1990年1月英语六级 – 阅读理解C

Ours has become a society of employees. A hundred years or so ago only one of every five Americans at word was employed, i.e., worked for somebody else．Today only one out of five is not employed but working for himself. And fifty years ago “being employed” meant working as a factory laborer or as a farmhand. The employee of today is increasingly a middle - class person with a formal education, holding a professional or management job requiring intellectual and technical skills. Indeed, two things have characterized American society during these last fifty years: middle - class and upper - class employees have been the fastest - growing groups in our working population - growing so fast that the industrial worker, the oldest child of the industrial revolution has been losing in numerical importance in spite of the expansion of industrial production.
我们的社会已经成为一个雇员社会。大约一百年前，世界上每五个美国人中只有一个受雇，也就是为别人工作。现在只有五分之一的人没有受雇，为自己工作。50年前，“被雇佣”指的是工厂工人或农场工人。今天的雇员越来越多地是受过正规教育的中产阶级，从事需要智力和技术能力的专业或管理工作。实际上，在过去的五十年里，美国社会有两个特点：中产阶级和上层阶级的雇员是我们劳动人口中增长最快的群体——增长如此之快，以至于尽管工业生产有所扩大，但产业工人——工业革命中年龄最大的孩子在数量上的重要性却在下降。

Yet you will find little if there is anything written on what it is to be an employee．You can find a great deal of very dubious advice on how to get a job or how to get a rise. At least you can find a good deal of work in a chosen field, whether it is the mechanic's trade or bookkeeping. Every one of these trades requires different skills, sets different standards, and requires a different preparation. Yet they all have employee - ship in common. And increasingly, especially in the large business or in government, employee - ship is more important to success than the special professional knowledge or skill. Certainly more people fail because they do not know the requirements of being an employee than because they do not gain the skills of their trade. The higher you climb the ladder, the more you get into the management, and the greater the emphasis on ability to work within the organization rather than on technical ability or professional knowledge.
然而，你很难找到关于如何成为一名员工的内容。但你可以找到很多关于如何找到工作或如何加薪的非常不可靠的建议。至少你可以在选定的领域找到很多工作，无论是技术工种还是记账。这些行业中的每一个都需要不同的技能，设定不同的标准，需要不同的准备。然而，他们都有共同的员工身份。而且越来越多地，尤其是在大企业或政府中，员工身份比专业知识或技能更重要。当然，更多的人因为不知道成为员工的要求而失败，而不是因为没有掌握行业技能。你爬得越高，越深入管理层，就越强调在组织内工作的能力，而不是技术能力或专业知识。