I look over the shoulder of the surgeon operating on the patient. He is dressed in scrubs, I am in my everyday workwear. A couple of days later, I sack Barry, a mature office worker I have never met before. It goes smoothly. He sighs. The second time I fire him, he cries. Then I take off my virtual reality headset and go to lunch.

Purveyors of VR, in which the user immerses themselves in a 3D digital world, hope that businesses will buy the technology to train their staff. Expectations that consumers would snap up headsets after Facebook bought pioneer Oculus VR for $2bn in 2014, have not come to pass — despite an increasingly competitive marketplace and the falling costs of headsets.

A recent report from Stifel, the investment bank, warned that “an inflection in the [augmented reality]/VR hardware market is far from certain?.?.?.?we are still waiting for that killing application”. Nonetheless, the International Data Corporation predicted that global expenditure on AR/VR training will reach $8.5bn by 2023, followed by industrial maintenance ($4.3bn) and retail showcasing ($3.9bn), though it was still eclipsed by their forecast for gaming and films ($20.8bn).