表指针，你的任务是适度推回，让指针停在一个你保有完整自我的平衡点上——这需要多年成年生活的历练。
nrjames查看英文原文
It's ok to be accommodating as long as you have learned to be introspective. We all have demands of our own time and money. Introspective accommodating people are able to help others in a generous way while protecting the time and resources they need to help themselves. It's a difficult balance to achieve. Through experience, I've come to believe that this holds true in long-term personal relationships, too. While many will tell you that compromise is the key to a successful marriage, I think that standing up for yourself and who you need to be usually is more important. There's a needle on the gauge of life that experiences pressure to move from both directions. When you are too accommodating or compromise unequally, the needle moves towards you and establishes a new norm for expected behavior. Your job should be to push back just enough to keep the needle balanced at a point where you retain a full sense of self and the space within which to exercise it. That requires a strong sense of introspection and can take years of adult life to develop.
警惕从过度迁就矫枉过正变成刻薄，转变要适度
我正在经历这个转变。一条来之不易的经验：别让钟摆摆得太远。我从迁就的人变成了一个刻薄的混蛋——现在想往回调但很难，尤其当你发现别人确实更尊重这样的你时。但走得太远，最终会反噬自己。
temp246810查看英文原文
I'm going through this change right now. Some words of hard earned "wisdom": make sure the pendulum doesn't swing too far out in the other direction. I went from being an accommodating person to an intense asshole - trying to dial it back now but it's hard, especially when you notice that people definitely respect you more for good or bad reasons when you're like that. Take it too far though, and it will of course go all the way around and bite you in the ass.
引用原文：忙碌挑剔的人反而更让人信任，迁就者难获重任
“人们从不把重要的事托付给一个事事迁就的人。这听起来刻薄，但可以用自己的经验验证：比如得了重病，你会去找城里最忙、最挑剔的医生。他忙得无暇顾及小事，这反而让你对他的能力和判断有信心。”
paxtonab查看英文原文
"People never trust an accommodating man with important things. That may sound harsh and cynical, but check it up in your own experience. If you have a severe illness, for example, you turn to the busiest, most exacting doctor in town. The fact that he is busy and can’t be bothered by little things gives you confidence in his ability and judgment."
销售中不敢拒绝客户的琐碎要求至今仍是通病
“我常常为了讨好客户而牺牲公司的利益，这是销售人员的通病。”——近百年后这仍是企业销售中最难教的概念。客户（更糟的是潜在客户）向顺从的销售提出各种要求：案例参考、POC 等等，销售因为不敢说“不”或“还不行”而耗尽自己和同事的时间，还自我合理化为“我在推进交易！”
jusben1369查看英文原文
"As a matter of fact, I was too often being friendly to the customers at the expense of the house. It is a common fault in salesmen. They let a thousand trivial demands on the part of the men to whom they sell take their time and energy from the business of the men for whom they sell." - This is one of the hardest concepts to teach in enterprise sales nearly 100 years later. Too often customers (worse prospects) ask for all sorts of things from compliant sales people who never ask if it's necessary. References, POC's etc. The salesperson chews up hours of their time and other employees times because they don't have the backbone to say "No" or at least "Not yet" The rationalization is "I'm advancing the deal for the company!"
文章的核心价值在于区分真正的问题与琐碎细节
好文章！我喜欢它既来自一个更“简单”的旧时代，又点出了一个至今同样重要的问题：学会区分“问题”和“细节”并区别对待。原作者 90 年前就有此顿悟，真想知道这后来如何改变了他的人生。
edw519查看英文原文
What a great read! Thank you, OP, for finding and sharing it. I don't know what I like about it more, that it's from an earlier "simpler" world or that it highlights a problem that's just as important today: learning to tell the difference between and issue and a detail and dealing with them differently. Sounds like the original author had his epiphany 90 years ago. I wonder how that ended up changing his life. (I have often commented here about issues vs. details. A few highlights:) http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=edw519+issue+detail&sortby=points+desc
历次讨论
同类还值得读
用十年时间自学编程（1998）
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)
Peter Norvig 1998 年的经典文章，回应“21天/24小时学会编程”一类速成书，主张真正精通编程需要约十年持续、有意识的练习。
职业与工作方法上首页 11 次 · 2007–2025norvig.com编辑精选如何成为一名程序员：简短、全面而个人的总结
How to be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary
一篇广为流传的程序员成长指南，作者以个人经验系统总结了成为优秀程序员所需的各项技能——从调试、测试、沟通到团队协作与身心健康。
职业与工作方法上首页 6 次 · 2008–2015samizdat.mines.edu编辑精选不要自称程序员
Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
经典职业建议文章劝软件工程师不要把自己局限在“程序员”这个标签上，而要从公司业务角度说明自己创造的价值；文中讨论了成本中心与利润中心、头衔、求职与职业选择，也顺带批评了学术界的价…
职业与工作方法上首页 5 次 · 2011–2021kalzumeus.com编辑精选创作者的日程与经理的日程
Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule (2009)
Paul Graham 在这篇文章里把时间表分成两类：管理者的日程以小时为单位，会议可以填满一天；创作者（程序员、写作者等）的日程则以半天为单位，需要长时间不被打断的连续块。
职业与工作方法上首页 5 次 · 2009–2021paulgraham.com编辑精选为什么程序员的薪酬不与生产力成正比
Why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity
讨论为什么程序员的薪酬往往不随其生产力成比例增长：生产力难以客观量化，薪酬更多受组织预算、岗位定价和个人议价能力影响。
职业与工作方法上首页 5 次 · 2009–2022johndcook.com