Effective November 2026, otiose corp. will introduce Ambivalent Work: two concurrent evaluation standards from which each employee may choose.

Surveillance Labora 360-degree evaluation conducted through thirty monitoring cameras per employee, plus full-time AI monitoring of email and chat.

Free Labora 1-degree evaluation conducted in full remote conditions, disregarding assessments from colleagues and supervisors, and measuring output alone.

Since June 2025, Human Resources has been designing a Free Labor system in pursuit of a “comfortable working environment,” with the eventual abolition of evaluation as its final goal. In the course of that work, however, we received comments from employees such as: “I work harder than A, so it is unacceptable that my rating is lower than A’s”; “I also work inside my head on Saturdays and Sundays. That has to count, or it isn’t fair”; and “I do not want to leave my rating to a supervisor or colleagues (likes and dislikes distort the score).”

Among those employees who offered these newer perspectives, many said they would actually feel more at ease under continuous, twenty-four-hour AI and camera surveillance. It therefore became necessary to establish a Surveillance Labor system alongside Free Labor, rather than replace one with the other.

Employees may select either 1-degree evaluation (Free Labor) or 360-degree evaluation (Surveillance Labor). Interviews with employees who have chosen each option appear below.

James Mizurova, who requested 1-degree evaluation (Free Labor):“At my last job I was rated on typing speed and by a boss I barely got along with, so I moved to otiose. I have zero interest in being scored on how many hours I put in, or how smoothly I get along with people. Under 1-degree evaluation, my evaluation of myself is properly fed back into the organization. I’m grateful that otiose listened. That said—I have no company loyalty! Sorry.”

Karl Moskov, who requested 360-degree evaluation (Surveillance Labor):“In my whole life I have never met a fair performance review. I also can’t say I ever felt rewarded for working myself into the ground to match what executives and managers wanted. Our mental labor on vacation has never been counted either. In that case, I’d rather be evaluated by AI—anytime, anywhere, on anything.”

Final goal

The abolition of evaluation remains our final goal. No timeline has been set.

Internal HR, otiose corp.