Like millions of other fans, I watched the first episode of Severance: Season 2 this weekend. I find it a brilliant series for many reasons, but I also come away from it both angry and sad at the metaphor it presents of America’s corporations.

The Premise of Severance

For those who don’t watch Severance, the premise is that employees of a fictional company/cult called Lumon agree to have their brains permanently severed. The work self (the Inny) knows only work and can’t remember anything of their lives before or outside of work. When they leave work, a neural switch gets flipped, turning them into their outside self (the Outy) that can’t remember anything about work

Why would anyone agree to do this? The main character is a grieving widower who wanted to cut off the pain of losing his wife. Another character is lonely. And, of course, there’s always money.

Severance’s Interchangeable Workplace

Most of the action takes place in the maze of featureless corridors that comprise Lumon’s underground floors. This movable labyrinth is designed to confuse the characters and detach them even further from reality.Anyone who has worked on a cubicle floor can identify with Lumon’s featureless corridors.

Besides being a ridiculously simple and inexpensive set that must be the envy of Silo’s showrunners. The corridors make the characters look like rats in search of cheese. They work in a corporate environment that sees them as little more than experimental rodents.

Dehumanizing Work

The work Lumon’s employees do, microdata processing, involves finding groups of numbers on a screen that “don’t belong” and dropping them into an on-screen wastebasket. You might find this as interesting as a computer game like Candy Crush or as numbingly boring as data entry without a form or a database. They need no skill  but instead develop a kind of intuition that tells them which numbers don’t belong.

Both the environment and the work serve to dehumanize the employees, who turn to one another for company, support, and intellectual stimulation.

Demanding Your Life

Now, here’s the metaphor I see in Severance: It’s simply an extension of how corporations demand more and more their employees’ time and lives until the company finally takes over both.

This work culture exists today, although not, of course, to such an extreme. It prevails mostly in high-tech companies, Corporate demands on employees’ free time tend to creep slowly upward, consuming more and more of what should be people’s “Outy” lives.

All Work and No Cheese

I once worked in a company where the CFO scanned the parking lot early in the morning to see who was at work by 7:00 or 7:30. If your car was there, that didn’t mean you got a reward. No cheese for you. Neither did such dedication count when the company decided a layoff was in order. Your time belonged to them and loyalty was a one-way street.

As devices have gotten smaller, lighter, more portable, and capable of performing many complicated functions, management has expected employees to be available pretty much around the clock. Not responding immediately to text message/email/Slack note or company work-sharing software can land you in trouble.

Instead of severing your brain, the company simply moves in and takes it over by eminent domain. That leaves no room for cooking dinner, watching a Little League game, going to the theater, helping a child with homework, or simply reading a book.

This situation may have improved because of the pandemic but the pendulum is swinging back again. More companies are sending out ultimatums demanding that workers return to the office or lose their jobs.

A Depressing Image from Severance

The image from Severance that really haunts me, though, takes place on the elevator. Inny workers step onto the elevator at 5:00 pm. Before they reach the door, the switch in their brain flips back over to their Outy selves, who have no memory of work.

In the morning, the process reverses. The result is that an Inny worker gets on the elevator at 5:00 pm. When the door opens again, it’s 9:00 am and time for another day of work. The Outy life that renews and refreshes a human being simply doesn’t happen because they can’t remember it. Nor can they remember weekends or holidays. Work is the only life an Inny knows and the company is their world.

If you find this image depressing, consider today’s worker who puts the kids to bed and settles down for another two or three hours of remote work.

Getting Away with Severance

When I watch Severance, I find myself thinking that companies would sever their employees if they could. When the economy is bad, they would demand it of job candidates. No severance; no job. Just think: an army of workers who have no demands from family and no distractions from their personal lives because they can’t remember their personal lives.

Workers who make no demands for salary or benefits because they have been severed from the life where they need more money or improved healthcare. This provides a workforce better even than slavery because the company doesn’t have to feed or clothe or house their workers as they would slaves.

And that, I think, is the main message of Severance. Be careful what you sign up for because the company will take advantage, will push for more, will drive you harder, will want you to think like an Inny because then work will become your life.

Cheese, anyone?