Modern Times: Switching Between Lives

I recently started watching Severance on Apple TV and was struck by how closely it mirrors my own professional life and, I suspect, that of many others. I’m not so much focusing on the show’s oneiric tone and plot but more on the stark division it portrays between work and personal identity.

With the end of back-office duties and soon all corporate jobs a lot of this will be a thing of the past but I still find myself getting home and wanting to unplug from what I did the whole day, and coming to the office the next morning trying to unplug from what I did the previous night. My daily roles feel contradictory: loving and present at home, obedient and submissive at the office. Sometimes I lead with care and empathy, and other times I’m forced into a colder, more transactional role, absorbing hostility. Switching hats during the day is schizophrenic. Severance expands on a world in which workers could just switch from their work life to personal life without remembering each other. And as strange as that sounds, it sometimes feels like a tempting escape.

Once, I was so deep in finalizing a media plan for a high-stakes campaign that I completely forgot it was my turn to cook dinner. My wife had a late work call, and we would agreed earlier in the week that I would take care of the evening routine. But as the clock ticked past seven, I was still buried in ad copy and audience segments, completely unaware of the time.

When I finally emerged from my office, I found my wife eating cheese straight from the freezer, too exhausted to cook, and too tired to argue. The kitchen was quiet, the kind of quiet that says everything without a word.

That night, I felt the weight of her disappointment. It was not just about the meal; it was about reliability, balance, and remembering that my responsibilities at home matter just as much as any deadline I meet at work.

The show portrays this split in a negative light because it’s only outside of work, in your personal life, that you reflect on the meaning and impact of your job. But I have to admit, there is something strangely appealing about the idea of a complete severance between personal and professional lives.

Work is a sort of self-imposing violence. We take on roles and goals that often do not align with who we are, just to earn the money we need to pursue our real ambitions outside the office. And yet, the looming end of work as we know it, at the hands of AI, feels like a bigger tragedy than any of these collateral damages.