時(shí)差N小時(shí):承受極大壓力

If you love your job, part of the reason may be thatyou freely chose the work that you do. You were notforced to do it. But imagine a situation duringwartime in which there were some soldiers or guardswith guns standing above you, forcing you to do thatsame job. Suddenly it would not be pleasurable workanymore.

如果你熱愛(ài)工作，原因之一可能是你可以按照自己的意愿來(lái)選擇工作，而不是被迫的。但是，想象一下這種場(chǎng)景，一些戰(zhàn)士或警衛(wèi)拿著槍站在你面前，強(qiáng)迫你做同樣的事情。忽然間，這份工作變得不再有趣。

The fear that you might be harmed if you did not work quickly and efficiently would be verystressful. There would be a sense of danger as you worked below the level where the gunmenwere standing. Working "under the gun" of a watchful and hostile master would make anyonenervous. Thus, although no one we can see nearby may have an actual gun, we use this idiomin any work situation where the workers are put under strong pressure to perform quickly andefficiently.

如果你不快速而有效率地工作，你就會(huì)被傷害，這種恐懼會(huì)壓得你喘不過(guò)氣來(lái)。當(dāng)持槍的人站在你面前，而你的工作卻處于平均水平以下，就會(huì)產(chǎn)生一種危機(jī)感。在警惕和充滿敵意的主人槍下干活，會(huì)使任何人感到緊張。因此，雖然我們周圍所看到的人沒(méi)有一把真槍，但是我們可以用這個(gè)慣用詞來(lái)描述這種工作環(huán)境：工人被強(qiáng)大的壓力驅(qū)使著快速高效地工作著。