by Anthony Murisco, Public Engagement Librarian
We all want work-life balance. It’s beneficial to both physical and mental health. But what would you do to achieve it? That’s the conceit at the heart of the hit Apple TV+ show, Severance. Now in its second season, the show continues to be an interesting take on American office culture.
Severance follows the office life of a group of workers at the Lumon Corporation. Our protagonists work in the “Macrodata Refinement” department, and they have all agreed to a procedure to separate the two parts of their life: home and work. The titular “severance” refers to a medical procedure whereby a chip is implanted in the worker’s brain that allows them to sever their two experiences. Those at work are called “innies” and those at home are called “outies.”
In the world of the show, this procedure is highly contested with the general public. We see protests against the severance procedure, questionable ethics amongst politicians, and mysterious protocols that leave you with time lost. The lives of these workers have been signed away to work, and they don’t know the conditions their own “outies” have agreed to.
As long ago as 1913, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company wanted the worker to reflect on that very question! In a pamphlet in the Library’s collections, “The Health of the Worker,” the company asks, “Do you know that a great many men and women die every year on account of the conditions under which they work? Do you know that if a man goes into certain trades, it means he will have five, ten, or fifteen years less of life than if he earned his living in some other way?” While these concerns address the unethical practices that were nonetheless legal in “shops,” workers everywhere were called upon to look after one another. There may be physical challenges at any job! Questions to ask yourself include, “Is your workroom overcrowded? Is your workroom kept clean and in good order? Do you help to keep the workroom clean and in good order?” Solidarity! They weren’t even addressing the psychological toll that these conditions have on workers. Those fights would come even later….
Dr. T. M. Fraser’s findings and suggestions regarding work life from Human stress, work, and job satisfaction: a critical approach (1983) remain pertinent in 2025 and in Severance’s own fictional world. The literal physical “exploitation in an inhumane environment” of workhouses he writes about may not be something that those who work in an office or the cubicles in the basement of Lumon face. That’s why Fraser builds on previous pro-worker literature by also discussing the mental labor of menial, repetitive, or over-stimulating tasks. A human can experience a “system overload” when the “physical or psychosocial environment” becomes overwhelming. Fraser’s use of systems or even mechanical language is deliberate. Even machines need to be well taken care of for them to continue operations! Why shouldn’t human workers?
In recent years, our real-world work life has been changing. For the Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway lamented what could be the death of the office in the early months of the COVID-19 lockdown in “We will miss the office if it dies.” She states that if more telecommuting is the way of the future, “office workers everywhere should stand in the street and weep at what they are losing.” Her words may read as overly dramatic, especially to the “innies” in the basement at Lumon, but she has a point! The office was created to be a small community. Without this space, “it’s hard to know how a company could ever create any sort of culture or any fellow feeling.” The office is the “great leveler”; everyone had to come to work! From the desk workers up to the boss, the collective goes beyond the boundaries of salary.
Because the severance procedure doesn’t exist yet in our real world, the viewer is left to think about the ethical implications. By creating a split side of yourself, whose only existence is to work without all the benefits that come with getting a job, you devalue part of yourself. Workers fought for the checks and balances that come with a career. That should also apply to those “innies” who were dropped into the world. “Innies” are forced to endure day after day of all they are ever meant to know: punching a clock. No family life, no romantic life. They don’t even have the luxury of watching the latest streaming show! This strict 9-5 lifestyle of the pre-industrial days negates all who have come before us in the struggles of humanity. Extremist viewpoints on industrialism believe that self-fulfillment should come from the job you have. Once again, this doesn’t consider the humanity behind the worker. Especially as “outies” may live their life however they want. It may be possible to find work you love but the class system that industrialism has provided us with makes it hard for many.
The Macrodata Refinement Team works behind their computers all day. They didn’t choose to do this; their “outies“ chose it for them! The team is not even clear about what it is that they are doing. Their feelings instruct them to place a set of numbers into a box. When they reach a certain percentage, they are gifted with work branded tchotchke, a caricature, and sometimes the chance to pick out a song for an office-wide dance party.
They aren’t the only “severed team” down there. We are slowly introduced to members of the Optics and Design Team. Sometime during the history of Lumon, it became known that different divisions would get into physical alterations, leading to separation between work teams. No current employees are aware of the veracity of these claims, yet they are still cautious of interacting with their fellow workers. They’re cautious, that is, until the workers find a way to talk and befriend each other, some even finding love. Workers united for this right! It’s among the lines of the unity of keeping your workplace clean and safe that the 1913 worker pamphlet talked about. Socialization is part of health! This is all to the dismay of a faceless, voiceless executive board.
There was a point when the “water-cooler century”—as Kellaway described it—may have been ending. Around the time of her article, written mid-2020, it looked like these places that had often become “second homes,” with work families, or at least work friends, seemed to be going away. Some companies had adapted to more telecommuting, others had gone all back to the office (including federal workers recently), and others adopted the hybrid model. Hybrid work has been proven to boost productivity and morale!
The creators of Severance seem purposefully coy as to the setting, time, or year of their story. The technology used to perform their job looks antiquated and yet this mind-altering procedure seems futuristic. When cell phones are used, we aren’t seeing the latest smartphone. We don’t know if they suffered through a pandemic or if telecommuting was ever an option. All we know is their life at the office lacks any historical or cultural context.
Human beings are layered. We have what Fraser calls a “diversity of stresses” in our lives that sometimes spill over into our work. This is what makes us human. This is what makes the workplace so special: different humans coming together to be united in a cause. The titular severance procedure that brings us the “innies” and “outies” is ostensibly meant to cure that, but why would we ever want that?
References:
Fraser, T. M. Human stress, work and job satisfaction : a critical approach. Geneva : International Labour Office, 1983.
Kellaway, Lucy. “We will miss the office if it dies.” Financial Times, 15 May 2020.
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