The Living Dead of Open Space

There are people who have already died, but they continue to answer emails.

Every morning, you can see them walking with their travel mugs, their gaze lost somewhere between the communal microwave and the latest Slack notification. Some walk slower, others more upright, but all of them—every single one—are dragging their souls along.

They died a long time ago. In some endless meeting, on some call where they said "I love your idea" while their bodies imploded. They died when they were denied three weeks of vacation "because the shutdown is critical." They died a small death, from emotional suffocation, in a coworking space where you couldn't cry because the glass was transparent and there was ping pong.

They don't make noise. They don't create conflicts. They don't ask for a raise. They don't protest when the organizational chart is changed for the fourth time this year. They only move the mouse from time to time, so as not to lose the connection with the server… and with what's left of themselves.

In open-plan offices, you'll easily recognize them; they have a withered plant on their desk that they never throw away, like a mirror. Their profile picture still shows them smiling, but they don't anymore. They've been using phrases like "I'm on my way out" for three years. Sometimes they laugh, but only with their lips. Full laughter vanished with the first NDA they signed.

According to Gallup data from 2023, 59% of employees globally are "emotionally disconnected" from their work. But that's a fancy euphemism for the obvious: they're zombified. They don't dream of another job; they dream of not having to work. They don't want to lead teams. They want to sleep. They want silence. They want to stop pretending that OKR has anything to do with their identity.

There's a lot of talk about the Great Quitting, Quiet Quitting, and Burnout. But we're facing something far more sinister: Necrophilic Capitalism. We love exploiting what's no longer alive. Because the dead don't complain. The dead don't ask for flexibility. The dead deliver on time.

The problem is, it's not noticeable. They keep participating in the Monday check-in. They keep saying, "Andrés's point is interesting." They keep voting with emojis. But inside, they've already signed their emotional death certificate. And when Friday arrives, they don't feel relief. They feel a truce.

Modern offices are designed to keep them "comfortable" while they rot from the inside out. Warm colors, free fruit, optional yoga on Wednesdays. But no one asks when was the last time they did something they didn't have to. How long has it been since they felt a genuine desire to do anything? The work zombie doesn't hate their job. They don't even feel it anymore. It's functional. And that's why it's so profitable.

The cruelest part is that many were brilliant. They had ideas. They had fire. They were dangerous. Disruptive. Brave. But the deadlines, the proliferation of bosses, the fear of change, the mortgage, the team that didn't understand them, the soulless feedback… extinguished them. Not all at once. Little by little. Like a forgotten campfire.

And now they live there, among us, pretending they're still here. Connected to Wi-Fi, but to nothing else.

Look around you. Count how many are still truly breathing.