What would happen if the boundary between one’s life and job is cut away completely, instead of just being fuzzy?

This is the reality in the dystopian thriller Severance. In the show, select employees of Lumon Industries undergo a surgical procedure known as a Severance Procedure. This procedure splits their consciousness into two parts. Their “Innie” exists solely in the workplace, while their “Outie” retains their memories and experiences of their personal lives.  However, the show has broader implications beyond entertainment. The Severance Procedure serves as an exaggerated metaphor and larger commentary on a common tendency in organizational management, where individuals are seen as vehicles for productivity rather than individuals with independent dignity.

Some businesses regard the well-being of their employees as a variable that can be manipulated through corporate paternalism and trivial perks. In Severance, Lumon employees are incentivized to fulfill their job duties through pseudo-religious worship of their corporate founder coupled with insignificant baubles like finger-traps and “waffle parties”. This echoes a subtle real-life mechanism in which artificial, bland corporate culture, such as the cliched sayings “we’re like a family here,” undermines genuine agency or greater labor rights. Companies may even use programs to reinforce the concept that their workers are a part of something bigger than themselves, or that their work holds a strong purpose. Some employers seek to shield their employees from harm and seek an amicable relationship with them. An important caveat is that paternalistic treatment of workers loses most of its value if it lacks autonomy for employees over their work.

Additionally, the fatal conceit of Lumon Industries in Severance rests on the erroneous belief that one can compartmentalize moral responsibility. All the “Outie” does is voluntarily undergo a procedure to collect a paycheck, while the “Innie” must bear monotonous, eight-hour workdays without ever choosing to exist under those conditions. In real life, this reflects the systemic detachment present in modern global supply chains and complex administrative frameworks. 

Consumers make purchases almost never having seen the conditions in which their purchases were produced. Corporate higher-ups make decisions far removed from the physical and psychological realities of the labor that produces their product. In a similar fashion, the fictional workers at Lumon are both beneficiaries and targets of a system that was their own choosing, stuck in an institution that breeds seamless complicity.

All in all, Severance serves as a warning against the commodification of human labor. The show exaggerates existing tensions within employment to uncover the modern realities of workplace customs if taken to a ludicrous extreme. Just as no one can acquire dignity by the separation of his professional duties from his personal life, no healthy institution can be built up on the exploitation of an artificial, subservient class. Thus, Severance argues, labor law must treat workers as full persons, not mere productive units, whose dignity cannot be reduced to their work. Preserving and defending that dignity is not only vital to the freedom of workers, but to the health of society itself.

Acknowledgement

The Institute for Youth in Policy wishes to acknowledge Andrew Baum for editing this op-ed.

Image Credit

Abootalebi, Nastuh. “Office Hallway.” Unsplash, June 13, 2017. https://unsplash.com/photos/hallway-between-glass-panel-doors-yWwob8kwOCk.