Does your company show the same red flags as Lumon in Severance?

Posted on March 30, 2025 by Tatiana Serikova, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

After years in corporate life, watching Severance hits different. Some things are just too familiar. One scene and you’re back in those whitish corridors under unnatural lighting, buying a snack from a vending machine to power through a sad all-nighter — just so you can report to the Board the next morning and receive indifferent advice to “do better.”

While (hopefully) most companies are more human than Lumon, some of what’s shown there isn’t that uncommon. So here’s a (mostly) lighthearted look at things that are totally normal in Severance — but would be red flags in any regular workplace. Or at least, should be.

Responsibility without power

Remember when the main character takes over the macro-data refining department and needs to deal with things he definitely is not prepared for? Here is your manual, now handle a crisis that is way more serious than anything described there. No handover, no real resources, no training — and no power to make actual decisions

Us and them

Bonding with colleagues is strictly prohibited, especially across departments. Leadership runs vague myths about how “they” betrayed “us” in the past. It’s harder to collaborate, challenge the system, or ask questions when all you see is the grim barbarity of the others.

No idea what we actually do here

Also known as “the work is mysterious and important”. We trust you to do the job, but do not trust enough to explain why. Or don’t respect enough. Or we don’t know ourselves, and then we have no direction as a company.

Rewards sound like punishment

I love waffles, but would not opt for that waffle party. You can just say I did a good job. If your “reward” is just more work, awkward attention, or a confusing ritual — it’s not a reward.

You can never leave

They tell you they have a great work-life balance, and then wake you up in the middle of the night while your son is watching scared. The whole concept of Severance implies strict boundaries, but the “innies” actually never leave. And if you never leave work mentally, even after hours… that’s a problem.

All those signal problems at workplace, all those can be dealt with, at least to a certain extend. But always good to recognize it, notice, that something is off, and then have courage to address it or take oneself out of the danger zone.

Did your job ever feel dystopian?
What other Lumon red flags did you spot?