Has your employer ever forced you to share a hotel room?

Are you sure about this?

Many people would be unable to share a room with an opposite-gender person (to whom the person is not married) due to religious reasons.

As the OP of this thread, I'm thrilled for so many great and interesting posts so far! Thanks for everyone's comments!

It's a clear message that most FT members would not want to, and would refuse to, share rooms with co-workers or strangers to satisfy an employer requesting this.

Keep the comments coming! Again, thanks

This post probably hits the nail on the head better than any I've seen here.

I'd have no problem sharing a rental car, but the room? Who wants to use the bathroom after someone you don't really know has stunk it up? This may seem trivial, and maybe it is just the result of American upbringing, but I expect a little bit of peace and privacy. I have shared a room with a buddy while on vacation, and he snored so loudly and irregularly, I couldn't get any decent sleep at all. No thank you.

I used to work for a nonprofit years ago and for certain events, they wanted us to share rooms. I remember the story of my good friend and coworker that got in late and was supposed to share a room with his boss. He knocked on the door of the hotel room and his boss never even opened the door while he basically said...buzz off, go find somebody else to bunk with.

My friend went down to the lobby with the intention of trying to find out who else was at the hotel and to call them to see if he could share a room.This was before cellphones so he couldn't just start calling coworkers.

The front desk person must have felt sorry when she heard his predicament and said to him...we'll fix your SOB boss. She gave him the penthouse on the top floor. Two bedrooms, living room, the works.

We were at the event for about 5 days and he (and the rest of us) kept it from the boss the whole time we were there. Of course, we had some really cool parties there in the evening. On the last day we were there, my friend finally invited the boss up to his room for a drink. Needless to say, he was not happy with the arrangements

I would quit a job today ifI had to share rooms.

LOL Thanks for your candor!^

Absolutely. Many would rather pay the single supplementary supplement for an additional room.

I would like to know about these companies that require coworkers to sleep together in order to save money:

- Do they only pay for food up to $3.79 because that is the price of a mcdonald's value meal?
- Do they require you to hitchhike to your customer site instead of renting a car?
- Do they require you to sit on stacks of phonebooks so they dont have to buy office furniture?

These things would all save money. I thought I had it bad with one customer who would only book on the absolute lowest fare airline, forcing me to fly jacka-- airlines like Northwest and ATA. This same cust refuses to book a coworker in his choice of hotel, saving themselves $50 a night. Therefore they are going to lose him as a resource and have to train someone new which will cost them probably into 5 figures.

But, this sleeping together takes the cake. I don't see what the purpose of a business trip is if there's not a few hundred bucks of value being created per day.

As a fa, I've never forced to share a hotel room, but I've got a good story...

When I was a new-hire, I had a layover in PDX, and when we arrived at our hotel they asked us if any of us wanted to share a room, as they were oversold. They were offering $50 to each of us. Luckily, I was flying w/ someone I had just gone through training with and knew well. I told the desk clerk to make it $100 each and he had a deal.

So, after 7 weeks of unpaid training, I took $100 cash to share a room w/ a friend. Win/Win

A rental car is a whole different deal -- we routinely share rental cars on the road, getting one big one if three or four of us are at a job site together, and it's fine. I don't think we'd ever expect to each have our own car. You can be pro-efficiency and pro-privacy at the same time.

Yes, mine has twice.

The first time the hotel was for training leading up to professional exams. It was in the home city of most of the members of my group and the same city as our office is located. We saw this as a big perk and appreciated it with no complaints. Besides, most of us get along very well as many of us have been friends for years.

The second time we were out of town for a core training program. It was mostly the same group as before so things worked out well again.

My roommate in both instances was my roommate from university. Although we hadn't shared a room before, it worked out well and we had a lot of fun.

I have never been asked to share a room when travelling on client business. We have separate travel rules for client-related travel and non-client-related travel, but the sharing of hotel rooms only seems to be forced for larger groups on non-client-related travel.

Sharing rental cars is generally more convenient if all members of the party are going the same places. One can drive while another is talking on the cell phone or reading a map, for example.

that would be extreme and not very wise application of non-descrimination directive. next step would be attempt to desegregate lavatories, as (usually) there is a policy regarding them which is "based on sharing according to gender"
AX

I WAS the employer and I DID force, including myself, everyone to share

Funniest story was when I had just hired my IT manager and we went to a conference together we he had just been with the company a week.

Few years later when recounting this story with other managers....

The IT manager told me he was uncomfortable and surprised when I walked up to the counter and he realized there was on one room for the both of use.

When I left my company, I left them with the 'share the room' legacy. Even though the managers were uncomfortable at first, everyone agreed that it does help long-term and that the down side is very low.

Everyone at the company, including the IT manager and myself have remained long-term friends.

For this, and plain financial reasons, this is good for the company and for its employees.

Not an employer but British Airways did this. The flight was cancelled at the last minute as we sat at the gate and 300 people had to go into airport hotels overnight. There weren't the rooms available for everybody to have their own place (at least not for the Y pax, probably F/C were treated differently.

Being amost entirely British nobody was upset as they could see it was the best approach to the situation.

Some years ago used to work for a major US-based IT company. We had a married couple in the office who, whenever major conventions etc were booked centrally by corporate, had the reverse problem, namely no end of difficulty getting into the same room, there was always some snafu with this. In the end they normally just checked one of them in, the other just went in with them and their own reservation was unused, it was the easiest thing. There was on at least one occasion an intra-accounting department argument about handling their expenses for this, that just went on and on, as although they worked in the same physical office they were in different departments and different cost centres.

This thread is intriguing. I work for a large multinational and our policy is definitely to NEVER share a room. Our travel & entertainment policy is not overly restrictive, and generally management & the policy follow the, "Business travel is/can be a pain, and we want you to try and be as comfortable while travelling for work as you would be at home".

A colleague and I offered to share a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom suite a few months back and were given some seriously shocked looks - it would've been beneficial for the company (save $140/night), and for me (stop me having to walk 20 mins to the office).

I also recently travelled to a conference where there was accommodation available in University dorm rooms (conf. was at a University during summer break), and was given some very surprised feedback that I stayed in the $50/night dorm rather than the $150/night hotel.

There's no way I would do it on my regular travel unless I knew my colleagues very well - which I do some of them -, and only if it was a two bedroom setup rather than a shared room. It's just too much: work all day together, socialise together, AND share a room? I think that would be destructive, especially in the IT industry where people are highly stressed and often highly strung.

It is reasonable to expect to share a rental though...