Drug That Makes You Forget Your 9-5 or the Severance Technology, Whichever is Faster
Sharon Whollfouds used to take pride in her 9-5 job. She would leave her house in a J. Crew roll neck sweater, walk obediently to her red line stop to join hundreds of others just like her. She would arrive in The Loop and march along with her fellow corporate slaves. They are in for a day they hope to never remember. In some ways, many of us are also Sharon Whollfouds. In many ways, isn't this like Mark Severance? Isn't it time we all learn from the show and reap the benefit?
I met up with Sharon at a Starbucks mid-work day, a typical activity for a reporter such as myself, but quite the rarity for Sharon who could not stop remarking on the activity around her: "Where are all these people going?", "Is it always this bright out?", "Have I always been able to make choices for myself uninformed by my manager during this time of day?". I felt her wide eyed naivety fully, this lifestyle demands we forget we are people with free will. Sharon explains to me that working for Deloitte in their weapons manufacturing department went entirely against her values, "If I could just forget that I'm responsible for death, like a lot of death, I wouldn't hate my job so much. The paycheck is worth it, but doing it sucks". I ask if there is anything else she enjoys about the job. "Zack in the fake food ingredients department and I have a little thing going. We message each other all day and giggle at each other's desks". A work spouse, of course. A little indulgence that many of us are guilty of, and would not want taken away from us. Thankfully, being severed does not get rid of this, and more importantly, it kind of makes it more ethical since no one remembers anything.
I propose both the drug and the technology to Sharon, to understand how either the drug or the chip would cause her to react. She burst into tears, "ANY of them, PLEASE GOD! I just can't keep doing this". She moved me, I found myself in tears. "Even if I lied about the brain chip operation being safe and non-invasive?" I choked. She explained it was better if it left a scar, so even if the consequences of the Severance technology were bad, she wanted to remember how bad it got that she felt the need to sever herself. I was once again moved, this time to action.
I write this article to beg on behalf of Sharon and I and many, many others: someone please invent the Severance technology.