phillygold

And hey man...he might get fired if this was ever brought to the attention of HR. When I first started in insurance 20 years ago, I attended 6 weeks of training. I had a roommate for the 6 weeks...and honestly because I was just out of college, didn't mind it. (One big 6 week party for the group).
Eventually I started attending company sponsored seminars. I grew to hate the practice. I once had a roommate that could only fall asleep listening to Bob Marley...at full blast!
Eventually, I left that company...and started with a company that had no travel restrictions at all. We were allowed to stay at the Ritz and 4 Seasons, the company picked up the cost of airline club memberships, etc. Needless to say, the company went out of business.
My current company is cool with their travel practices. No per diem, no restrictions on where you stay. (Although everyone stays at a Hilton,Marriott or Starwood to get the points anyway). I couldn't imagine rooming with someone now....and honestly if that became policy I would look for another job. It was ok when I was in my early 20's. Now in my 40's, forget it.

IRLConor

For the last 2.5 years I've been living with two coworkers. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (I bagged the room with the en-suite ). We're all in our 20s and we're all partners in a startup so when we started out it seemed like a good idea to keep our personal expenditures down. So far it has worked out pretty well, perhaps because there's almost always at least one of us away at a client site.

When we travel for business we would never consider anything less than 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom per person. Working at a client's office several thousand miles away from your loved ones is stressful enough without being shoved into close proximity with your coworkers.

IMHO, there's no excuse for forcing your employees to share rooms. If you're willing to fork out for travel for them, then you should be willing to give them the most basic of privacy.

How anyone could think it would be a good thing for morale to put two stressed, jet-lagged employees in close proximity all day long is beyond me.

Rejuvenated

That is a fine way to maintain a longstanding relationship.

303george

When I was in grad school, I worked on a national research project and was required to share a room when attending a conference in DC. The project director assigned me a roommate who was a professor at some small college in Oregon or Washington State. We stayed in Arlington (Crystal City) and that night the rommate asked me why there were so many people in military uniforms walking around outside the hotel. I told him that it was probably due to the fact that the Pentagon was literally right down the street.

He looked at me for a second, then said, "oh, I always thought the Pentagon was somewhere in Kansas."

I don't think I said another word to the guy the rest of the week.

Punki

I don't "require" employees to share rooms, except, of course, for Hunki, who always is required to share a room with me.

We do, however, have some industry conferences (read industry parties) which are held in very high-demand locations at very busy times. The deal is that, if our employees want to attend on our dime, they will share a room with another same sex employee of their choice. If they don't want to share a room with another employee, they can either stay home, or get their own room.

In the 30+ years that we have had this policy in place, we have never once had an employee who elected to stay home, or get their own room, rather than share a room with a work buddy. Interestingly enough, those room sharings have been the basis for the deepening of some very good, long-lasting, friendships.

Back in 1994 (even before FlyerTalk) I was speaking at an industry conference in Chicago. One of my extremely handsome, young, male employees begged to attend. I told him that he could on the condition that he shared a room with me--rooms for this conference were difficult, if not impossible, to come by. He was thrilled to be able to attend under any circumstances. We ended up sharing a double/double (two bathrooms) at the Chicago Hilton and Towers and it worked out beautifully. Of course, he usually didn't roll in until about 5:00 a.m., which was just about time for me to get up and go to work. 13 years later, we are still good friends.

It is always best to keep an open mind and just roll with it.

Wanderbug

Mr Wanderbug's previous employer several years ago did in fact have this policy. It amounted to "We don't pay for your lunch when you're in the office, so why would we pay for lunch when you travel?"

He works somewhere much more reasonable now and is so much happier!

Louie_LI

In my experience, many government per diem meal rates are based on the philosophy that you'd be paying for food anyway, and the allowance is just to top up what you'd spend anyway. It's only meant to be partial compensation.

gardener

My company doesn't require doubling up, but many years ago we had one business manager who required us to double up at a large annual trade show. It was miserable, I had roomates who wanted to stay up reading until midnight when I had booth duty all day, breakfast lunch and dinner with customers and a 6 AM breakfast the next day. I definitely was not my best in front of the customers - which is a point no one seems to have touched on - it has to impact your performance on the road!

Once we were in DCA and one of our new sales reps invited her grandmother to drive down and share a room with her during the tradeshow. She was unaware she'd be assigned a roommate so Joanie ended up sharing a twin bed with her grandmother.

After about 4 years of this nonsense, the cheapskate manager drew a Chinese guy for a roommate who snored at 140 decibels - the manager flew home a day early after two nights of zero sleep - and after that no more roomates.

FQ5757

I actually did mention it to HR during my exit interview, about a year later. Nothing happened. They told me I must have misinterpreted his comments.

SJC1K

Wow. What other interpretation is there for "Hey man, you might get lucky"?

stinky123

I work for the state of NM and our per-diems, even for expensive cities, are like $99 a day, for hotel and all food; that doesn't go far if you're in Dallas or San Francisco or really anywhere there isn't a Motel 6.

I have also been told that if my university was going to cover the costs of my going to a particular conference I'd have to room with a roommate AND eat with all the other profs from my school who went to the conference. It was annoying, but not a deal-breaker. I think I'm a more annoying roommate because I snore AND then wake up, go work out and then hang sweaty gym clothes up to air out.

Elite VIP

Only once did this happen to me when the company sent 40 people to a convention in a high cost city and paired us up in rooms. But the convention itself and other activities made up for the inconvenience.

Morrissey

How is the fact that this employee was "extremely handsome" and "young" relevant here? Are you implying that you wouldn't have forced him to share a room with you if he were ugly and old? An what do you think the reaction would have been if Hunki told a young, beautiful, buxom nubile subordinate that she had to share a room with him? I work for a major corporation, and I have a female manager. If she ever made such a condition for traveling like this, I'd be on the phone with HR pronto.

This sort of "share a room with me or you stay home" ultimatum is just crying out for a sexual harassment lawsuit. As a business owner, you need to hold yourself to a certain level of standards. You never want to be in the situation where you are even giving the appearance of sexual harassment or impropriety. @:-)

Punki

If we were major corporation and he got on the phone to HR, they would have had to tell him that the city was sold out, so he would just have to stay home.

Fortunately, we are a small corporation, made up of folks who really like each other, listen to, and talk to one another, and always try to act in the best interest of all. That works far better than HR actions. ^

cblaisd

Well, at least until down the road when your insurer and your company's lawyer say "YOU DID WHAT??" when that nice young man "realizes" that you harrassed him by making the sharing of a hotel room with you a condition of his employment. You can also then listen to your insurer and lawyer laugh and say "Get out your checkbook" when you try to say that it wasn't really a condition of employment per se, just a choice between being punished by staying home or harrassed by going on the trip.

Good luck with that one, and here's hoping for your and your family's sake that you have adequate insurance (although they'll actually probably seek to get off the hook through a clause about not defending or paying claims where willful negligence is involved) or assets that are judgment-proof.

Both your insurer and lawyers will also be incredulous and not at all amused -- as some other folks have found in similar situations -- that you posted the details of your actions on a public bulletin board where your identity is well-known.