The speculative design of the Safe Space Generator proposes a new break room strategy that internalizes the workers’ need for a hide-out space away from surveillance.

 

The Amazon FC has strict and almost inhumane rules regarding breaktime: the total breaktime has been cut down to fifteen minutes, including the time to travel to bathrooms, and there is also a five-minute time cap for bathroom breaks. Furthermore, the break room in the FC appears more like a “prison” or a confinement booth: it is surrounded transparent walls, showing who is in the room, rather than offering a place of comfort and mental relief. Consequently, the online communities for FC workers often contain posts in which workers discuss and share their strategy to hide under a packing station or behind a stack of crates during their breaktime.

 

Here, we speculate how emerging technologies could provide workers with greater control over their right to take breaks.  Moreover, how can these technologies, potentially containing collective knowledge, benefit not only an individual worker but the entire workers’ community?