A little more than two years ago, I wrote my first regular column here at Catholic World Report, and it was about work. I was reflecting on a trip I took to England as part of my last hurrah as a fellow of one of the premier Catholic apostolates. That position, like most of the paid work I have done in my life, provided satisfaction, which is not common in many people’s professions. I have always been able to maintain one cohesive life–or better, one self—whose work and leisure create a seamless whole, even if I haven’t made a ton of money.
Speaking of money, it is nothing to me, except of course for the small matter of the things and experiences it brings. Frankly, I like nice things and experiences. But more importantly, a house full of people who depend on me need things and experiences like three meals a day and some decent clothes, not to mention dance lessons and streaming subscriptions and all the other things that are de rigeur among even the most financially stretched members of the class of Americans with whom I dwell.
When not enough money is coming in, therefore, I can get down. I start obsessing about existential questions that border on despair.
Then I rationalize. If the price is right, why can’t I do something I hate or at least something I don’t like all that much? Who do I think I am, an aristocrat? People do it all the time. Could it really be so bad?
For better or for worse, the answer always comes back to me as yes, it could be that bad, or worse. I will make my fortune or I won’t, but I have a purpose in this world that will not allow me to do or be just anything. I may dress like a yuppie, but my heart is bohemian (and look, they’re both flip sides of the same bourgeois coin anyway!). I have worked in offices, but I make it clear, probably to everyone’s annoyance, that I am in it but not of it. And the work I have done hasn’t been too office-y, anyway. I’ve been a teacher, an Anglican minister, a Catholic church worker, a writer, and, as already mentioned, a fellow of a think tank.
Let each person make his peace with his own career path, but I will stick up for the humane qualities of my own.
Now, in that column from two years ago, I specifically discussed work by exploring the first season of the Apple TV+ show Severance. As the show has just aired the final episode of its second season, it is time to renew my discourse. Whereas Season 1 was excellent and creepy and spoke to me during a time of professional uncertainty, Season 2 is even more exciting and flat-out terrifying. But, again, perfect for my situation. To me, it screams, “See, look what happens when you take an ordinary office job!” Again, it could be that bad. But before I say more about Severance, I have a few words to share about another, more famous work-related show.
As I write this, it is the twentieth anniversary of the debut of the American version of The Office, which is the most iconic television program for the generation below my own. As someone born at the end of Generation X, I am usually able to blend in with Millennials fairly well; that is, until a little group starts laughing about how when ice melts it’s like a second drink, or when a couple exchange a wry smile and one says to the other that she isn’t superstitious, but she is a little stitious. If you happen not to spot those references, they are lines from The Office, and I must tell you, I had to look them up, because I’ve only seen the odd episode. And at the risk of losing all the thirty-something readers of this column prematurely, I must also admit that I haven’t found in The Office the comedy gold that many have.
Let me explain why.
The American Office has failed to bust my gut, at least in part, because of its light-hearted perspective on its source material: Work. The impression I get is not that anyone particularly loves being at Dunder Mifflin, but they’ve made their peace with it. A job is a job. Make the best of it. Looking at a screen full of numbers could even be sanctifying. Perhaps that’s the Opus Dei way of thinking, but I’ve always been more of a Giussani guy.
In any case, I contrast the American Office with the shows I can quote verbatim from the 1990s, when people appeared more determined not to make the most of desk jobs. My teen television preferences taught me that a white-collar workplace was usually a sad place, and it could only become a good source of comedy after you hit the gate at quitting time. On Seinfeld, the show I know better than any other, Jerry boasts that he has never had a job. George’s dream position with the Yankees’ organization is ultimately nothing special, and Kramer’s rare forays into the business world are pure parody. In one episode, he repeatedly shows up to a job he doesn’t actually have, bearing a briefcase full of crackers and enduring a commute with a montage set to Sheena Easton’s “9 to 5.” Elaine’s best job is buying socks and removing salt from pretzels for an eccentric dévoté of Jackie Onassis.
Likewise, it makes no difference what happens in Chandler’s cubicle on Friends. When he discusses his “WENUS” and “ANUS” reports, we laugh at the absurdity of the whole workplace culture. The audience knows that whatever bean-counting the show’s one unfortunate suit-wearer has to do all day is a lamentable lot in life compared to being a paleontologist (Ross), a chef (Monica), or even an underemployed actor (Joey), not to mention whatever it is that Phoebe does when she isn’t playing “Smelly Cat” at Central Perk coffee house. Plus, all that really matters to any of them is getting back to a spacious Manhattan apartment and hanging out. As a young man, this seemed about right to me.
Now, Americans are not as good at black comedy as the British are, and to the American Office’s detriment, it simply ignored the critique of modern work depicted in its forerunner from across the pond. I’m told a Gen-Xer would have this view, but whatever (as my people say). Anyway, in the dour industrial park of Stephen Merchant’s and Ricky Gervais’ imagination, selling paper products in cubicles all day is an allegory of Hell. At their fictional company, team-building exercises are a few rungs down the Satanic ladder from the claustrophobic anonymity of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit. And at the end of a shift at Wernham Hogg, everyone is dying for a pint and a laugh at the Chasers night club—if only the boss wasn’t coming along too.
Whenever I see Steve Carell and company talking to the camera in suspiciously sunny Scranton, I cannot help but contrast the mood with the episode of the British original where Dawn (Lucy Davis) is horrified when Tim (Martin Freeman) decides to accept a promotion and abandon his plans for the life he has hoped to build outside the firm. For Tim to acquiesce to such a fate requires becoming as lame as the man he pities most, David Brent, who can only gather whatever crumbs of joy the world outside drops on the neutral wall-to-wall carpet where his insecurities manifest as inappropriate comments all day, every day. To stay in the office for good, Tim is faced with the prospect of killing off in one violent act the imaginative part of his brain that was already dying with each trip into gloomy Slough. He must finally drink the corporate Kool-Aid. If only there were a neurosurgical procedure that would accomplish the process more efficiently!
And here we return to Severance, which, perhaps because of involvement from its quintessentially Gen-X Executive Producer and Director, Ben Stiller, we enter Hell in the form of a frozen wasteland of work. On this season of Severance, office life ultimately shows itself to be a straight-up goat-sacrificing cult, which is not a huge stretch in my mind as I consider what I have heard about some real-life HR departments. But instead of merely metaphorical mind-melting accomplished by jargon like pivoting, pinging, and PTO, at the Lumon Corporation, people’s brains are surgically mangled, and their labor used to complete inscrutable computer tasks until their services are no longer necessary. Anywhere.
But this season, the writers also explore the effects on the soul, pushing the point much harder than before that the “innies” are truly different spiritual creatures from their outside selves.
On a related note, we learn a lot more about Lumon, which turns out to be something far more sinister than your typically modern we-make-and-do-everything mega-corp. It got its start as a modest ether factory staffed by child slaves, and its nineteenth-century patriarch was a self-styled demiurge who reigned over a frozen, forgotten corner of the American interior. Lumon-lifer Harmony Cobel, played with terrifying intensity by Patricia Arquette, makes a return in the second season, but she now embodies the soul-destroying phenomenon of forced loyalty to a human entity that imagines quasi-divine aspirations. Again, the fictional Lumon is probably a few steps deeper into the darkness than real-life companies like Google or Johnson & Johnson; but what for-profit outfit nowadays doesn’t want us to believe its purpose is far greater than selling us something? Every company wants us to imagine that its “team members” or “partners” are really some kind of missionaries.
Season 2 picks up a few months after the thrilling cliffhanger of Season 1, where the “innies” found a way to sneak some “overtime,” which is the protocol term for switching on the work-only brain identity of employees when they are not on the “severed” floor. Mark, played a little differently this season by Adam Scott as two distinct “innie” and “outie” characters, has learned more about his co-worker, Ms. Casey, a.k.a. his not-dead-after-all wife, Gemma. “Innie” Mark feels torn between a sense of duty to the “outie” marriage he knows little about, and his desire for an identity and community underground. An “innie” may have his own desires and rights. He is part of a new body, a corporation. The man beyond the walls is his own concern.
Mark’s colleagues also have their own identity crises. Does the severed Irving, for example, deserve love, even with someone who is already coupled up on the outside? Likewise, does it constitute an extra-marital affair for “innie” Dylan to pursue a relationship with “outie” Dylan’s wife? And what if Hellie, who refines data as a nobody by day, turns out to be the tenacious leader her “outie” heiress Helena is not? The unsevered boss, Mr. Milchick, has his own struggle, brought on not only by employee mutiny and unreasonable performance reviews, but also by the introduction of a child intern rival, Miss Huang. It’s classic middle management anxiety, but with both supernatural and racial undertones.
Season 2 ends in an even more dramatic fashion than the previous one, with a sprint through sterile white corridors as red panic alarms flash and loud sirens sound. An office is only a place to sit and scroll a computer mouse and chit-chat and take breaks and enjoy incentives until something does not follow the approved plan. Here, the problem changes from a sci-fi labor dispute between Lumon and its biologically tampered employees into a clash of two (or more?) versions of the same people against themselves. Or each other?
That’s the point.
Severance is an excellent program, but I worry its critique of white-collar work may lose coherence as it focuses more on just being an ensemble thriller with vague mysterious flourishes, like Lost. A third season may clarify things further.
I guess I should keep working to pay the Apple TV+ bill. To wit, thank you all for two years of support.
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Why would you want to comment upon such a series that is complete garbage just looking at it. Vacuous rubbish that we don’t need third rate acting to convey just look at real life,!!!!
Reposing in long retirement, and once an inhabitant of an office cubicle (public “sector”!), I also sometimes ponder the meaning of it all…
Not much of a good fit, yours truly even violated the edict that personal trappings could not rise above the cubicle panels…visible to visitors from “outside”! And, the department head’s first name was “King,” known by all to be a nickname but thought by himself to be his title. The only disagreement we ever had…except that my privileged window cubicle featured an outer and coveted floor-to-ceiling wall (the window facing directly into a split-level highway viaduct agitated by commuter cars and trucks purposefully scurrying either hither or thither).
The summoned “Aesthetics Police” from HR evaluated the conspicuous wall hanging above my eye-level cubicle panels! But, then wisely chose not to test my resolve. It stayed: a very large and glass-framed print of Millet’s “Man with a Hoe,” upon which was superimposed the wording of Oregon school-teacher Edwin Markham’s prophetic poem (1898) by the same name:
“How will it be with kingdoms and with kings —
With those who shaped him to the thing he is —
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world.
After the silence of the centuries?”
This is a five-star comment, Peter. You’ve really lived the nightmare!
I’ve never seen Severance (my son is an avid fan) but the premise reminds me of a famous 1951 science fiction story, “Beyond Bedlam” by Wyman Guin. It’s set in a world of induced schizophrenia (actually multiple personality disorder) where everyone alternates between personas every five days. The two halves of the protagonist happen to be married to the two halves of the same woman. But by manipulating the changeover procedure, he meets the “other half” of his wife and they have an affair, with disastrous results.
Creative, personally fulfilling work is a blessing that only a minority of humanity has ever enjoyed. Alas.
Thanks, CWR, for your articles and comment boxes. Peteprin is fresh. For tragicomedy ou-patheos, a good slink into Chapstick’s shallow and gummy columns does me good. Consequently, I save by not shelling funds on cable or stream TV.
Peteprin’s article brims full of funny, fresh light prose. Thanks again.
Just to clarify what I actually intended to say, even if that is not crystal clear by what I actually said, this remark is no First Day of April Foolness either. If my disingenuity confuses you, you may just as well be one of those sadradtrads whose mouthfroth metastasized to brain. Look in a mirror and see the type of ravening wolf you wish you could make of me. April Fools!
Mr. Petiprin cannot imagine a world in which someone who works in an office building can “maintain one cohesive life–or better, one self—whose work and leisure create a seamless whole” like he can through his chosen profession. This is the biggest problem with this essay. It is limited in imagination and deeply condescending because he does not acknowledge that there is dignity and value in working any job that is necessary for the functioning of a society. Do we need paper companies? Yes. Then Dunder Mifflin is going to exist and thank god there are bosses like David Brent and Michael Scott who try to make the space a bit more enjoyable, friendly, and “humane” (a buzz word for this particular author).
I think Mr. Petiprin genuinely misses the most important thing about Severance. Lumon is not bad because of its office setting…It is NOT just another office and therefore the show is not a simplistic critique of white collar office drudgery. Lumon is bad because it is a bizarre cult that takes advantage of workers who have no memories or autonomy and monopolizes every waking hour of their entire existences to perform the duties which the workers themselves do not even understand. Dunder Mifflin is no hell hole like Lumon. The Office satirizes the most absurd areas of office life, but Dunder Mifflin and Wernham Hogg fail their workers through things like the threat of downsizing and the fear of missing quotas- things that could be fixed by compensating workers better and upper management less… And yes, some HR interactions may seem annoying or overly officious, but let’s face it, there was some MAJOR sexism and racism depicted in that show which when we look back on it now required Toby to step in.
I fully acknowledge that some people who work in offices might agree with Mr. Petiprin’s analysis and that they find their work life to be tedious, dull, and soul crushing. But I also acknowledge that people in all areas of life have differing expectations and experiences. I find it unwise for Mr. Petiprin to write off huge swaths of human experience because of his own narrow interpretation of what office life is like, especially when he admits he has never worked in such a space before. I did a quick search and found that, “in May 2023, 18.5 million Americans worked in office and administrative support jobs, representing 12.2% of total employment.” If you think that 12.2% of the total American population can’t find meaning and fulfillment in their office lives and that they cannot experience work and home life as one “seamless whole” then that is just too deeply cynical and pessimistic for me.
He claims, “money is nothing” to him—but of course it is. If money were truly nothing, he wouldn’t have the luxury of choosing only “humane” jobs. According to Time magazine, around $75,000 to $105,000 is a common threshold where income stops significantly impacting happiness, though the exact amount can vary based on location and individual circumstances, and that “daily positive emotions peak at $75,000 nationally.” Even though happiness may plateau at a certain income level, up to that point making less money is a hindrance to happiness because of the stress that comes with financial instability.
Mr. Petiprin also lauds characters with no “real jobs” but he doesn’t acknowledge that the world wouldn’t function with nothing but Jerrys, Joeys, Phoebes, and Kramers. It also wouldn’t work if all we had were paleontologists and chefs. The point isn’t that some jobs are inherently inhumane—it’s that workplace culture, leadership, and fair compensation determine how fulfilling work can be. And maybe… just maybe… someone like Tim from Wernham Hogg could take his negative experiences as a worker and use them to actually make the office a more “humane” space by accepting a promotion. Maybe he doesn’t have to “kill off in one violent act the imaginative part of his brain that was already dying with each trip into gloomy Slough.” That’s a grim outlook, especially when paper companies are necessary (unless we want to transition entirely to Kindles and tablets, that is).
But who knows. I work from home staring at a computer screen all day. I’m no literary critic. But I do know a condescending essay when I read one. And I wonder how many readers of this essay might bristle at the condescending way the author talks about their “inhumane” workspaces and refers to them as a “hellscape.” He actually sounds like “Outie Mark” when he has his virtual Zoom meeting with his “innie” self. “Outie Mark” cannot imagine that the Mark S. inside of Lumon could in fact find joy, friendship, love, and fulfillment inside such a strange environment. Mr. Petiprin mentions Sartre, but what about his contemporary who was also much more of a moralist, Camus? We must imagine Sisyphus to be happy, and I think that is why Innie Mark runs through the hallways holding hands with Helly R. at the end of the season finale. Were Innie Mark truly miserable and unhappy, he would have entered the hallway, effectively committing suicide, and lived as his Outie self from that point on. He didn’t so we have to assume he’s like Sisyphus.
Whatever happiness Innie Mark may find pushing his boulder, it will be short-lived. He can run, but he cannot avoid for long his destiny to be Outie Mark again. Moreover, Innie Mark already represents a kind of suicide on Outie Mark’s part – the literary professor who unsuccessfully tried to drown his pain with alcohol and finally turned to deleting his brain for 8 hours a day. As hope returned, Outie Mark’s tragedy became the inability to unmake the creature of his despair. It’s no-win for either of the two Marks on his own. Re-integration of the inner and outer man is the only solution – understanding his whole self as gift. Kierkegaard, not Camus.
Weak sauce. What a way to not address valid criticism. The point of the critique was that we acknowledge that 12.8% of the population does office jobs and many of these are essential: scheduling medical appointments, working for the IRS, using computers to manage transportation for goods and services, etc. My mother-in-law is a paralegal at a good law firm. These are good jobs and people can find fulfillment in them. That you can’t fathom that shows a lack of imagination and empathy. Indeed, that is clearly the point of the Sisyphus reference—even the extreme epitome of drudgery can still be fulfilling.
Additionally, there is also the option of working a day job AND using one’s leisure for all kinds of fulfilling purposes. Wallace Stevens worked as middle management at an insurance company and wrote some of the greatest poetry of the 20th century. William Carlos Williams was a physician and a brilliant poet. Kurt Vonnegut sold Saabs. And Stevie builds websites, then writes/produces amazing music. Office jobs don’t have to be hell on earth; people make them that way when they don’t treat their employees well or pay them a living wage to support their families.
OK. I’m willing to admit I’ve listened to Lloyd Dobler’s speech a few more times than most people.
The point of the critique was that we acknowledge that 12.8% of the population does office jobs and many of these are essential: scheduling medical appointments, working for the IRS, using computers to manage transportation for goods and services, etc. My mother-in-law is a paralegal at a good law firm. These are good jobs and people can find fulfillment in them. That you can’t fathom that shows a lack of imagination and empathy. Indeed, that is clearly the point of the Sisyphus reference-even the extreme epitome of drudgery can still be fulfilling.
Additionally, there is also the option of working a day job AND using one’s leisure for all kinds of fulfilling purposes. Wallace Stevens worked as middle management at an insurance company and wrote some of the greatest poetry of the 20th century.
William Carlos Williams was a physician and a brilliant poet. Kurt Vonnegut sold Saabs. And Stevie builds websites, then writes/produces amazing music. Office jobs don’t have to be hell on earth; people make them that way when they don’t treat their employees well or pay them a living wage to support their families.
About my earlier comment…yes, there were also moments of rich community and great creativity. A mixed bag.
But, since Camus is mentioned, we might as well channel Franz Kafka, author of “The Trial” about a man repeatedly accused but never meeting the original accuser nor even knowing the crime. Such things also happen in cubicle hell.
Sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) dabbled with insanity as he looked toward our future in a totally bureaucratic civilization. Why bother? Said he to his wife: “because I want to see how much I can endure.” And about politics, he said: “Not summer’s bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness and hardness, no matter which group may triumph externally” (“Politics as a Vocation,” posthumously in 1921; in Gerth and Mills, “From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology,” 1946/1972).
Thanks for raising Kafka. He is an important influence on the vision of the show.
Mr. Petiprin notes that Americans aren’t as good at black comedy as the British. He may be right. “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin” from the 1970’s is as dark as it gets and essentially says nothing good about office work– but is downright funny.
Wish this article had spoiler tags, but c’est la vie. I’ve been waiting for some good Catholic commentary on this incredible show!
Season 1 of Severance made me dwell so much on the meaning of family and what it means in an age of productivity. That was before the finale. In light of current events, my thoughts on Season 2 have circled around IVF. A fundamental question raised again and again throughout the show is, “Who are you?”
With this new season, the ethics od severance really take center stage. Who has the right to bring consciousness in and out of existence? You raised some of the other important conundrums introduced as well. But I keep thinking, Severance, for those open to truth, can help us see the truly horrifying ramifications of IVF. The “innies” can speak for themselves, who will be the voice for all the frozen embryos?
And last, I do hope, Andrew, that you’ve seen the Reddit posts with Seinfeld memes that explain each Severance episode without context. Brilliant!
Yes, the show offers an excellent critique of scientism. (All the analog equipment in the show creates a stark contrast.) I wonder if even its creators, let alone most of its audience, would think of the obvious parallel you raise to IVF. Concerns about AI and most other technological innovations are there in the question “Who are you?” as well.