ESPRESSO
Re-Integrate Your Life:
What Severance Can Teach Us About Modern Work
Also, have you heard of espresso?
au.espres.so
In a world where multi-million dollar businesses can be run from an iPhone, the value of the 9-to-5 is beginning to feel more like an inherited tradition than a considered structure. Questioning the validity of office monotony and long work hours is nothing new. The pandemic highlighted just how redundant rigid schedules can be as well as the productivity and lifestyle value remote work can provide. What was once positioned as professional discipline now reads, to many, as outdated inefficiency. Groundbreaking news: some of your employees' best work happens when you let them clock in un-showered, in a ratty hoody and having had 8 hours sleep.
The cultural value of a flexible collective work ethic is indisputable. Pre-COVID, just 8% of remote-capable employees in the U.S. worked from home full-time. By 2023, that number had jumped to 26%, with 55% opting for hybrid positions with their rising availability (Gallup, 2023). The 8-8-8 workstyle is becoming more and more redundant.
Are we collectively starting to realise that rigid 8 hour blocks, sleep, personal life and work, are not the most beneficial nor the most productive?
What if we didn't have to sacrifice lifestyle flexibility, family time and personal fulfilment
all in the name of meaningful work?
Is it really possible to balance lifestyle and workstyle?
The Severance Question
Enter Severance, Dan Erickson’s hauntingly elegant series that explores this very tension. For the uninitiated, the premise of this dystopian TV series is brilliant: a medical procedure, ‘Severance’, which allows employees to split their consciousness into two selves—the "innie" who exists only at work, and the "outie" who lives only outside it. Neither self is aware of the other due to total psychological and emotional segregation. You leave work, but you never feel the relief of leaving. You arrive at work, but you never remember why. Sounds a lot like the days I worked for a large corporate firm.
The show's genius lies not only in its philosophical and cultural commentary, but in its remarkable use of sterile, symmetrical cinematography and cold, retro-futurist design. The whitewashed corridors, fluorescent lights, and the unsettling uniformity of the office aesthetic mirror the emotional numbness many feel in traditional work environments. In a society where 50% of workers report daily stress (Gallup, 2022) and nearly 60% describe emotional detachment or misery in their roles, this idea of segregated work and home life feels familiar, to say the least. The show almost screams at you the importance of choosing the right thing to work on, and whether the work enables you to live in line with your values.
The Process of Un-Severing
I understand the pressure to conform to traditional definitions of success. I’m a twenty-something year old who has chased the societal prestige of a conventional career through the consulting, medicine, and start-ups. I’ve worked in a Big Four firm sifting through government reports and formatting PowerPoints for hours, then, unhappy, I shifted to practice management, solving problems in clinics, and focused on patient care. Each step taught me something.
But none of it felt like me.
So I started medical school—maybe that would give me meaning? But the deeper I went, the more I sensed the danger of splitting myself in two—the professional version performing a career, and the personal version draining of life.
Growing up in a medical household, I saw firsthand how despite the fulfilment that can come from noble professions, it doesn’t always balance out the emotional burden. And while I hold deep respect for that world, I knew my personality needed something else. To prioritise love in my life, to create art, to work from a place of alignment. Not to be selfish—though perhaps I am—but to live without severance. My mission is a working life that doesn’t demand a partition between my ambition and my joy even if it means less stability and bigger risks.
Why Hybrid Is Not Just a Perk—It’s a Philosophy
Not all offices are evil. Not all structure is bad. In fact, the best models are hybrid. Workstyle, lifestyle balance isn't about running off to be a digital nomad (although that does look fun in its own right) but it's about employers granting flexibility and autonomy while still allowing for spontaneous collaboration and creative spark. A 2021 study by PwC found 83% of employers said the shift to remote work was a success. Flexibility isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a proven method for increasing productivity, improving retention, and reducing burnout. In one survey, 83% of employees said flexible hours reduced their stress (FlexJobs, 2021), and nearly 80% said it made them more productive (SHRM, 2022).
Younger workers are especially clear: 65% of Gen Z expect remote or hybrid work options as a given (Gartner, 2020). We're not rebelling against work itself. In fact we seem to acknowledge that work is essential for feelings of accomplishment and fulfilment, that in-person contact is highly valuable particularly early on in careers. What we are doing however, is redefining what it looks like to do work well. In a world that asks us to fragment and perform, reclaiming holistic integration is radical. It's also nice to get 2 hours of your life back on days you don't have to commute to an office.
Tools That Make It Possible: The Espresso Edge
This is where Espresso Displays enters the frame—seamlessly, intuitively. Whether I’m deep in market research, writing on Substack, or just catching up on emails my espresso has allowed a feeling of workstyle, lifestyle enablement.
I'm able to move between co-working spaces, cafes, and my own living room without being constrained by a large monitor but also without sacrificing my office-level set up. Espresso has provided me with a working environment that isn’t tied to a single location or segregated version of my identity. It allows you to keep your flow, to work where you feel in the moment.
Espresso has enabled a work-life balance where I’m not escaping work, because work fits around my life and activities—not the other way around. I don't fee like I'm trading in my life style for an optimal work set up when it’s even possible to link multiple screens together for more complex workflows. Espresso provides technology ideal for creatives, analysts, or entrepreneurs who might need a few monitors on the go at once for fluid routine.
And in that way, it does what Severance warns against: it integrates. It allows your working self and your full self to share space—not in conflict, but to exist in union. Much like the visual symmetry and minimalism of the show's production design, espresso brings quiet precision and elegance to your everyday workflow.
While Severance is a cautionary tale, it gestures to remind us that we don’t have to divide ourselves to survive the modern workplace. The future of work is not about choosing between burnout and freedom. It’s about designing tools, cultures, and rhythms that let us bring our whole selves to everything we do.
Espresso has been one of these tools in my own life. A setup that matches the softness of your Sunday mind and the sharpness of your Monday ambition—I’m pretty content. The point isn’t to escape the office. It’s to be present in all parts of yourself across all domains of life, as much as you can and with the least resistance.
For the chance to win an espresso display click here.
To get 10% off of an espresso display use code " OAL " via this link.
.png)
.png)
Read More
From a 9-5 to a full-time fashion photography career, Saya's life changed all because of one 'yes'.
Photography
Naarm, Melbourne
Hall-Lomax's latest collection of Photographic work is a meditation on family, memory, and identity.
Fine Art
Ngunnawal, Canberra
DIGI
A boutique electronic music festival standing as a testament to what Canberra is capable of offering.
Events
Ngunnawal, Canberra
