Last week I was talking to a group of twenty-something women lawyers who had just started work in the City of London. One told me she was fed up with being asked how old she was by middle-aged colleagues and clients. The others agreed: they got asked their age all the time and they hated it. They saw it as a way of undermining their authority and putting them in their place.

不久前，我和一群刚刚开始伦敦金融城从业生涯的20多岁的女律师聊过天。其中一人告诉我，她对年届中年的同事和客户问她年龄感到不胜其烦。其他人也表示赞同：老是有人问到她们的年龄，她们觉得烦透了。在她们看来，问这种问题不过是为了削弱她们的威信，把她们“打回原形”。

When I got into the office the next day I did a survey of the youngest people I could find and asked if the same thing happened to them. Almost all said yes – not just the women, but the men, too.

第二天，到办公室后，我对我能找到的办公室里最年轻的人士做了一项调查，问他们是否也有同样的遭遇。几乎所有人都做出了肯定答复——不仅是女士，男士亦然。

How grim, I thought. Here is another indignity borne by the crunch generation – they are locked out of the housing market, saddled with student debt, struggling to find a decent job, and when they finally land one, they get punished for being young.

我心想，真惨啊。对于“紧缩世代”(crunch generation，指一毕业就赶上经济紧缩的一代——译者注)而言，这是另一项耻辱——他们买不起房，背负着学生贷款，千辛万苦也难以找到一份体面的工作，而当他们终于找到了一份不错的工作，又因为年纪较轻而受到“敲打”。

Yet on closer inspection it is more complicated than that. My sample suggests there is a difference between how the sexes take the question.

然而，经过更仔细的审视会发现，情况比上面所说的更复杂。从我选取的样本中可以看出，男女对这个问题的感受不一样。

To the women, it feels like sexism and ageism in a single shot. But to some of the pushier young men, the question is an opportunity to show off. To be able to say: I’m 23 – and look how much I’ve achieved already – is deeply gratifying.

在女士们看来，这个问题同时具有性别歧视和年龄歧视的意味。而对于一些进取心较强的年轻男士而言，这个问题则提供了一次炫耀的机会。能够回答“我23岁”(潜台词：看看我已经取得了多么了不起的成就)，是一件很能带来满足感的事。

Yet for both men and women, at some point in their late twenties and just before the appearance of the first wrinkle, the questions cease. By some unspoken agreement, everyone stops asking.

然而不论男士还是女士，从奔三的某个时候开始、在第一条皱纹出现前不久，这样的问题就消失了。大家似乎达成了某种默契，所有人都不再问这个问题了。

The only people in their thirties who still get asked have either been wildly successful (I know someone of 32 with a board position who gets asked her age a lot) or pregnant women, who are asked by other women anxious about their own dwindling fertility.

年过三十而依然会被问到年龄问题的只有两种人：一种是极为成功的人士(我认识一位刚刚32岁、已成为董事的女士，就经常会被问到年龄)，另一种是孕妇——问她年龄的往往是其他对自己生育能力日渐衰减感到焦虑的女士。

What is wrong – and most peculiar – about all this is not that we ask the youngest workers how old they are. It is that we don’t ask anyone else.

所有这一切的问题(同时也是最蹊跷之处)，不在于我们问年轻人的年龄，而在于我们从不向任何其他人问这个问题。

With children, age is the first thing we want to know. Even the shyest child will always be ready to lisp out “I’m three-and-a-half”. Colleagues routinely ask the ages of my children – as well as the age of my elderly father. But they never ask how old I am.

对于孩子，我们首先想知道的就是年龄。即便最害羞的孩子也始终有这样的准备，一旦有人问“你几岁了?”，就会咬着舌头说一句“我三岁半了”。同事们时不时问我孩子的年龄，以及我老父亲的年龄，但他们从来不会问我的年龄。

In the years between about 28 and 65 – for the bulk of our life that we dedicate to work – it is considered too rude to ask. On LinkedIn people post all sorts of irrelevant information about themselves – including whether they possesses a “skill” called “cross-functional team leadership” – but they never state their age. Anyone wanting to know (and surely everyone does) has to work backwards from the date they left school or university.

从28岁到65岁这段时间占人生的很大一部分，也是人生中用于努力工作的时间，但对大约处于这个年龄段的人，询问年龄被认为是不礼貌的。在LinkedIn网站上，人们会贴出各种关于自己的无关紧要的信息(包括他们是否拥有所谓的“跨部门团队领导能力”这种“技能”)，但他们从来不会提及自己的年龄。任何想知道他们年龄的人(当然喽，每个人都想知道)，都得从他们离开中学或大学的年份反推这个问题的答案。

Our coyness about age at work isn’t because we don’t think age is important. On the contrary: age continues to fascinate us. Whenever I interview anyone, I do not consider I’ve done the job properly unless I slip in how old they are. Someone’s age tells you something about their experience. It is a measuring stick to how well they are doing. There may be other, better, measuring sticks but the beauty of this one is that it is simple and can be applied to everyone. If nothing else, their age gives you a clue about their taste in pop music.

我们之所以在职场中对年龄问题扭扭捏捏，并不是因为我们认为年龄不重要。相反，年龄是我们始终感兴趣的问题。我每次面试(或采访)别人的时候，如果我没有假装不小心地问一下他们的年龄，我就会觉得我的工作没有圆满完成。一个人的年龄会透露他们的经验。年龄是衡量他们成就的一个标尺。尽管可能存在其他更好的标尺，但年龄这个标尺胜在简单，并且适用于每个人。就算不能提供其他信息，年龄也会为你猜测他们的流行音乐品味提供一条线索。

You could say that to be open about age would lead to more discrimination, though I can’t see how. As it is, it is not as if we are blind to age or treat older and younger workers the same. They look different; they are different. Refusing to reveal how old someone is makes discrimination worse as it means those who have invested in Botox or who have won the genetic lottery and are still trim and dark-haired do better than those who are grey and wrinkly.

你可能会说，在年龄问题上太过坦率可能会导致更多歧视现象，不过在我看来未必如此。事实上，年龄是可以看出来的，年长员工和年轻员工受到的待遇也是不一样的。年长员工跟年轻员工的相貌不同，事实上也不同。拒绝透露年龄会造成更严重的歧视，因为这意味着，比起头发灰白、脸上有皱纹的年长者，那些皮肤仍然光洁、头发没有变白的年长者更有优势，无论后者是因为花钱打了肉毒杆菌(Botox)除皱、还是幸运地拥有抗衰老的基因。

Last week I told the young lawyers that in future when some older colleague asks them their age, they should smile and reply: “I’m 27. How old are you?”

当时，我告诉那些年轻的女律师，以后有年纪较长的同事问到她们的年龄，她们应该微笑着回答：“我27岁，您多大年纪?”

The last time I was asked such a direct question was nearly a decade ago. I was lying in an ambulance and a strange man was bending over me, telling me that I had had an accident on my bike.

我最后一次被直接问到这个问题是在将近10年前。当时我躺在救护车里，一名陌生男子附身冲着我，对我说，我在骑自行车时出了事故。

What’s your name, he asked. Who is the prime minister?

当时他问我，你叫什么名字?英国首相是谁?

I answered these without difficulty. But then he said: how old are you? I didn’t have the first idea. After a lot of racking my brains, I said as if unearthing a fact of considerable yet obscure interest: I think I’m in my forties.

我毫不费劲地回答了这两个问题。但他接着问道：你今年多少岁?我一时没想起来。想了半天，我才答道：我应该有40多岁了——这话说得，仿佛在披露一件人们有极大兴趣(但原因令人费解)的事实。

Now, bump on head long gone, I can say with confidence I am 54 and a half. It’s a perfectly good age to be. It isn’t how I feel inside (but that’s because age always feels contingent from within), but it does tell you something. At the very least, that I joined the workforce in easier times and I’m still here..

如今，我头上碰出的包早已消失，我可以自信地说我今年54岁半。这是个十分完美的年龄。我内心并不觉得自己已经有这么大年纪了(但那是因为人们内心对自己的年龄永远感到意外)，不过年龄确实能透露一些信息。至少，我的年龄透露出，我是在容易就业的年代参加工作的，并且我现在仍在工作。