Remember NYT's My Colleague, My Roommate?
Apparently, due to the rising cost of travel, some companies have taken to making their employees share hotel rooms during business trips. It has been said that this would also result in employees to getting to know one another.
My opinion? There's just no effin' way I would agree to that. I want my privacy, especially after travelling thousands of miles to attend a looooong meeting. I will be tired, missing my family and there is just no way I would want to put up with having a roommate.
Thank God this particular issue has not touched my company yet.
Unfortunately, some business travellers do not really have a choice (think junior employees). Should you find yourself one of those who was not given any choice, here are a few tips from Monster.com:
- Talk to your Supervisor should you be paired with someone you do not really like. Apparently, junior employees are normally paired together and sexes aren't mixed.
- Set expectations with your room mate. It always is good to be sensitive to the needs of your room mate and viceversa.
- Stay professional. No walking around in your underwear, even if that is how you normally walk around at home if you were alone.
Read more here.
What about you? Would you agree to bunk with a colleague?
It's true...after all, it does save money, especially when the hotel is pricey. Our company does not have a roommate policy per se. But there is quite a bit of pressure to room together. And it doesn't help that the C-level managers don't mind so they assume we shouldn't mind either. Thus I have roomed with many a coworker many times....
The only time that I can reluctantly agree and understand having a roommate is when we have our big conference once a year off site. We end up sending close to 200 employees to the event, usually at a big hotel in a resort location, so getting a roommate is only natural I suppose.
But of course there are the horror stories and the 40 year olds acting like drunk 19 year old college students and such... So in the end I still think for the sake of everyone's mental health, we should get our own rooms....
Thankfully, when I travel international for business with a coworker, we get separate rooms. Like you said, you NEED it. You can never be totally comfortable with a stranger in the room and that's just a one way ticket to poor work performance. Unfortunately I don't see this trend going away anytime soon :(
Posted by: Tim | May 11, 2006 7:51 AM | Permalink to Comment