#( WORKING FOR THE COMPANY. )

[chloesimaginationthings]

Poppy playtime got a guy worse than William Afton

[the-meme-monarch]

was thinking abt how anya sleeps by the polle statue. which is motion activated to start talking.

+ i like drawing polle as a Character

[7frogsspeaks]

If you've never worked in a big corporate office you are missing out on half of Severance

Everyone seems to be talking about the setting of this show like it's a big mystery we're waiting on answers for, and I keep having to remind myself that this is the Unemployed Website because every single aspect of the severed floor is a direct parody of corporate office work. Some of it is pretty obvious to anyone (being a totally different person at work than you are at home, excessive surveillance, etc), but unless you've worked in one of these places there's a ton you're probably missing.

So, for those of you who (luckily) lack corporate office experience, here is a non-exhaustive list of real phenomenon Severence is referencing:

- Having absolutely no clue where anything is other than your department. A large corporate office truly feels like working in a brightly-lit, featureless labyrinth. You get lost so easily, and the number of turns and hallways in the opening scene is not that much more extreme than how I had to get to my department (which was over a 5-minute walk from the main entrance). It's common to draw new employees a map.

- Cult-like worship and constant quoting of the company's founder/founding family and core operating principles. Long-time employees will genuinely treat it like religious doctrine. It's scary.

- The relationship between departments. The different cultures, outrageous rumors, distrust, compete lack of understanding of who they are, how many of them there are, where they work, what they do, and generally treating them like a foreign country is barely even a parody. It's just really like that. Going to another department and seeing their equipment and work area (and being stared at by a bunch of people who don't expect a stranger to be there) might as well be walking into a room that's a hill with intimidating goat farmers.

- Other people's jobs being utterly incomprehensible. The department that had a room behind a wall next to mine apparently used it for filling backpacks with weights until the straps broke. Another department had someone whose job was to shine different lights onto pieces of fabric and record the color difference. One of my positions was measuring various pants 20 different ways and then taking notes while a specific person tried them on. Apparently a guy somewhere occasionally got paid to make watercolors of birds. Some people did finance. You get the idea.

- Only ever hearing from upper management (who are treated like a group of fickle, wrathful gods) through a nervous secretary and never hearing their voices/seeing their faces. You might know their names.

- Weird, uncomfortable, often ritualesque events that are treated like a big deal. The company I worked for, for example, would announce the employees of the year by having a committee of people with noisemakers and silly hats parade around the buildings until they got to the person's desk, and then take their photo to hang on the wall. People were not warned beforehand, it was a ~surprise~. This happened daily at random times for over a week each year, and long-standing employees got really into it.

- People genuinely fighting over all those meaningless, patronizing rewards like pizza parties, fancy pens, etc. Having an "employee of the month" mug, for example, is treated as an enviable status symbol. Presumably this is why corporations think this stuff will also work in the service industry (it doesn't because service workers are normal).

- Ridiculous conspiracy theories about the building, management, coworkers, or company history, peddled like gossip.

- New employees having a rough adjustment period where it feels like you're adapting to an alternate universe. Office culture is nothing like real life though it's closer if you live in white suburbia and have an HOA, so during most people's first time working in one they bump up against a lot of unspoken rules, weird taboos, and general culture shock. Most of this involves navigating strictly-enforced social hierarchies, verbal adherence to company ideals, and using only specific types of communication, and being chastised when you mess up. It 100% feels like being indoctrinated into a cult.

- Not understanding the purpose of the work you're doing, and only receiving vague answers, that it's "important", and that there's a big exciting deadline. No single department has access to the big picture for how everyone's jobs fit together to accomplish something, you'd have to work in all of them or in upper management to figure it out. The inner machinations and goals of the company are generally treated like a mysterious secret.

- Never seeing the sky. Window offices are a prized commodity since the buildings are so big, so unless you're a high-up manager or the company has gone to great lengths to add access to widows (most don't because it's really expensive) you likely won't see daylight until you leave, even if you travel around the building during the day.

And for the Lifetime Unemployment crowd, some more general job phenomenon:

- So. Many. Acronyms. And being expected to say them all with a straight face, even if they sound really silly.

- Coworkers effectively ceasing to exist the moment they leave the company, with zero explanation given for why they're suddenly gone unless there's a retirement party.

- Management giving ridiculously nit-picky feedback as a form of hazing/power play, especially to marginalized people.

- Upper management making sudden, drastic changes to your job expectations, physical workplace, or management structure with zero notice and penalizing you if you can't adapt immediately.

- The entire vibe of your job being dictated by who your manager is.

- Your coworkers acting like what happens at work is their entire life, and treating their home lives as something extra they do on the side.

- Having no clue who your coworkers are outside of work, and that information being largely treated as taboo.

- Being effectively locked in a sealed space with zero access to the outside world for the entirety of your workday, and being told that that's not weird or a problem– it's a benefit that helps you focus on your job.

Basically: There's no big mystery to the structure and culture of Lumon/the severed floor. Most of it is never going to get a canon "explanation" because the target audience already has one. It's all a parody.

EDIT: Reblogged with more office-specific ones and some photo evidence

[blueskittlesart]

i hope everyone in nintendo’s management department dies and goes to hell no matter what and i’m not kidding

[pivsketch]

scheduling lethal company gaming sessions via discord events. made an event banner for one

[umbrvx]

contest piece

[hellenhighwater]

In a completely baffling turn of events, today I opened up my wallet and discovered, tucked into an internal pocket, a current, valid, Michigan Concealed Pistol License ID card belonging to a man I'd never met. (CPL cards are heavy plastic, like a driver's license.) It's a validly issued CPL. He's a real person who lives in Michigan--I found his voting records, home address, social media accounts, and other information with a bit of searching, and can confirm I have never met this dude. He does not live anywhere nearby. The wallet is one I just use for my ID's--bar card, courthouse keypass, drivers license, employee ID, etc. Not something I pull out on a daily basis; very definitely not something I hand off to other people. Even more confusingly, this man is twenty years older than me to the day. We have the same birthday. But I don't know him; I don't even know anyone who knows him.

Which leaves me with the utter mystery of how the hell some random guy's concealed pistol license wound up in my purse

[doubledudeski]

playing around with my own humanformers design for bee :)

[suntails]

winter

[fazmid]

rewatching severance s1 and I cannot express enough how good it is but my brain is twisting in knots trying to figure out how s2 is apparently one of the most expensive seasons of television ever produced. they're in an office. a very empty office. what is happening in the next season to suck up all that budget

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny is Bruce and Clark's Civilian friend

So! Danny met Bruce and Clark at a Charity Gala promoting his Clean Energy and Technology Company.

It was just something He, Tucker, and Sam had started up after High School to try and do some good in the world, but grew faster than they realized, until they were a rising star in the Green Energy and Technology Business. Really they should have expected it, with Sam's drive for environmental protection and Tucker's love of technology, it was a given that they would push the company farther than anticipated. Danny was mostly just the front-man (aside from helping out Tucker in the Lab sometimes).

The Gala was set up by Sam to raise money for environmental preservation efforts, and Danny was there as a formality since he was the Face of the Business and technically the CEO.

Danny had struck up a conversation with Bruce, having been introduced by Sam, and they were eventually approached by Clark for an interview. He wanted to get their thoughts on the recently proposed Meta Protection Acts, and after the interview Danny decided to give Clark his contact to see if he wanted to do a follow-up. Bruce did the same, and they agreed to talk in the future.

Danny hadn't expected that to be the start of a new friendship.

Bruce and Clark seemed to click instantly with him, and while it took longer they also seemed to warm up to eachother as well. It got to the point where they were talking outside of Galas or Interviews and just called to check up on eachother. It was nice, having friends outside of Tucker and Sam for once.

Oh and also they were totally Dating.

Yeah, it was kind of obvious in hindsight that his two friends had a thing for eachother. Bruce and Clark would always share these looks with eachother before leaving the room, or Clark would check his phone for a message from whenever Bruce texted someone. They seemed to be hanging out without him as well, since they sometimes slipped up and referenced events they experienced together that he wasn't there for.

Of course Clark was publicly dating Lois Lane from his workplace, but listening his coworkers gossip long enough told him what was really going on. Lois and Clark were fake-dating so that Lois could secretly date Superman without being targeted by his enemies as much, and Clark could date a secret partner that none of his coworkers could figure out.

So when he was talking to Clark one day and the man got a text message and suddenly had a bad stomach ache, Danny decided that he should probably let him know that he knew.

"Oh don't worry Clark, I know what's going on. No need to keep up appearance with me around." He said.

"O-oh? Uh, what are you talking about Danny?" Clark asked surprised.

Danny shrugged, "It was pretty obvious in hindsight. The sneaking off, the text messages that got you to leave in a hurry, the secret glances between you and Bruce. After a while it was hard to ignore."

Clark cringed a little, "I just have a nervous stomach, and I have to rush off for work pretty often. That's all Danny."

Danny leveled a glance at him, "So does Bruce also have an upset stomach that just so happens to match up to yours? And why is Bruce following you to your Job? What, is he trying to get a job at the Daily Planet that he owns?"

"O-oh, well- I mean- That doesn't necessarily mean that I'm-" Clark stuttered.

"Calm down man, I'm not going to say anything." Danny reassured him. "It's your business, and nobody has any right to know your personal business unless you tell them. I just figured it out on my own, but I'm not gonna go shouting from the rooftops that Clark Kent is-"

"That's enough Danny, no need to demonstrate, but...thank you." Clark cut him off, "So far only Lois and Jimmy have figured me out on their own, and it's nice to finally have somebody else to talk to about this."

Danny shrugged and patted him on the shoulder, "No problem Clark, if you ever need to talk to me about it I'm all ears."

[phantomtrax]

god damn the sun

[artisticwerks]

My Little Pony Express: Mouthwashing is Magic

[corruptimles]

wethal

[quiet-admirer]

American diners are some of the horniest places on earth, they will unflinchingly tell you one of their combo meals is 2 dinnerplate pancakes, 2 eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausage, home fries, and two whole pieces of toast pre-slathered in butter and you can look into your server's eyes and just order it