异类之不一样的成功启示录 第87期:一个行业的发展与年代息息相关

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或许就可以明显看出，那些来自出生年份较早的群体中的“特曼人”更可能失败。

The explanation has to do with two of the great cataclysmic events of the twentieth century:

这种解释与20世纪的两大灾难事件有关：

the Great Depression and World War II. If you were born after 1912, say in 1915, you got out of college after the worst of the Depression was over, and you were drafted at a young enough age that going away to war for three or four years was as much an opportunity as it was a disruption (provided you weren't killed in combat, of course.)经济大萧条和第二次世界大战。如果你是1912年以后出生，比如1915年，你大学毕业时，经济大萧条的最坏时期已经结束，此后，你被选去服三四年的兵役，这就成了你人生中的一个断点（当然，假设你没有在战争中牺牲的话）。

The Termites born before 1911, though, graduated from college at the height of the Depression,1911年以前出生的、成为“特曼人”的孩子，在经济大萧条最严重的时期刚好大学毕业，when job opportunities were scarce, and they were already in their late thirties when the Second World War hit,那时工作机会很少，并且在第二次世界大战爆发时他们已经快40岁了，meaning that when they were drafted, they had to disrupt career and families and adult lives that were already well under way.

也就是说，当他们被选去服兵役时，他们不得不中断本已步入正轨的事业及家庭生活。

To have been born before 1911 is to have been demographically unlucky.

从人口统计学角度来讲，1911年以前出生的人几乎都是不幸运的。

The most devastating³ event of the twentieth century hits you exactly at the wrong time.

20世纪最大的灾难在不该来的时候恰恰砸中了你。

The same demographic logic⁴ applies to Jewish lawyers in New York like Maurice Janklow.

同样，这种人口统计学的逻辑也可以适用到纽约的犹太裔律师身上，比如说莫里斯·詹克洛。

The doors were closed to them at the big downtown law firms. So they were overwhelmingly solo practitioners⁶, handling wills and divorces and contracts and minor⁷ disputes, and in the Depression, the work of the solo practitioner⁵ all but disappeared.

市中心律师事务所的门是不会向他们敞开的，所以他们蜂拥着独自创业，处理关于遗产、离婚、合同及其它一些小纠纷的案子。在经济大萧条时期，几乎所有的独自创业者都从人们视野中消失了。

"Nearly half of the members of the metropolitan⁸ bar earned less than the minimum subsistence level for American families,"“大城市中，几乎一半的律师从业人员都挣不到能够维持当时美国家庭生活标准的钱，”

Jerold Auerbach writes of the Depression years in New York.

杰罗德·奥尔巴赫（JeroldAuerbach）在讲到纽约大萧条时期，这样写道，"One year later, fifteen hundred lawyers were prepared to take the pauper's oath to qualify for work relief.

“一年以后，1500名律师准备像乞丐一样向社会要求给予相应的救助。

Jewish lawyers (approximately half of the metropolitan bar) discovered that犹太律师们（大约是市内律师从业人数的一半）觉得their practice had become a 'dignified⁹ road to starvation.'"像他们这样继续开业，俨然是‘有尊严地饿死’”。

Regardless of the number of years they spent in practice, their income was "strikingly less" than that of their Christian¹⁰ colleagues.

暂不说他们花了多少年苦心经营，和那些基督同行们相比，他们的收入“少得可怜”。

 

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