Explaining Severance!

Have you watched the show Severance? We haven't, but we ask one of the 13 to explain it to us!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Aren't of you watching Severance? No, but like I feel
like I should because everybody talks about it. Could somebody
tell me at severnce please? Eight five five five nine
three five. I feel like there's usually somebody in the
room who's watching, you know, one of everything. Someone in
here covers all of it. You know. Do we have
any Minecraft people? I like it? You like Minecraft the
game or the like the movies that kind of stuff.

(00:22):
Because it was a movie, of course, it was I
think the biggest movie in a long time. Yeah, this
wee records. But did you go No? They sent me
a nice PR box that was cool? Oh yeah, yeah, okay,
so you're a Minecraft girl. Mycraft. I had no idea
I'm going this week because you know, we've got the
housewives people, we have the dateline people, Me, you have
the we have the sports people, Jason, Mom, we have

(00:42):
a team Mom, Peaky, we have like fort but we
haven't like I really do you do?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, before we do, I have a story for you
and that's why I came to work today and that
will be in the second port.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
So you're gonna have to hang around exciting week and
we have a fortune I know. That's I'm clocked up.
Why I bring this up because I don't I'm not
watching okay, And you know, sometimes I just reject. I
just say no, no, Moss is what I say. Sometimes
when everyone's talking about something, What do you mean? You
know how that goes? Yeah? Are you watching Severance? No?
What do you mean? You know? The thing that people

(01:16):
do when you're not watching the show that everyone else
is watching. And I just I don't know. I haven't
watched it, and now at this point I might just
not watch it out of principle. Just I'm just not
going to. But so I don't really know what it's about.
Tony someone who explained this to me. But there's a
big story. Today, over a third of real life employees
would willingly undergo the procedure to sever their work memories

(01:36):
from their personal lives, like Britt Lower did as Helly
on Apple TV Severance. Among eighteen to twenty five year olds,
the figure rose to almost fifty percent. Among workers age
fifty five and over, only one in five would want
to be severed. One expert says the fact that so
many employees relate to the characters in Severance shows just

(01:57):
how blurred the lines between work and per the life
have become. The research is a stark reminder of the
stress and pressure people face today. No one should feel
the need to completely forget about their work lives just
to cope. Rather than employees feeling the need to disconnect
entirely from work to protect their mental health, leaders should
build cultures where people feel able to bring their whole

(02:18):
selves to work without feeling overwhelmed or burnt out. Okay,
So I guess I don't know if I need someone
to explain this to me, Like, okay, so that's what
the show is about. The show is about that you
don't remember work when you're at home. I guess that
would be nice for something, I guess.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, Okay, So Mark leads a team of office workers
whose memories have been surgically divided, like you said, between
their work and personal lives.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
So, yeah, you don't have any memories of it when
you're at the other I don't know. That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, I feel like that would be good for everyone's
mental health, correct, you know, like you can really clock
in and enjoy your family without checking email, worrying about
like Sunday skins. I don't know if you guys get that.
But girl, yeah, like Sunday scaries, you can really just
enjoy without thinking about what's what's facing.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
You on Monday. I love the people that think that
that's what this job is for a lot of people
like like oh, Fred, you just you just go in
there and talk and then you go home and like
take a nap and whatever. It's like, yeah, this is
not well, not for Jason up in the middle of
the night at least three to four times screaming, freaking out.
Oh you have four full time jobs, so there's that.

(03:29):
It would be amazing to not think about that. But
don't you think more about the other crap than you
do this, Like oh yeah, yeah, because it's like you've
got actual jobs once you leave here, Like you're the
moron who decided during COVID to come in here and
give yourself another job. Yeah, and I'm so glad you did.
You were my favorite moron for that because you've made
this show so much better. But at the same time,

(03:49):
you also made yourself so it was like I remember
when you know, COVID started and you you were doing
promotions in marketing for a couple of radio stations, and
you had the forethought to say, you know, I don't
think we're gonna be doing a lot of events, and
so you came in here and decided I'm gonna start
learning how to do morning show stuff. And we were
like great. And then when COVID was over, I remember
the suits at the time, We're like great, so Jason's

(04:11):
going back to work now, and I'm like, uhhh, That's
exactly how I responded professionally. I go, y'all better figure
it out, because my boy's not leaving. He's ours now,
you know. And then so here you are. But you
know what, they did figure it out. They just gave
you this and all that. They figured it out. Yeah yeah,
I mean I just sit here in the app so yeah, no,

(04:32):
it's definitely this stuff after this show that well, you
do more than that. But yeah, I'm not saying this
is a hard people driving to work. I'm not speaking
for myself. People driving to work right now work a
lot harder than I do. That's that's not what I'm saying.
But for those who think that we just get could
come in here and talk and then there's like nothing
that happens after that, that would be silly. You would

(04:54):
be silly for thinking that's silly you're doing for that.
But I don't know, I don't think you could do that.
You couldn't do that job and pretend like you you
couldn't do it. I don't think you could. I don't
think you could have a radio show and and you know,
have a personality radio show and then no personality well
and your life doesn't come into it. Yeah, we wouldn't

(05:16):
be able to do this job that way. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
I read an article recently that was talking about like,
you know, when you're at work, you know, you should
never over share.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
You should never tell your call workers about your life.
Keep things separate. And I'm like, honey, with this job,
like I wouldn't have.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
A job because like I got it, I got to
talk about right or point one.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Or the other. Yeah. On sever someone texted this seven
and eight on sevens. You don't even recognize the people
you work with outside of work. It's a complete separation. Magic.
You could go to work hungover and feel bad but
not know why because you don't bring your personal life
into work, and then you don't bring work into your
personal life, so it's completely divided. Well, that'd be terrifying

(05:53):
to feel crappy and not know why. Yeah, I don't
know if this would work. And we see each other
like we like basically live together, so I don't think
it would work for us. Yeah, I mean Caitlin Gosh,
she hogs all the covers like every day I wake up.
We are the grandparents in Willy Wonka. We all share
a bed.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
We see each other more than I see my family times, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Rely, and Gg needs to keep it down at night, okay,
because because Uncle Fred needs some sleep in this frat
house that we live in together up on the Real
World Fred Show, True Stories. And if you don't know
that referend, you don't know, you don't know nothing. Hey, Lana, Hi,
Lana Hi. Okay, So thank you for trying to explain

(06:35):
severence to us. So what is the premise of this
show and why should I watch it?

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Okay? So Stubberance is basically like a corporate sci fi So,
like you've heard, like the premises that people undergo this
surgical procedure to divide their workplace memories from their personal lives.
But it's a procedure that only exists at this one
giant corporation, essentially to keep their secrets. But part of

(07:04):
what's scary about that is you don't know what the
corporation is doing. And also you create this entirely different
version of yourself with none of your personal memories that
only exists at work, so they know nothing about anything
else except what it's like to be at that office,
and you don't know how the office is treating you

(07:26):
when you're like outside, Like they can do anything to you,
and they can just give you a random explanation for
what happened to you, but that's usually in severance at least,
not what actually happened to you.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Is this a good thing? Like? Do you watch this
and go I would want this? No? I'm guessing that
the premise or the idea is that people and the
reason that people in this survey wanted is because they
wish they could just leave work and not have to
think about it anymore. So I guess that would be
the upside, right, is that you don't have to, you know,

(07:59):
like kikiS and work about the show this Kiky showdown
all weekend. Well, I guess if she were on severance,
then she'd walk out of here and she wouldn't even
know that she had worked here. Right, wouldn't worry about it?

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, that's true. I mean, well that's part of like
the they have like ethical debates. Like in the show.
There's people who are like, no, severance is bad. You're
creating like a slave version of yourself. And then there's
people who are like, actually, I would really want this.
Like a lot of the characters who like undergo the
procedure had like personal dramas that they were trying to forget,

(08:31):
Like the main character's wife died and so he went
undergoent the severance procedure because of he went to like
separate morning time.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
I guess, but isn't life kind of managing all the
different things and trying to figure it out? I mean,
I guess I'm making this a little bit more existential
than it needs to be. But I get it. I
get the idea that people would like to leave work
at work and then go live their personal lives and
then come and then work starts again and then they
can leave and you know what I mean. And I
think it's true a lot of businesses don't allow that

(09:02):
because now we all have email on our phones and
you know, the full internet everywhere we go. I'm like
twenty years ago, where it was like, oh, you sent
me an email. I don't know. I didn't have dial
up internet where I was, so I couldn't see it.
Like you could really only do the work stuff. And
even though this place will say like, well, don't email
after five or whatever, everybody emails after five and there's
no way that I'm going to wait to email you

(09:23):
back until nine am the next day. And even though
they say that's what you're supposed to be allowed to do,
you're not allowed to do that. Everybody knows that. So
I don't know. Lana, Hey, thank you, have a great day,
thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, no problem, big fan.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, oh, thank you so much. I don't know, big
fan of you, Ulana. I don't know. I just don't know.
I don't know. I don't know this. This job wouldn't
work because you got to be able to bring that
in here and whatever. But at the same time, I
guess if I had a job that was a little
it was different, you know, like if I had an
accounting job or something, and you're paying me forty hours

(09:56):
a week or something, and I do that and then
I leave and then your text me about accounting at
eight o'clock at night. That would be annoying because well,
there's nothing. I'm not going to account for anything until tomorrow.
Like there's gonna be no accounting happening now, Like we're
gonna account tomorrow. But then I think there are probably
people listening now going But I throw all of myself
into the job. That's why I'm good at it, you know,

(10:16):
That's why I excel. That's why I make more money
than other people, because I'm willing to not have that divide.
I don't know, because how do you how do you
how do you separate yourself from everybody else? If you
just if you just walk out, it's like you were
never there. True, Now you're just like a cog and
the wheel. This I you know what, Now I'm interested.
Now I may watch the show. I mean probably not,

(10:37):
but I may. I I mean, I think I just
summed up what it is for everyone who isn't watching
it till