Shows About Working In Tech

 

 

The series "Severance" and the series "WeCrashed" (both on apple tv) are excellent meditations on working in tech.  Severance is a horror / thriller type offering. The title refers to a process whereby employees of the Lumon company get "severed." By means of an implanted chip, employees, when they arrive at work, completely forget their outside lives. Likewise, when employees leave work, they completely forget their work lives.  This absolute bifurcation of consciousness leads, as one can imagine, to abuses on the part of the Lumon corporation as well as internal strife for the severed employees..  As I was watching it, one thought kept rising up - "Boy, the big dudes at Joe Big-Ass Corp would love this shit." And - to be fair - it's not just the JBA Corp that would love it.. All of them, in the deepest recesses of their stony little hearts, yearn for the day when employees are completely mold-able and free of the entanglements of outside lives..  The sterility of the office space and the interactions between employees and managers are both spot on. So very creepy..  Really worth a watch.. although.. given the creepiness factor, you might want to pace yourself when viewing Severance. WeCrashed, about the rise and fall WeWork (a work collocation management company) that was run by Adam Neumann and his wife Rebekah Neumann (a loopy devotee of The Secret who was constantly "manifesting"). The acting was excellent if a bit triggering. The lead actors (Anne Hathaway and Jared Leto) were so good, I was transported back to my startup days.. There is nothing quite so breathtaking as it is to find oneself working in a cult of personality. It happened from time to time at the JBA Corp. It was in smaller startups where WeWorkish-type psychopathy really bloomed and thrived.  WeCrashed is a lighter, easier to watch, series than Severance. If you can stand the personalities of the Adam and Rebekah characters for long stretches of time - it would be possible to binge-watch the whole thing in a weekend - in those blank hours when you're taking a break from doom-scrolling..

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