Sharing hotel rooms with coworkers?

[dotfurio]

I don't have to travel to work, but I'm given the opportunity to travel for optional conferences. They always expect you to share a hotel room with a coworker. However, you can usually opt to room alone and they'll at least pay half and you pay the other half to have the room to yourself (or bring along a spouse for fun). Totally worth it. I'm way too private to be comfortable sharing a room and bathroom with a coworker. We don't even socialize outside of work, so I sure as heck don't want to have a sleepover with them.

 

[Magpie]

I don't know about you, but I am reading, right and left, articles about school children having to share bathroom and shower facilities with transgender students. And people seem up in arms about it.

In addition, everyone seemed to say here, "well, with the same sex it wouldn't be a problem."

First off, we're talking about (presumably) mature adults here, not children. And they will not be showering together, regardless. Except possibly consensually, and in that case, it'd hardly matter if they had their own rooms, or were sharing. In fact, having their own rooms would mean they could frolic with the coworker of their choice, without having to worry about a roommate finding out...

And TBH, I have no idea why those people you reference are up in arms about sharing school bathrooms, either. Everyone gets their own stall!

As for showering, I never had to shower with anyone in public school, nor did my kids, who are now grown. I wonder if it's a particularly American custom, to make school kids shower naked together?

 

[gotomu212]

I'm honestly surprised at the number of people who work at a place that share rooms. Maybe it's an industry thing.

I travel about a week a month. So almost a quarter of my life is spent traveling. Some friends and family hear this and say "how exciting, I'd love to get to go on all these trips to fabulous place"...to this I politely roll my eyes. Maybe if you travel once a year it's fun and almost like a reward with per diem dinners and time lounging about. For a lot of us it's grim-airplanes and airports (that's when I have time for disboards though!), the most I see of cities is out of a cab or office window. It's 12 hour days (some spent on a computer in the hotel while wearing a bathroom and eating M&Ms out of the minibar). The whole time I'm away from family and can't be there for important personal things. When a company asks you to travel they are asking a lot, and yes I'm compensated with money, but it's also about respect. Telling me that saving $150/night is worth personal discomfort would be a bridge too far.

And I lived in a sorority for 3 years so I experienced 8 girls crammed in a room, but I never had to think about later professionally working with (or firing) someone I saw in their pjs. Work is your livelihood-it shouldn't be subjected to also having to sleep 3 ft away from someone.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

I would point out most professional sports players in baseball, basketball and football share hotel rooms on the road.

Kinda goes back to the college thing, people at the same place in life, peers.

They don't put the goalie and the hot dog vendor in the same room, nor the general manager bunking with the stick boy.

 

[LisaR]

Many of my friends and acquaintances are in the phase of life I am, with kids in the thick of college and others making the decision on selecting where to go. No matter if the schools are large state schools, smaller niche schools or nationally known top ranked private schools from one end of the country to the other, I have yet to find one yet that has attended or toured any kind of school that has these mythical personal suite dorm styles. I'm sure they exist, but I think their prevalence may be overstated.

Almost every school my DD toured offered suite style / apartment style housing. There were still plenty of regular dorm rooms, but I can only recall one very small school (300 students) that had traditional dorms and nothing else. DD's freshman dorm was three private bedrooms with a shared bathroom, full kitchen, and small living room. One of my good friends has a son who ended up on the opposite coast as us and he has the exact same set up.

 

[tvguy]

Almost every school my DD toured offered suite style / apartment style housing. There were still plenty of regular dorm rooms, but I can only recall one very small school (300 students) that had traditional dorms and nothing else. DD's freshman dorm was three private bedrooms with a shared bathroom, full kitchen, and small living room. One of my good friends has a son who ended up on the opposite coast as us and he has the exact same set up.

Yes, I have seen stories on some interesting college living situations, including some that include daily maid service just like a hotel, and laundry service.

 

[tvguy]

Kinda goes back to the college thing, people at the same place in life, peers.

They don't put the goalie and the hot dog vendor in the same room, nor the general manager bunking with the stick boy.

I LOLed at the thought of a team traveling with their own hot dog vendor!

 

[LisaR]

Yes, I have seen stories on some interesting college living situations, including some that include daily maid service just like a hotel, and laundry service.

Yeah, a few we toured had maid service included. I almost fell over from rolling my eyes so much! lol We are in FL so I did wonder if some of the schools offered it for their own protection? I know one school had a cockroach problem one year and had to get the students out and have the place fumigated. I wonder if this is a preventative measure? But still, maid service in college? I still roll my eyes at that one!

 

[wvjules]

No, just no! If I'm only away for one night for a conference, maybe. But when I travel for work the days are long and I just want to go back to MY room to sit around relaxing, reading or studying. I am not sharing no that space with anyone.

Luckily, my employer will never request shared rooms for their employees. If it ever happened I would be shocked. Actually I would be more than shocked.

 

[Goofy_Disney_Dad]

No, just no! If I'm only away for one night for a conference, maybe. But when I travel for work the days are long and I just want to go back to MY room to sit around relaxing, reading or studying. I am not sharing no that space with anyone.

Luckily, my employer will never request shared rooms for their employees. If it ever happened I would be shocked. Actually I would be more than shocked.

Electrocuted?

 

[Goofy_Disney_Dad]

I don't know about you, but I am reading, right and left, articles about school children having to share bathroom and shower facilities with transgender students. And people seem up in arms about it.

In addition, everyone seemed to say here, "well, with the same sex it wouldn't be a problem."

I'm still missing the point, but I guess it's yours to make. Not sure what any of that has to do with adults and the accommodation policies of the company they work for.

 

[NHdisneylover]

I don't know about you, but I am reading, right and left, articles about school children having to share bathroom and shower facilities with transgender students. And people seem up in arms about it.

In addition, everyone seemed to say here, "well, with the same sex it wouldn't be a problem."

I am not seeing these articles appearing all over, and if I did I would still wonder why these other students care so much and are making a fuss (that, you have not explained). I don't know, I am not seeing it as much different than people being upset in the 60s when they "had to share bathroom shower facilities" with people of color and were not used to it. Get over your bigotry and deal is pretty much how I see both situations. And from what little I know about the subject, those at the most risk and probably the most uncomfortable in such situations are the trans kids themselves--who are often targets for bullying and violence in bathroom situations.

At my daughter's school, there is one dorm living community specially set up to be particularly safe and accepting for queer kids should the CHOOSE to live there--no one is saying they have to, but it gives them somewhere they can live without the added worry of being bullied or threatened while doing basic things like, well, living, getting ready in the mornings, etc.

 

[cijay]

Sigh-----let me spell it out for you a little better. There are people who travel a lot for work, like my husband. In a slow year he travels 50%--so that is about 10-12 nights per month in a hotel for work---most years it is more like 80%---that's 15-20 nights a month away from his family and in hotel rooms.

During one of those 80% years there was a very stressful mental health issue in our household. DH could not be there to help, or even to be a sounding board, but when things were at their most difficult, the kids or I would talk to him when he got back to the hotel in the evenings--and sometimes we needed to have conversations about how to handle things, etc.
These personal conversations were not something he wanted to be having in a hotel lobby or in front of some random co worker of the week who happened to be travelling to the same plant he was travelling to.

Even under normal, good circumstance, it is stressful to have one parent/spouse gone so often--unable to do odd jobs around the house, not there to have little every day conversations, not around on birthdays or anniversaries or for scout ceremonies and ball games, not available to weigh in on bigger decisions which need to be made quickly (like now, we have bought a condo in a building being erected----a few times the builder has sent over updated plans with electrical or kitchen or whatnot added and needs someone to sign off on it in 24 hours and I can't even get a-hold of DH to have him check it over--but it is a fairly big thing, you know).
The very least a company can do for workers who are required to travel often and regularly (as in the OP) is provide them with a private place to decompress and to reconnect with their family and handle what they can from afar, etc without worrying about others in teh room overhearing, needing space, etc

Could have done that without the dramatic sigh at the beginning thank you.

That sounds like a very awkward situation. It does explain why someone would leave a job they wished but still not why they're acting like the company owes them a private room. We decide for ourselves a great many things don't we? If you're the type who works like a dog and has a traveling job, you sign up for being an absentee parent/spouse right? (There's no real fallout from your dad not attending your games and thingies BTW, totally survivable.) Your spouse signs up for having an absentee spouse and will fill in as a single parent because you're not going to be there. If you have your kids first and the job comes along, then you make your decision - your family first or your job first, up to you. Totally. The company can survive if you don't take the job (unless you own it, totally different story, the company will falter but it's still your decision). If stresses come up, every one of us has to weigh out if it's a time that we can handle the job that we do while we're going through this or find something else. "The very least a company can do" - unless it's in a contract somewhere that they'll pony up for a private room every night - is pay someone for the work they do. Unless it's contracted, they don't even have to PAY for a bed (though anyone who wouldn't get THAT in writing needs their head examined). Cutbacks are everywhere. People are losing their company cars, company phones etc (I'm very lucky, I have no perks but an ugly polyester vest, which I could lose that), it's either that or cut positions and in many cases it's both.

The issue is what if you have a coworker that DOESN"T need to rest and like quiet and privacy at the end of the day and that is who you end up sharing a room with.



When someone talks to me too much and won't let me get something done I think they are rude and annoying.


As for who I live with, I live with my husband. It is quite frequent for us to spend the evening on seperate floors of the house. (Besides dinner) I will go up to either "my room" (the spare bedroom I paint in) or "our bedroom" and read or watch TV. He will hang around in the living room and watch TV or play video games. We are further away then most people would be from the person in the next room at a hotel. We even have our own main bathrooms (both in the morning when we are getting ready and generally for using the bathroom). Honestly if both were full bathrooms (only one has a shower so obviously we both use that one) we probably would really have almost fully separate bathrooms.

Telling someone that you're busy and need time to yourself is not an option? You'd sooner someone talk your ear off than asking them to give you your own time? So rather than seeing how it pans out, you're going to quit your job, just like that? Or is it just the straw that broke the camel's back and you didn't really like the job in the first place? (Also, we're talking about 'work', not conventions right? Though I know some choose any business trip to treat it like a convention.)

I guess I'm just a bit more used to sharing. My momma raised me that way

I have to laugh at all of it ('coz it's 11:21PM and I've already taken my meds so I'm chiilllledd and in a very goofy mood) I like the thought of a new job application "Reason for leaving last job" "Wouldn't sleep with co-worker".

 

[NHdisneylover]

Could have done that without the dramatic sigh at the beginning thank you.

That sounds like a very awkward situation. It does explain why someone would leave a job they wished but still not why they're acting like the company owes them a private room. We decide for ourselves a great many things don't we? If you're the type who works like a dog and has a traveling job, you sign up for being an absentee parent/spouse right? (There's no real fallout from your dad not attending your games and thingies BTW, totally survivable.) Your spouse signs up for having an absentee spouse and will fill in as a single parent because you're not going to be there. If you have your kids first and the job comes along, then you make your decision - your family first or your job first, up to you. Totally. The company can survive if you don't take the job (unless you own it, totally different story, the company will falter but it's still your decision). If stresses come up, every one of us has to weigh out if it's a time that we can handle the job that we do while we're going through this or find something else. "The very least a company can do" - unless it's in a contract somewhere that they'll pony up for a private room every night - is pay someone for the work they do. Unless it's contracted, they don't even have to PAY for a bed (though anyone who wouldn't get THAT in writing needs their head examined). Cutbacks are everywhere. People are losing their company cars, company phones etc (I'm very lucky, I have no perks but an ugly polyester vest, which I could lose that), it's either that or cut positions and in many cases it's both.


.

Yep--we absolutely signed up for it--and it works fine for us; we don't really complain, but when we "signed up for it" it was the understanding that the travel would provide minimum respect for DH, like his own room to sleep in at night while travelling---it is part of the bargain, even if not in the contract (that he will travel x percent is not in the contract either). Posters were not understanding why it was important for employees who must travel often to have their own space, couldn't understand why everyone can't just wear headphones and get along--in spite of multiple posts by others explaining, I felt it was going around and around--thus the sigh.

Funny, I did not realize that a company, even in the US, could require someone to travel for work to distant locations and stay overnight away from home without providing somewhere for them to sleep. All the years DH worked in the US that was never even a consideration--of course a company would put you up if you have to travel.


But the point of the thread was not about what is or is not legal anyway--it was about what is right and a reasonable and fair way to treat employees. "The least they can do" was not meant in a legal sense--it was meant in a being a decent corporation which treats their employees fairly and with respect for them as humans with lives, in exchange for the employees caring about their jobs and doing good work for the company.

 

[NHdisneylover]

I should point out that in my industry 2 things are common that make sharing a hotel room less common.

First, I was reminded this morning...... when a co-worker arrived back from out of town at 3:15 am.......that the practice now is to not keep employees overnight in hotels, but to have them drive home and just pay them the overtime. No hotel bill, no food bills that way. And that way the crew is back in town for their next shift.
.

Wow--that seems like a liability lawsuit waiting to happen. When an employee has worked a full day at a remote location covering a story and then been told they have to drive themself back and falls asleep behind the wheel at 3:15 am and kills someone---I'd think surviving family would go after the station for having policies which put sleep deprived drivers on the road like that.

Where we live now that is actually illegal---there is a legal limit to no more than 10 hours at location (in the office, factory, etc) and driving to remote locations work (ie, if you live far from your "home office" that is on you, but if you are on a business trip to a factory two hours from the home offices, the two hours drive time there, plus the two hours drive time home leaves only 6 other hours within the "10 hour rule" to work at the factory if driving round trip that day. It is a law designed to keep the roads safe and the liability for breaking it is big enough that, at least in DH's company, they are very careful not to break it (business dinners and doing more work from home or the hotel room do not count as part of the 10 hours).

 

[kamik86]

OT, I have to ask, did the school approach you to pay more or come up with a roommate when yours moved out leaving you with a single? I've had a few friends go through this the past few years, including the school my oldest attends, and she tells me that is their policy. DH went there and had a roommate who was booted from the school and he simply had a single going forward, no questions asked. DD says today he would have had to come up with a roommate or pay up.

At my school it depended on a few things:

If you were in an on campus apartment you had three options
1) find a new roommate
2) allow the school to find you a new roommate but then you have no choice who it is
3) pay the rest, the apartments are like real apartments where there is X rent for the unit that must be paid by those that live there.

If you were in a dorm (like I was)
1) If this is a normal dorm with no special community the school can fill it. Generally there will be someone on a waitlist to pay for a single and they will make their roommate move with you.
2) If your in a special community like computer science house, one of the other club houses, a fraternity or sorority the club charter has the requirements for having housing. You would have to allow anyone that meets club requirements move in with you unless you were willing to pay the supplement.

I fell in that second category. This was a floor specifically for an honor society that the school had. Because there was no one in the honors group looking to move into a dorm then (had an upper classmen come back from a co-op and wanted a dorm or someone in honors been on a list for a single or something they would have placed someone there) so I got the room for "free" however I did have to keep the room in such a way that if I was given 24 hour notice someone could move in. The other person worth of furniture was still in the room (where if you paid for the room as a single you would have been able to have them remove it) and I wasn't allowed to generally take over the entire room. That didn't mean I couldn't sit at the other desk if mine was covered in stuff or even have over a guest and have them sleep in the other bed, but I needed to be able to easily vacate it if they found me another roommate. If someone were to do a check and found that I had taken over the other side I would have been charged.

They never found me another roommate. No idea if they did checks as they did them for other reasons as well (cleanliness checks, checking for prohibited items etc) but I was never charged.

 

[kamik86]

Telling someone that you're busy and need time to yourself is not an option? You'd sooner someone talk your ear off than asking them to give you your own time? So rather than seeing how it pans out, you're going to quit your job, just like that? Or is it just the straw that broke the camel's back and you didn't really like the job in the first place? (Also, we're talking about 'work', not conventions right? Though I know some choose any business trip to treat it like a convention.)

I guess I'm just a bit more used to sharing. My momma raised me that way

I have to laugh at all of it ('coz it's 11:21PM and I've already taken my meds so I'm chiilllledd and in a very goofy mood) I like the thought of a new job application "Reason for leaving last job" "Wouldn't sleep with co-worker".

I have coworkers that during the normal in office work day will consider you extremely rude if you cut them off from telling you this long tale that may not be work related in any sense or if it is only applies to something they do and not the person they are talking to. However if you tell them you are too busy to talk to them because you have other work to get done they will consider you VERY rude. Especially if you still leave on time from work that day (I leave on time because I didn't spend a lot of time chatting)

So even if I were to ask them to give me my own time they 1) may not do it and 2) may now be talking about how rude I am to everyone else. Better to just not have the issue come up in anyway at all.

As for if the coworkers would want to take time and chill as well... Ok so for an important business meeting work had a guy that went out drinking not with one but with 2 separate groups of coworkers (he arrived earlier and went to dinner with group 1, had a few beers. Another guy arrived as they got back to the hotel and was going to a later dinner and he went with him and drank more, then stopped at the hotel bar with him on the way back.) He was so hungover the next day he missed the actual meeting he was flown out for. This was not someone in his 20s either. This is the extreme example but yes I have co workers that party while on work assignments.

I dont' travel for work often anymore but when I do its very frequent within one period of time (the last time I was on travel I was gone for 4 weeks out of 5 spending time in two different remote locations on opposite ends of the country, but that has been almost 18 months ago now with no other travel) So although my days per year would be low on average there is no way I'm dealing with others that long. At once.

 

[sam_gordon]

I'm curious how many people have turned down an assignment or quit their job because they found out they'd have to share a room. I'm not talking about chaperoning a school trip. I'm talking about your boss telling you "we want/need you to go on this trip" and you saying "I'm not going if I have to share a room."

 

[cabanafrau]

U/M both Dearborn and Flint campuses. Wayne State. Grand Valley - but only the honors dorms. DDs room next year has a private bedroom for her and her roommate and a shared kitchen and living room. Oddly enough Grand Valley is building brand new dorms with a shared bathroom down the hall. At Dearborn, you sign an individual lease so if a roommate moves out, you aren't responsible for any additional costs. They also have nicer kitchens than what's in my home - granite countertops and all.

They aren't the norm - but it's much more common and a big incentive for kids to want to go there. A private bedroom is essential if you have an obnoxious roommate. Or if you are the obnoxious roommate. DD needs to sleep with a fan and won't have to worry about it bothering her roommate. My roommate many years ago had to sleep with the radio on. Sometimes I had to resort to sleeping on my suitemate's floor so I didn't have the racket keeping me awake.

LOL! DH attending UM Dearborn for a masters. Don't know anyone who's attended or considered attending there looking for a dorm. Wayne rooms aren't all that way at all, at least they weren't six years ago in quite new dorms and a reconfiguration would be major reno. Interesting that all schools you've listed aren't normally live-on destinations, maybe that's why they're making the offering. As you said, Grand Valley offers for honors only, likely because those students have many schools looking to attract them.

Plenty of schools have suite-style living, DD lived in it a couple years. I'm talking about private bed and bathrooms, shared living and kitchenettes specifically, as that's what was written as the new normal of dorms, which I still say is not very common -- UofM, MSU, ND, Loyola, SMU, Flagler, UC Berkley, Flagler, Stanford, MIT, UCLA. Brown, OSU are among the schools I'm referring to. I'm not disputing private bedrooms don't make sense, merely that plush dorm life is readily available and the norm.

 

[tvguy]

Where we live now that is actually illegal---there is a legal limit to no more than 10 hours at location (in the office, factory, etc) and driving to remote locations work (ie, if you live far from your "home office" that is on you, but if you are on a business trip to a factory two hours from the home offices, the two hours drive time there, plus the two hours drive time home leaves only 6 other hours within the "10 hour rule" to work at the factory if driving round trip that day. It is a law designed to keep the roads safe and the liability for breaking it is big enough that, at least in DH's company, they are very careful not to break it (business dinners and doing more work from home or the hotel room do not count as part of the 10 hours).

I assume there are exceptions for Firefighters and Medical Residents. Normal firefighting shift here is 48 hours, and if you work at busy fire station, that is 48 straight hours with no sleep. And just like medical residents, firefighters are expected to make life and death decisions on no sleep.