Dear Mr. Jame Egan, Chief Executive Officer at Lumon Industries,
First, I congratulate you on implementing the severance procedure, which successfully blocks your employees’ memories and knowledge from the outside world when they are at work so they can completely focus on their jobs, unencumbered by distractions from what is happening out there.
The procedure is so wonderful that I want to join your organization as a full-time employee—and I do mean “full-time.” I would like you to set the severance device in my brain fully on “innie” mode for the next four years. I am willing to work nonstop for the entire time if it allows me to avoid the panic attacks I have every day from hearing the news about teenage social media influencers becoming senior government advisors.
I am sure your company can provide a healthy and productive work life that will keep me blissfully mentally absent from the daily chaos of dismantling democracy, unnecessary cruelty, and destruction of all decency and normality that I, as an “outie,” have been witnessing every day. In return, I promise to be a loyal and unquestioning employee who will sharpen all pencils, make fresh coffee for my team every day, and not ask questions about your vague and concerning corporate mission.
I am quite certain that keeping the severance device permanently on innie mode is possible. As an outie, I see people going about their business and continuing their lives without recognizing all the abnormal craziness around them. This must be your severance device on innie mode. How else can I explain that I am the only one turning into a living Edvard Munch painting while everyone else continues to calmly and mindlessly scroll on their phones while sipping double mocha Frappuccinos? Surely, these must be your dedicated employees focused on their work and unaware of the melting down of our “outie” world, or else they would be running around pulling their hair out.
I am not sure what work I will be doing as a severed employee, but I will enthusiastically take on the role of “permanent innie” to complete any of your very important projects that I am sure are not at all morally questionable. In return, I will give up all outie knowledge of the new world order where our government turns on its loyal democratic allies to support autocrats and strips funding of fundamental safeguards for its citizens. This will allow me to spend all my time innocently creating the next great Lumon product. I won’t even need some of the great employee benefits you offer outies, such as a boxy out-of-date car and a mediocre townhouse in the employee housing development out at the edge of town.
I sincerely hope you will consider hiring me as a severed employee, even if I have no biotech background. I realized that many new prospective candidates became available when the Center for Disease Control replaced entire departments of PhDs working to prevent the next pandemic with an eighteen-year-old high school dropout, a trained monkey, and an untested experimental AI program. However, you will find that I am a quick learner who will fill my brain with your ambiguous but holy corporate doctrine that will thankfully replace all my knowledge of the outside world, where we aren’t sure if anyone knows who has the nuclear codes right now.
I look forward to being an excellent severed employee for the next four years… straight.
Thank you, and Praise Kier!
Sincerely,
Steve Perlman
P.S. If hired, I will need to arrange for someone to water my outie’s plants and walk the dog every day until January 20, 2029.